My finance view

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Oil and U.S. retail gasoline prices dipped to new three-year lows today with the United States officially in a recession.

Analysts believe prices at the pump may finally be bottoming out after a precipitous decline from record highs this summer, though demand could fall even further in January with job losses reducing the number of people who drive to work.

Gas prices in the United States fell for the 20th week since the July 4th holiday and hit US$1.811 per gallon, according to the government's Energy Information Agency.

Auto club AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express said prices fell 0.8 cents overnight to $1.812, down 62.4 cents in the past month and $1.249 in the past year.

Prices in some parts of the country were much lower. On the website GasBuddy.com, where motorists post gas prices, a BP station in Independence, Mo., outside Kansas City, was selling fuel for $1.29 per gallon.

Daily declines posted for the last two months have begun to narrow. The U.S. average for a gallon of gas peaked at $4.11 in July.

In Canada, the price of gas averaged 83.4 cents Canadian per litre, according to Gasbuddy.

"The big move for 2008 is over," said Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service. Prices may fall a few more cents this month and then likely waver into February before beginning to move higher, he said.

Kloza said demand will weaken further in early 2009 as job losses mount amid what may be an extended recession.

"January could be really, really ugly," he said.

The U.S. government reported last month that the unemployment rate shot up to a 14-year high of 6.5 per cent in October, and many economists believe it will top eight per cent before the economy mounts a sustained rebound. November's unemployment rate will be released Friday.

The U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research, a private, non-profit research organization, said Monday that its group of academic economists who determine business cycles pegged December 2007 as the start of the U.S. recession.

Light, sweet crude for January delivery fell more than four per cent, or $2.32 to settle at $46.96 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Earlier today prices briefly fell to $47.36, the lowest level since hitting $46.20 intraday on May 20, 2005.

In London, January Brent crude slid 40 cents to $47.57 on the ICE Futures exchange.

Analyst Peter Beutel of Cameron Hanover said traders are searching for the bottom in the oil market free credit score.

"Right now, everyone is wondering when is this market going to rally," he said. "At some point it should."

Beutel said colder-than-expected temperatures across much of the country, increasing demand for gas and expected further cuts in production by OPEC make a strong case for oil prices to rally.

"That doesn't mean we're going back to $4 gas," he said.

Backing up Beutel's claim on demand is the SpendingPulse report by MasterCard released this afternoon.

The report's four-week moving average shows demand of 63.9 million barrels a week. That is down 2.1 per cent from the year-ago moving average and the smallest decline since May.

"It looks like we're getting back to a more normal level from demand and price," Michael McNamara, vice president of MasterCard SpendingPulse.

MasterCard's report is based on aggregate sales activity in the MasterCard payments network, coupled with estimates for all other payment forms, including cash and check.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which accounts for about 40 per cent of global supply, cut output by 1.5 million barrels a day in October, bringing total cuts to around 2 million barrels a day this year.

The slowing economy has cut into energy demand, leaving OPEC's power to control prices through production cuts diminished.

OPEC Secretary-General Abdullah El-Badri said the group would likely reduce output quotas by between one million and 1.5 million barrels at a meeting on Dec. 17 in Algeria, according to a report on Iranian state television Monday.

The head of OPEC said he hopes oil producing nations such as Russia will join the organization, or at least agree to output cuts to help spark a rally in prices.

Chakib Khelil, also Algeria's oil minister, said oil producers such as Russia, Norway and Mexico should express their solidarity with OPEC, either by joining the cartel or by following its reductions of output quotas.

In other Nymex trading, gasoline futures fell 5.29 cents to settle at $1.0583 a gallon. Heating oil fell 3.19 cents to settle at $1.5832 after hitting a 52-week low of $1.5778 a gallon. Natural gas for January delivery fell 18 cents to settle at $6.424 per 1,000 cubic feet.

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MONTREAL–Molson Coors Brewing Co. has reported a 28.6 per cent rise in summer-quarter net income to US$173.2 million, boosted by its new MillerCoors joint venture in the United States.

The U.S.-Canadian brewer said Wednesday that underlying earnings edged up to $175.8 million or 95 cents per share in the 13 weeks ended Sept. 28, compared with $173.2 million in last year’s third quarter.

Molson Coors, with corporate offices in Denver and Montreal, said its sales grew 3.7 per cent in Canada while the overall Canadian beer market increased three per cent. In Britain, Molson Coors sales were down 3.1 per cent, beating an overall market slide of seven per cent.

Underlying pretax profit in Canada was down 8.1 per cent from a year earlier at $151 million. The Canadian segment "is performing well; however, competitive price discounting in Quebec, along with continued steep commodity inflation, held back Canada profit performance in the quarter," the company stated online pay day loans.

In the U.S., the first quarter of combined operations of MillerCoors increased underlying profit 28 per cent compared with the separate operations a year ago, to $190.8 million.

The company’s worldwide beer volume was 12.025 million barrels in the quarter, up 7.4 per cent from a year earlier, or 0.2 per cent on an adjusted basis.

"We are pleased to have achieved higher total company volume and income in the third quarter, despite challenging competitive and economic conditions in all our markets," stated Molson Coors CEO Peter Swinburn.

"We gained market share in both Canada and the U.K. during the quarter, and we initiated the integration of two U.S. beer businesses into MillerCoors, a strong and competitive brewer with the talent, brands and scale to win in the U.S."

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Foreclosure activity in September rose 21 percent from a year earlier but fell by double-digits from the prior month as some state laws slowed the foreclosure process, according to a monthly report by research firm RealtyTrac.

Foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — fell by 12 percent from August to 265,968 in September, according to RealtyTrac, which records property in various stages of foreclosure.

That means one in every 475 U.S. households received a foreclosure filing in September, the firm said in its report released on Thursday.

“Much of the 12 percent decrease in September can be attributed to changes in state laws that have at least temporarily slowed down the pace at which lenders are moving forward with foreclosures,” James Saccacio, RealtyTrac chief executive, said in a statement.

Most significantly, a California law that requires lenders to make contact with borrowers at least 30 days before filing a Notice of Default (NOD) took effect in early September http://payday-loans-application.com. The state saw a drop 51 percent from the previous month, according to RealtyTrac. That helped drive the national rate down, given that California accounts for close to a third of monthly U.S. foreclosures.

A new law in North Carolina resulted in a 66 percent drop in notices of defaults in September in that state.

However the reprieve may be short-lived. After a Massachusetts law requiring lenders to give homeowners 90-days to become current before initiating foreclosure proceedings took effect in May, the foreclosure rate dropped. But three months later initial foreclosure filings jumped and were back near levels seen a year earlier, RealtyTrac said.

The markets that once lead the housing boom topped the foreclosure list in September. 

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Barack Obama urged the Bush administration and lawmakers to work quickly to craft a bipartisan plan to ease the country's financial crisis and avert economic “catastrophe.''

Obama echoed the concerns of congressional Democrats who are raising objections to elements of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's plan to buy as much as $700 billion in soured assets from financial firms. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank called for limits on the pay of executives at companies that would benefit from government bailouts.

The Bush administration's proposal is a “concept with a staggering price tag — not a plan,'' Obama said.

Obama, speaking today to about 25,000 people at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, repeated his call for the rescue plan to put the interests of average Americans at the top of the agenda.

Solutions must address not just Wall Street, “but also the crisis on Main Street and around kitchen tables,'' Obama said. “In return for their support, the American people must be assured that the deal reflects the basic principles of transparency, fairness and reform.''

“There must be no blank check when American taxpayers are on the hook for this much money,'' said Obama. “Taxpayers shouldn't be spending a dime to reward CEOs on Wall Street while they're going out the door.''

`Grave Mistake'

Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, said it would be a “grave mistake'' not to include limits on executive compensation. Paulson called such a measure “punitive.''

Frank is also seeking authority to oversee and audit Paulson's rescue program. He has proposed that the U.S. Comptroller General would “commence ongoing oversight of the activities and performance'' of the plan and of “any agents and representatives'' of the initiative, according to legislative language presented to Treasury officials today and obtained by Bloomberg News.

Paulson yesterday asked Congress for unhindered authority to buy devalued mortgage-related securities from investment firms in an effort to keep the financial system from coming to a standstill. The proposal would prevent courts from reviewing the Treasury's actions while raising the nation's debt ceiling to $11.315 trillion from $10.615 trillion.

Obama continued to attack his Republican rival, Arizona Senator John McCain, by trying to link his support for Bush administration economic policies to the current crisis no fax payday loans.

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Obama also repeated his criticism of McCain writing in the current issue of Contingencies, an actuarial journal, that he supports “opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking.''

“That's right, John McCain says he wants to do for the health care system what Washington has done for banking,'' Obama said.

McCain's senior economic adviser, Doug Holtz-Eakin, yesterday called statement “absurd'' and misleading.

“If Barack Obama thinks that today's financial troubles were caused by policies which allowed Americans to use an ATM anywhere in this country, then it is better that he continue to be silent about solutions to the crisis on Wall Street,'' Holtz- Eakin said in a statement.

“It's also possible Senator Obama is simply a dishonest politician who will say anything to get himself elected and just isn't ready to be president,'' he said.

Obama continued to pitch his message that McCain would keep the country on the same path forged by Republican President George W. Bush.

`New Driver'

“If your car is in a ditch you don't want the driver who thinks we should take the same path that got is in the ditch,'' Obama said. “You want a new driver who has a better sense of direction.''

The McCain campaign today said Obama offers “absolutely no new ideas, policies or concrete solutions.''

“It shows he is just not ready to lead,'' McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said in a statement. “We cannot afford a directionless driver like Barack Obama.''

McCain, in a Baltimore speech at a National Guard convention that dealt largely with military preparedness issues, cited his proposal to create a new government entity to identify bad loans and eventually sell them, while criticizing Obama for not advancing his own proposals to deal with the crisis. The Illinois senator has said he preferred to see what the Bush administration is proposing first.

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WASHINGTON — Boeing Co. on Tuesday expressed concern over potential budget cuts on its airborne laser aircraft in the upcoming fiscal year’s budget, which is still being haggled over by lawmakers.

Earlier this year, the House Armed Services Committee agreed to cut $42.6 million from the Missile Defense Agency’s $421 million program in its version of the defense authorization bill due to continuing operational and affordability concerns. That cut is much larger than the proposed $15.7 million trim House appropriators have recently suggested.

The first of its kind, neither Congress or the Missile Defense Agency have put forth plans for a second aircraft beyond development funding until the technology has fully matured, and has proven its capability.

The airborne laser aircraft is a modified version of a Boeing 747 freighter and is designed to detect, track and destroy enemy ballistic missiles during the early stages of flight using a high-energy infrared laser designed and developed by partner Northrop Grumman Corp. The system can also pass on information about launch sites, track targets and predict impact points of the missile.

"It would be a shame to mark even a small amount of the president’s budget request … every dollar is very important," Mark Rinn, Boeing’s vice president and program director, told reporters on a conference call Thursday.

Boeing’s St pay day loan. Louis-based Integrated Defense Systems unit is the prime contractor on the project.

Some funding has been allocated to begin addressing questions like affordability by lawmakers, said Rinn.

To date, the agency has spent roughly $4 billion on the program since its inception in 1998, and that figure is expected to reach $5 billion, according to Richard Lehner, a Missile Defense Agency spokesman.

On Sunday, Boeing and its partners, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin Corp. successfully fired a high-energy laser during a ground testing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

The test, one of the more than 70 that have been conducted, is the first time the laser has been equipped to the plane when fired.

Ground testing will continue throughout the remainder of the year with firing planned over a longer duration. It will then be followed by a flight test of the entire system.

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Much has been said about the impact of the federal government’s rescue of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae will have on taxpayers. But the faltering state of both mortgage-investment houses may already have hit many Americans in the pocketbook.

Fidelity Investments, the world’s largest mutual fund manager, was one of the biggest investors in Fannie and Freddie before the firms lost $18.9 billion in value.

Fidelity, along with Wellington Management Co., a Boston-based hedge fund company, and Dodge & Cox, a San Francisco-based investment firm, top the list of money fund managers that placed bets on Fannie and Freddie.

Investors who bought on speculation the government would rescue shareholders bet wrong after the stocks tumbled more than 60 percent over the last two months.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Sunday that the government will take over the mortgage companies. The rescue, however, mainly helps holders of preferred shares.

"This is a disaster for anyone who bought the stock," said Jack Ablin, who helps manage $65 billion as chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank in Chicago. "Based on what we know so far, it seems like the stock is worth virtually nothing."

Both Fannie’s and Freddie’s shares plunged in value on Monday.

Shares of Fannie Mae, formally known as the Federal National Mortgage Association, closed Friday at $7.04 but fell to $5.50 in after-hours trading when the Wall Street Journal said a government takeover was imminent. The company’s shares closed Monday at 73 cents.

Freddie Mac, formally known as Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., closed Friday at $5.10 and slipped to $4.04 after hours. On Monday, the shares closed at 88 cents.

"It was a very risky investment, and there was a 90 percent chance you could be wiped out," said Walter Hellwig, who helps oversee $30 billion at Morgan Asset Management in Birmingham, Ala.

Fidelity, Wellington, and Dodge & Cox added the most to their stakes in Fannie Mae between April and June, according to data from June 30 government filings compiled by Bloomberg. Wellington was the biggest buyer of Freddie Mac on a net basis among fund firms.

Fidelity’s funds added a net 10.3 million Fannie shares during the second quarter, bringing their stake to 56.5 million, or 5.2 percent of the outstanding stock.

Dodge & Cox reported owning 119.8 million shares as of July 31, based on a government filing required when a stake goes above 5 percent.

Wellington doubled its Freddie Mac stake to 21.5 million in the quarter, when the stock averaged $24.75 online payday loan. Since then, the price averaged $7.33.

Adam Banker, a spokesman for Boston-based Fidelity, and Wellington’s Lisa Finkel said their firms’ policies are not to comment on individual holdings. Dodge & Cox spokesman Steve Gorski didn’t return voice messages.

The amount of exposure that individual investors had through such funds is hard to calculate.

For most funds, holdings of an individual stock such as Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac will be minimal. But if an investor owns several funds that each own a stake in the same company, the potential exposure may be larger.

For instance, the vast majority of funds with Fannie and Freddie stakes have minimal holdings. Just 14 mutual funds had 5 percent or more of their assets in stocks of the mortgage finance giants at the end of June, according fund tracker Morningstar Inc.

But for investors in sector funds, the exposure is greater.

For example, Fidelity Select Home Finance, a fund with a specialized focus that’s clear from its name, has lost about 34 percent of its value this year. According to Morningstar, the $112 million fund had nearly 21 percent of its holdings in Fannie and Freddie combined at the end of June, the highest among any fund, just as the mortgage companies’ stocks began to plunge.

"Some people would be surprised at how much some funds have in financials and energy," said David Kathman, a Morningstar fund analyst. "They might want to rethink whether they want to own such a fund, or rethink how much they devote in their portfolio to it, and be aware of how it fits with the rest of their portfolio."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Denso Corp (6902.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the world’s top auto parts supplier, reported on Wednesday a more than 20 percent fall in quarterly profits — considerably worse than expectations — and slashed its forecasts as big cuts in North American vehicle production take their toll.

The news pushed the company’s shares down 5.7 percent to 2,960 yen as of 0454 GMT, while Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei average .N225 rose 1.3 percent.

Japan’s Denso, a top maker of car electronics and other high-end auto parts rivaling Germany’s unlisted Robert Bosch ROBG.UL, had been increasing its sales and profits year after year thanks to robust sales at top customer Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and expanded business outside the group, most notably with General Motors Corp (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

But with Toyota, GM and others announcing big production cuts in North America in recent months, analysts said Denso faced even harsher conditions for the rest of the year — negatives that Denso did not fully factor into its revised projections.

Profit pressure is already mounting for the industry from higher raw materials prices, while the yen has strengthened about 10 percent from last year.

April-June operating profit at Denso, a core supplier of the Toyota group, fell 21 percent to 74.16 billion yen ($686 million), below an average estimate of 80.8 billion yen from three brokerages payday loans in 1 hour. Net profit sank 23 percent to 51.66 billion yen.

First-quarter revenue fell a shade to 983.91 billion yen due mainly to slumping car production in North America and an unfavorable strengthening of the yen. That erased the impact of improved car exports and output in emerging markets, Denso said.

“The results are very negative,” said Kohei Takahashi, analyst at JPMorgan Securities. 

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Comcast Corp (CMCSA.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the larger U.S. cable service provider, posted a higher quarterly profit as it gained market share in phone and Internet services and controlled expenses, sending shares up 6 percent.

Comcast reported a tripling of its free cash flow - a measurement of net cash the company prefers, largely due to a drop in capital expenditure as a slowdown in U.S. homebuilding meant that it spent less expanding its cable systems to new communities.

While that spending slowdown contributed to weaker video subscriber growth, analysts said Comcast was winning market share from phone competitors including AT&T Inc (T.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

“Free cash flow was better than we expected and that was partly due to the fewer customer adds, so they didn’t incur costs of adding new subscribers,” said Tom Eagan, analyst at Collins Stewart.

Shares in Comcast rose $1.08 cents to $20.26 payday advance. Shares of Time Warner Cable (TWC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) also rose 4 percent, while Cablevision (CVC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) shares rose 4.8 percent

Comcast, which has 24.6 million subscribers, said it added 278,000 high speed Internet subscribers and 500,000 phone subscribers in the second quarter. Seven analysts polled by Reuters had on average forecast Comcast to add 327,000 new Internet subscribers and 579,000 new phone subs.

Comcast Chief Operating Officer Steve Burke told analysts on a conference call that Comcast’s faster Internet access speeds are helping to win over phone company DSL customers as they want to watch more online video.

Burke said the company is also on target to add more than 2 million phone subscribers by the end of the year. It currently has 5.6 million, making it the fourth largest U.S. phone provider. 

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Falling stock markets around the globe and the credit crunch are putting the pension funds of some of the largest U.S. companies into deeper financial holes, according to a report released Monday.

Since the credit crunch hit last fall, pension plans funded by S&P 1500 companies have lost about $280 billion in assets, according to an actuary at Mercer, a human resources consulting firm.

On paper, the losses from last October tally $160 billion. However, according to Mercer actuary Adrian Hartshorn, the asset losses are closer to $280 billion when pension plan assets and liabilities are considered together. The assets, which totaled roughly $1.7 trillion at the end of October 2007, fell by 17%, leaving about $1.4 trillion in assets at the end of June.

Companies should be concerned, he said, because - assuming no change in the market - a typical U.S. company can expect their pension expenses to increase between 20% and 30% in 2009 payday advance lender. That’s due to the higher cost of servicing the pension plan’s debt and the smaller return from the plan’s assets.

"I think it’s important for corporations to be aware of what’s going on in their pension plans, as corporations would be concerned when any part of its business is performing badly," Hartshorn said.

According to the report, the total losses on pension assets and liabilities from the last day of 2007 through the end of June has grown to more than $80 billion.

Part of the loss has been reflected in companies’ current financial statements, but many losses incurred since the end of 2007 have yet to hit company balance sheets.

The affected pension plans are qualified and non-qualified plans. 

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Australia's construction industry contracted for a fourth month in June as lending rates at a 12- year high reduced demand for houses and factories.

An index measuring construction edged up to 40.3 points last month from 36.9 in May, according to a report by the Australian Industry Group and Housing Industry Association released in Sydney today. A reading below 50 indicates the construction industry is declining.

Slowing building work will further cool an economy that grew at the weakest pace in almost two years in the first quarter. Reserve Bank Governor Glenn Stevens left Australia's benchmark interest rate unchanged at 7.25 percent last week, saying four increases since August are working to moderate domestic demand and damp inflation pressures bad credit payday loan.

“The outlook remains subdued, with further weakness in activity likely to persist over coming months,'' said Tony Pensabene, an associate director of economics at the Australian Industry Group. “Falling demand, weaker economic conditions and increased competition for work are cited by firms for the continued falloff in activity.''

Today's survey is based on responses from about 120 construction companies on sales, new orders, deliveries, employment and input costs.

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