My finance view

Police in London said Friday they have charged almost 600 people with violence, disorder and looting over deadly riots in Britain’s capital.

Across the country, more than 1,700 people have been arrested. Courts in London, Birmingham and Manchester stayed open through a second night to deal with alleged offenders.

Hundreds of stores were looted, buildings were set ablaze and several people died amid the mayhem that broke out Saturday in London and spread over four nights across England.

Victims include three men in Birmingham run down by a car as they defended their neighborhood. Police are questioning three suspects on suspicion of murder.

And detectives opened a murder inquiry after a 68-year-old a man found in a London street after confronting rioters died of his injuries late Thursday. A 22-year-old man was arrested Friday on suspicion of murder.

Police, meanwhile, hit back against claims they were too soft in their initial response to the disorder.

Prime Minister David Cameron said officers had been overwhelmed at first, outmaneuvered by mobile gangs of rioters. He said “far too few police were deployed onto the streets. And the tactics they were using weren’t working.”

That changed Tuesday, when 16,000 officers were deployed on London’s streets _ almost three times the number of the night before. Cameron said the extra officers will remain on patrol through the weekend.

Hugh Orde, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, acknowledged that police had faced “an unprecedented situation, unique circumstances” _ but said it was police themselves, rather than “political interference,” that got the situation under control payday advance online.

“The more robust policing tactics you saw were not a function of political interference,” he told the BBC. “They were a function of the numbers being available to allow the chief constables to change their tactics.”

Britain’s Parliament held an emergency debate on the riots Thursday, with Prime Minister David Cameron promising authorities would get strong powers to stop street mayhem from erupting again.

He said authorities were considering new powers, including allowing police to order thugs to remove masks or hoods, evicting troublemakers from subsidized housing and temporarily disabling cell phone instant messaging services.

He told lawmakers that he would look to cities like Boston for inspiration, and mentioned former Los Angeles, New York and Boston Police Chief William Bratton as a person who could help offer advice.

Bratton said in a statement he’d be “pleased and honored” to provide services and counsel in any capacity, adding that he loves London and has worked with British police for nearly 20 years.

Cameron also said the government, police and intelligence services were looking at whether there should be limits on the use of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook or services like BlackBerry Messenger to spread disorder.

BlackBerry’s simple and largely cost free messaging service was used by rioters to coordinate their activities, Cameron’s office said.

Any move to disable the services temporarily is likely to be strongly opposed by civil libertarians.

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What relief rally? Hope that the stock market would surge on news of Washington’s debt ceiling deal has given way to pessimism. Increasingly defensive-minded investors are adapting to the reality that the economic recovery is stalling, if not ending.

Stocks rose slightly on Wednesday to snap an eight-day string of declines that sent prices down nearly 7 percent.

That stumble complicates matters for investors who recently pulled cash from the market, fearing a government default was a strong possibility. With that worry behind, the question is what to do next.

Richard Shortt had expected to be buying stocks, putting his sidelined money back to work. Yet he was at his home computer Wednesday, selling some of his stocks, and trimming investments in stock mutual funds. The 66-year-old from Somerville, Mass. put the proceeds into safer money-market mutual funds _ the same actions he took last week, when he sold stocks before Congress and President Obama reached the debt ceiling deal.

Shortt kept selling because he worries there’s a growing risk that the economy will slip back into recession. He notes the debt deal emphasizes spending cuts, without revenue increases, or stimulus spending that he believes is needed to create jobs.

“It just doesn’t seem like a formula for very happy times, for a long, long time,” says Shortt, a semi-retired small business consultant. “I’m preparing for a long downturn, but leaving options open, to see if things do change.”

President Obama’s spokesman said Wednesday that the administration doesn’t believe there’s a risk that the economy will head back into a recession.

But investors like Shortt have become more cautious in response to troubling news, such as Tuesday’s report that consumers cut spending in June for the first time in nearly two years. A weak manufacturing report came out a day earlier, and the government last week said the economy’s growth in the first half of this year was the weakest since the recession ended in June 2009. Another influential report is due Friday, when the government will release its employment data for July, which will include the unemployment rate and number of jobs created.

Yet some sense an opportunity. The market research firm Birinyi Associates on Wednesday said that market indicators it tracks suggest stock prices could be set to rebound. Birinyi said too many investors have left prematurely, which creates an opportunity for buyers.

Still many are anxious:

_Stocks: The Dow Jones industrial average on Wednesday finished up 0.3 percent. But it was down most of the day, which put the market at risk of posting its longest losing streak since 1978, the last time there were nine daily declines in a row.

After the recent losses, a broader stock index, the Standard & Poor’s 500, is almost exactly where it started the year.

Investors withdrew a net of nearly $8.8 billion from stock mutual funds during the week that ended last Wednesday, according to the Investment Company Institute. Investors also pulled money from international stocks funds, withdrawing a net $1.3 billion.

_Gold: Prices hit a new record on Wednesday, not adjusted for inflation, topping $1,670 an ounce. Gold prices have risen nearly 13 percent since July 1, and have steadily risen since the start of 2009, when an ounce of gold sold for $880 payday advance.

Investors believe gold is safe because it tends to hold its value when stocks are falling, and often rises when the dollar falls in value against other currencies, as it did Wednesday.

HSBC precious metals analyst James Steel said in a report that gold’s continued rise after the debt deal was reached indicates the rally “is clearly supported by more than just the long drawn-out political arguments over the debt ceiling.”

_Treasurys: Prices for Treasury bonds have been rising since the debt deal concluded, reflecting greater investor demand for the government IOUs. Their reputation as a safe haven has been renewed now that the government avoided a default. Treasury yields move opposite their prices. On Wednesday, the yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 2.61 percent, its lowest level since November. That’s even though Moody’s Investors Service assigned a negative outlook to U.S. debt, but confirmed its AAA rating, for now.

_ Money-market mutual funds: Investors had been withdrawing huge sums from these investments a few days ago, but reversed course once the debt ceiling deal was signed into law. Money funds are typically safe places to stash cash, because they invest in only the safest forms of debt securities. But many money funds invest in Treasurys, a fact not lost on investors who withdrew money as the debt ceiling talks stalled. Nearly $122 billion was withdrawn from money funds in the seven-day period that ended Monday, a surge that cut the $2.6 trillion that the funds hold by almost 5 percent, according to Crane Data. But there was a shift on Tuesday with the debt deal’s conclusion, with a net $6 billion flowing back in. That new cash suggests investors once again see money funds as safe.

_ Volatility: The stock market’s fear gauge, formally known as the Chicago Board of Options Exchange’s Volatility Index, has risen to levels last seen in August 2010. The VIX, as market pros call it, is up 35 percent over the past eight trading days. In an unusually volatile market, investors are willing to pay hefty premiums for options that offer protection from price swings of stocks in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index.

The recent return of volatility worries Harvey Rowen. He’s trying to figure out when to shift more money into stocks on behalf of individual investors whose portfolios he manages as CEO of San Francisco-based Starmont Asset Management.

About 80 percent of the clients that Rowen’s firm contacted during the debt ceiling debate chose to sell a portion of their stock holdings and leave the money in cash. But Rowen was reluctant Wednesday to move that money back into the market, noting that negative economic reports have offset positive news from the debt deal.

He’s considering adding more alternative investments to the portfolios, such as gold and other commodities, but worries they carry big risks as well.

“It’s a hard question now what to do,” says Rowen. “It’s a struggle to find investments that are prudent, and will give our clients a reasonable return….So for now, we’re sitting on that cash.”

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Market analysts and investors around the world remained on edge Sunday as Congress continued to work out a deal to avoid a U.S. debt default.

If there is no agreement to raise the nation’s borrowing limit and defuse the building financial crisis, analysts say they expect Monday to bring a steep slide in stocks across the globe.

In the U.S. that would add to six straight days of stock losses. The Dow fell 581, or 4 percent, in that time.

John Brady, a senior vice president for futures and options at MF Global predicts the Standard & Poor’s 500 index could fall another 7 percent on Monday if a deal falls apart. The S&P closed at 1,292 on Friday and was down 3.9 percent last week. A loss of the size Brady suggests could send the S&P down to 1,200, a level it hasn’t seen since last November.

The Treasury Department has said that after Tuesday the U.S. government won’t have enough money to meet all of its financial obligations if Congress does not raise the nation’s debt ceiling. If a deal is not reached, the Treasury Department will have to decide which bills to pay and which to delay. Among them: interest payments on bonds, salaries of federal employees, and Social Security payments to retirees. The Treasury Department has not indicated which payments will take priority if the debt ceiling is not raised.

Treasury bonds have long been considered the world’s safest investment and are a top holding of the largest pension funds in the U.S., the Chinese government and millions of Americans who own mutual funds.

Thomas Tzitzouris, head of fixed income research at Strategas Research Partners says to avoid a steep decline, the market needs to at least see some progress.

If not, he says: “That would be a double whammy. When (Congress says) there is progress and then there isn’t, that really spooks the market.”

That’s exactly what happened last week when a series of proposals gave investors fleeting hope for a deal. That is, until one party or the other shot them down. Nearly every measure of market confidence fell last week as Congress edged closer to Aug. 2 without a deal. The price of gold rose 2 percent for the week. The price of gold tends to rise when investors aren’t confident about other investments. A measure of stock market volatility, the VIX, jumped 6 percent.

On the other hand, if a deal is reached to raise the borrowing limit, MF Global’s Brady says the S&P 500 could add 6 percent.

“Stocks will rally, and stocks will rally big,” Brady said.

A deal would remove a major source of something investors hate most: Uncertainty. But there’s another reason the so-called deal rally might be a big one no credit check payday loans. Companies have reported strong earnings in recent days, but traders have been reluctant to buy stocks because they were afraid the debt wrangling in Washington might set off a financial crisis. In turn, the yield on the 10-year Treasury sank to its lowest level of the year on Friday, 2.80 percent. Treasury yields fall when demand for them goes up. Demand tends to rise when investors are reluctant to put money in stocks.

“If this issue can be taken out of the headlines and the focus on Washington can be redirected toward corporate earnings and economic fundamentals, the market will have removed a significant obstacle,” said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial.

Even so, there are other problems suppressing investor enthusiasm. A report Friday said that the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of only 1.3 percent between April and June. This year, the economy has grown as its slowest pace since the recession ended in June 2009 _ just 1.7 percent. A debt deal that significantly cuts short-term government spending could further weaken the economy, experts say.

Even with a deal to raise the borrowing limit and cut spending, analysts say companies won’t be ready to hire workers and invest in new projects until some other Washington issues are resolved, like the cost of health care legislation passed last year and financial reform legislation.

Analysts say that if a deal is ultimately reached before Aug. 2, investors will chalk up the market-rattling debt drama as another example of ultimately harmless Washington theatrics.

If the current deal falls apart, however, they say politicians will have done lasting damage to the nation’s credibility. Over time, this could make U.S. government debt less desirable to the worldwide market. That, in turn, could raise the cost of borrowing for the U.S. government.

Lawmakers expressed optimism that a deal could yet be reached Sunday. A number of other promising deals have fallen through in recent days. This has left some investors frustrated at Washington for adding to the economic uncertainty by failing to reach a deal before the deadline became so close at hand.

“This is the worst crisis I can remember and I’ve been in the markets for many of them,” said Uri Landesman, the president of Platinum Partners, a New York hedge fund. “There has been incredibly weak leadership all the way around.”

–Associated Press writer David Carpenter contributed to this report.

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MONTREAL

London police arrested Rebekah Brooks, Rupert Murdoch’s former British CEO, in the phone hacking and police bribery scandal Sunday, bringing the U.K. investigation into Murdoch’s inner circle for the first time.

Brooks, 43, was arrested at a London police station at noon Sunday. The former editor of Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid is being questioned on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications _ phone hacking _ and on suspicion of corruption, which relates to bribing police for information.

A statement released on Brooks’ behalf said she “voluntarily attended a London police station to assist with their ongoing investigation.”

Sunday’s arrest comes just days before Brooks, Murdoch and his son James are due to be grilled by a U.K. parliamentary committee investigating the hacking. The arrest throws Brooks’ appearance before Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport committee into question; she would not have to answer questions that could prejudice a criminal investigation.

Brook’s spokesman, David Wilson, said Sunday’s appointment with police was prearranged on Friday but said she was not aware she was going to be arrested.

“Obviously this complicates matter greatly,” Wilson said. “Her legal team will have to have discussions with the committee to see whether it would still be appropriate for her to attend.”

Brooks, one of Murdoch’s most loyal lieutenants, stepped down Friday as head of his British newspaper arm, News International. She was editor of the now-defunct News of the World between 2000 and 2003 when some of the phone hacking took place, but has always said she did not know that hacking was going on. That claim has been greeted with skepticism by many who worked there.

At an appearance before lawmakers in 2003, Brooks admitted that News International had paid police for information _ an admission of possible illegal activity that went largely unchallenged at the time.

Police have already arrested nine other people connected to Murdoch’s British media empire over allegations that the News of the World hacked into the phone voice mails of hundreds of celebrities, politicians, rival journalists and even murder victims. No one has yet been charged.

The arrest also piles more pressure on Prime Minister David Cameron, a friend and neighbor of Brooks, who has met with her many times and invited her to stay at his official country retreat.

Cameron is already under fire for hiring Andy Coulson, who resigned as News of the World editor after two employees were jailed for corruption in 2007, as his communications chief. Coulson resigned from Downing Street in January after police reopened their hacking investigation. He was arrested last week and questioned before being released on bail.

Brooks’ arrest is another blow for Murdoch, who is struggling to tame a scandal that has already destroyed one of his British newspapers, cost the jobs of two of his senior executives and sunk his dream of taking full control of a lucrative satellite broadcaster, British Sky Broadcasting.

On Sunday, Murdoch took out a second newspaper ad promising that News Corp. will make amends for the phone hacking scandal. The ad in several U.K. Sunday newspapers, titled “Putting right what’s gone wrong,” said News Corp. would assist the British police investigations into phone hacking and police bribery. It vowed there would be “be no place to hide” for wrongdoers.

“It may take some time for us to rebuild trust and confidence, but we are determined to live up to the expectations of our readers, colleagues and partners,” the ad said.

That follows a full-page Murdoch ad in Saturday’s U.K. papers declaring, “We are sorry.”

Last week Murdoch shut down the 168-year-old News of the World after it was accused of eavesdropping on cell phones for years. Sunday was the first day in Britain that the popular, gossipy, muckraking weekly was not on the newsstands.

Murdoch also abandoned his BSkyB takeover bid, and two of his senior executives resigned _ Brooks and Wall Street Journal publisher Les Hinton.

But Murdoch’s critics say that is not enough. Labour Party leader Ed Miliband said Sunday that Murdoch has “too much power” in Britain and his share of British media ownership should be reduced. With the News of the World gone, Murdoch now owns three national British newspapers _ The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times _ and a 39-percent share of BSkyB.

“I think that we’ve got to look at the situation whereby one person can own more than 20 percent of the newspaper market, the Sky platform and Sky News,” Miliband told The Observer newspaper.

“I think it’s unhealthy because that amount of power in one person’s hands has clearly led to abuses of power within his organization. If you want to minimize the abuses of power then that kind of concentration of power is frankly quite dangerous,” he said.

Deputy prime Minister Nick Clegg agreed there should be greater plurality in the British media.

“A healthy press is a diverse one, where you’ve got lots of different organizations competing, and that’s exactly what we need,” Clegg told the BBC.

Clegg’s Liberal Democrat party has asked Britain’s broadcast regulator to consider whether News Corp. is a “fit and proper” owner of BSkyB _ if not, Murdoch’s current stake in BskyB could be in danger.

Cameron’s Conservative-led government and the London police also are facing increasing questions about their close relationship with Murdoch’s media empire.

Cameron has held 26 meetings with Murdoch executives since he was elected in May 2010 and invited several to his country retreat. Senior police officers also had close ties to Murdoch executives, even hiring as a consultant a former News of the World editor who has since been arrested for alleged hacking.

Home Secretary Theresa May plans to make a statement Monday in the House of Commons outlining her “concerns” about close police ties with News International.

Police are under pressure to explain why their original hacking investigation several years ago failed to find enough evidence to prosecute anyone other than News of the World royal reporter Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire. Detectives reopened the investigation earlier this year and now say they have the names of 3,700 potential victims.

Records show that senior officers _ including Paul Stephenson, the current chief of London’s Metropolitan Police _ have had numerous meals and meetings with News International executives in the past few years. The force also hired Neil Wallis, a former News of the World executive editor arrested last week in the phone hacking, as a part-time PR consultant for a year until September 2010.

Stephenson also stayed for free earlier this year at a health resort that employed Wallis to do its public relations. The police force said the stay had been arranged through the facility’s managing director, a family friend, as Stephenson recovered from surgery. It said the police chief had not known that Wallis worked there.

Murdoch is eager to stop the crisis from further spreading to the United States, where many of his most lucrative assets _ including the Fox TV network, 20th Century Fox film studio, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post _ are based.

The FBI has already opened an inquiry into whether 9/11 victims or their families were also hacking targets of News Corp. journalists.

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Frustrated by persistently high water on the Mississippi River, the owners of the Admiral

European stocks and the euro slipped Monday after eurozone finance ministers came up short of a final deal to get Greece its next installment of bailout money that is needed to prevent a default that could cause financial chaos.

Officials say they do expect Greece to get the next euro12 billion installment in July.

But first they are pushing the Greek parliament hard to pass unpopular measures to reduce the deficit and seek more money from selling and developing state property.

Stocks in Germany, the eurozone’s biggest market, fell 1.2 percent while the euro was off 0.5 percent at $1.4210.

Eurozone finance ministers are meeting a second day Monday about the Greek debt crisis. Talks overnight did not produce a final agreement on the new loan money, or on a broader, second bailout expected in cooperation with the International Monetary Fund.

Officials agree Greece is going to need more money to avoid a messy default on government bonds that would disrupt Europe’s banking system and its entire economy. But they are waiting for the Greek government _ unsettled by protests, a Cabinet reshuffle and a vote of confidence slated for Tuesday _ to take the additional measures to cut the deficit.

The EU’s economic and monetary affairs commissioner, Olli Rehn, said he was “certain that Greece will be able to take the decisions needed because the alternative is so much worse.”

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Profits have soared at Toronto

Test results returned Monday found that DNA from former International Monetary Fund leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn matched material on the work clothes of a Manhattan hotel maid who says he attacked her, two people familiar with the investigation told The Associated Press.

The two people would not describe the material found on the shirt, but said DNA matched a sample from Strauss-Kahn, who submitted to testing after his arrest more than a week ago. He denies the charges.

The two people said additional testing was being performed on other items. They were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

During their investigation, authorities cut out a piece of carpet and swabbed sinks and other surfaces in his hotel room. Investigators told the AP they believed the carpet in the hotel room may contain Strauss-Kahn’s semen, spat out after an episode of forced oral sex by the maid.

The forensic evidence is the first to link Strauss-Kahn to the woman _ and it’s also on track with what his lawyers have suggested would be his defense.

Strauss-Kahn’s attorney Benjamin Brafman declined to comment on Monday. At a court hearing last week, he told a judge that forensic evidence developed in the investigation “will not be consistent with a forcible encounter” _ leading to speculation that Strauss-Kahn’s defense would argue that it was consensual.

NYPD spokesman Paul J. Browne and the Manhattan district attorney’s office would not comment.

The one-time French presidential contender has been charged with a criminal sex act, attempted rape and sexual abuse and is free on $1 million bail, under house arrest at a lower Manhattan apartment. He has been accused of attacking the 32-year-old West African immigrant on May 14 in his luxury suite at the Sofitel hotel near Manhattan’s Times Square. His lawyers say he is innocent.

Staff at the Sofitel told authorities that the 62-year-old had made passes at them the day before the alleged attack, including flirting with a clerk and calling another employee to ask her up to his room, according to a third person with direct knowledge of investigators’ interviews with staff.

Strauss-Kahn had flirted with one female staff member who accompanied him to his suite to make sure his accommodations were satisfactory after he checked in on May 13, the person said. Later, he phoned the desk clerk who had checked him in, asking her if she would like to get together with him when she got off duty, the person said. The desk clerk refused, saying she was not allowed to socialize with the VIP guest, the person said.

That person also wasn’t authorized to speak publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

On Monday, lawyers for Strauss-Kahn continued to search for new digs for their client as he awaits trial. His bail agreement hit a snag late last week after tenants at the Upper East Side apartment building chosen for his house arrest refused to allow him, citing unwanted media attention.

Strauss-Kahn is currently being housed at a temporary location under watch by armed guards with Stroz Friedberg, the same company that guarded disgraced financier Bernard Madoff. It was not clear when he would be moved. French and U.S. media have been staking out the building where Strauss-Kahn spent the weekend after he was released from his Rikers Island jail cell.

He resigned last Wednesday from the IMF.

His attorneys have described Strauss-Kahn as a loving father and family man. They say his actions after the alleged attack are not those of a guilty man eager for a quick escape. He left the hotel, had lunch and then phoned later to ask if he’d left anything behind. When he was told by hotel staff they had his cellphone, he told them exactly where he was: at John F. Kennedy International Airport on a flight bound for Paris. Authorities pulled him from the jetliner.

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Almost every resale home purchase is conditional on the buyer being satisfied with the results of a home inspection.

But what does satisfied mean? When can a buyer back away and when are they just using the inspection as a convenient way to find a loophole when they get cold feet?

If the buyer decided not to do an inspection and then just cancelled the deal, they would likely lose their deposit and could probably be sued for breach of contract by the seller if they sold to anyone else for less money.

Inspection conditions are not an automatic option to terminate, as many buyers believe. A lot will depend on the exact wording of the condition language. It will help a buyer if it says that the buyer has to be satisfied with the inspection in their