My finance view

Clayco Inc. announced a new partnership Tuesday with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to create safety standards during construction of a $132 million patient pavilion at Missouri Baptist Medical Center in Town & Country.

Project partners Clayco, Legacy Building Group, Murphy Company, Sachs Electric and the OSHA-St Louis office said they pledged support of a continued commitment to safety on the jobsite. The subcontractors involved in the project will also be incorporated into the partnership upon selection.

“The primary goal is to eliminate work-related injuries and incidents for the state-of-the-art medical facility through identification and promotion of construction safety strategies,” Clayco Chief Safety Officer Todd Friis said in a statement.

The West Pavilion project is part of a multiyear plan to add nearly a million square feet to Missouri Baptist, an affiliate of BJC HealthCare. The hospital is building a six-story, 227,000-square-foot West Pavilion patient tower at its Town & Country campus. The facility will feature 96 additional private hospital rooms and the necessary space for future expansions at Missouri Baptist Medical Center saving account pay day loan. In addition, a new 160,000-square-foot, 460-car parking garage will be constructed of structural steel and slab on deck construction.

The partnership is also supported by Missouri Baptist Medical Center, HOK, KJWW Engineering Consultants, the Associated General Contractors of St Louis, the Carpenters District Council of Greater St Louis and Vicinity, the St Louis Building & Construction Trades Council, the Eastern Missouri Laborers’ District Council, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local One, the Plumbers’ and Pipefitters’ Local 562 and the Sheet Metal Workers’ Local 36.

St. Louis-based Clayco Inc., led by Chairman and Chief Executive Bob Clark, is one of the largest privately held companies in the area with annual revenue of $755 million. It also has offices in Chicago, Detroit and Washington, D.C.

Source

Apply today for no-hassle payday loans and cash advance no faxing. Get the money you need faster than the speed of sound. No credit checks. Fast Approval.

Centene posted a profit of $22.8 million, or 45 cents a share, for the second quarter, up 13 percent from $20.2 million, or 46 cents a share, in the prior-year period, as its managed care at-risk membership rose.

The health insurer reported a 4 percent increase in revenue to $1.08 billion for the quarter ended June 30, up from $1.04 billion a year earlier.

Analysts had expected an average profit of 42 cents a share on revenue of $1.1 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.

Centene said its quarter-end managed care at-risk membership totaled 1,531,800, an increase of 242,800 members, or 19 percent year-over-year No teletrack payday loans.

Last month, the city of O’Fallon, Mo., approved $24 million in bonds to help finance Centene's new data center.

St. Louis-based Centene (NYSE: CNC), led by Chairman and CEO Michael Neidorff, provides managed care programs and related services to individuals under Medicaid. It reported revenue of $4.1 billion in 2009.

Source

As with fast payday loans, this recently used to be the case, but competitive lenders and higher demand has taken this loan type to mainstay levels.

Treasurys were little changed Wednesday, as investors looked for direction amid mixed signals out of Europe and the United States.

What prices are doing: Prices straddled the breakeven point much of Wedneday before dipping a bit after the afternoon release of the Federal Reserve’s upbeat minutes.

The benchmark 10-year note fell 2/32 to 101-7/32, pushing the yield up to 3.36%. Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions.

The 30-year bond dropped 3/32 to 102-12/32 and yielded 4.24%; the 2-year note inched lower to 100-14/32, with a 0.76% yield. The 5-year note was down 7/32 to 101-26/32, yielding 2.11%.

What’s moving the market: Treasurys struggled to find direction Wednesday as investors weighed mixed signals in Europe and the United States.

Germany announced it would ban some "naked" short selling and said its banks are not on the brink, which helped the euro rise against the dollar for the first time in several trading sessions. The euro hit a fresh four-year low on Tuesday, but rose 1.5% against the dollar Wednesday.

But this assurance from German officials did little to assuage investors, who are wary about the strength of Europe’s banks, and Treasurys rebounded.

The government-backed bonds turned lower, however, after the Fed raised its outlook for economic growth and reduced its estimate for the unemployment rate.

Investors view Treasurys as "safer" assets in times of economic uncertainty because they are backed by the U.S. government. In recent weeks, the euro zone’s debt concerns and worries about the sustainability of the shared currency have caused riskier assets, such as stocks traded in global markets, to plummet, boosting the government-backed bonds.

What analysts are saying: "Everyone’s focused on the euro problem," said William Larkin, a portfolio manager at Cabot Money Management. "The flight to quality has caused a lot of volatility in the treasury market."

Analysts have said that Germany’s ban on short-selling is an effort to protect banks from the damage of speculators can cause. But following the announcement, European stock markets fell and U.S. stock markets traded lower as investors continued to move money out of riskier assets, such as stocks and commodities, and into relatively safer ones.

"They would have been better off having a press release, detailing the rationale of the ban and its connection to the larger austerity plans," Larkin said. "It looks like a patch, panic. It doesn’t look coordinated."

At yields lower than 3.5% on the benchmark 10-year note, Treasurys are quite expensive, Larkin said. But the trend is unlikely to change in the near-term, as uncertainty clouds Europe.

"As long as fear is out there, Treasurys will trade expensively with very low yields," Larkin said. 

Source

The foreclosure plague may have finally reached its peak in April 2010 — but don’t expect delinquency statistics to plummet anytime soon.

The total number of foreclosure filings — notices of default, auction notices and bank repossessions — fell by 9% from March to April, and 2% compared with April 2009, according to data released Thursday by RealtyTrac, the online marketer of foreclosed properties.

This is the first time that has happened in the history of the report, which goes back to January 2006.

But the number of homes repossessed during April is at an all-time high of 92,432. That is a 45% increase over April 2009. If repossessions continue at this pace, more than 1.1 million homes will be lost in 2010.

"There were two important milestones in the April numbers that show foreclosure activity has begun to plateau, but at a very high level that will not drop off in the near future," said RealtyTrac CEO James Saccacio.

Saccacio said he expects the pattern to become the norm for many months, with the overall numbers of filings staying high, but not increasing, and repossessions remaining at record levels.

The reason that repossessions can rise while filings hold steady is that lenders are working through a backlog of delinquent properties, taking more of them through the entire process to repossession, rather than letting them linger in limbo.

Walkaways

The numbers of repossessed properties, also called real-estate owned or REOs, have been boosted by a spike in the number of homeowners voluntarily giving up their homes because their the value has dropped so precipitously.

These "strategic defaults" now account for nearly one in three foreclosures, according to a recent report from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. That’s up from 22% 12 months earlier.

Some homeowners walk away when they are "underwater," owing far more than the value of their home, because they realize that they will never recoup the losses. The further homeowners fall underwater, the more likely they are to leave.

About one in four U.S. homeowners is underwater, according to CoreLogic, a financial data provider. Nearly 5 million of those borrowers owe mortgage debt that exceeds their property values by 25% or more. The total of negative equity in these deeply underwater borrowers is a whopping $655 billion.

Foreclosure epicenters

Nevada continues to rank as the worst-hit foreclosure state, with one of every 69 households receiving some kind of filing. That’s nearly six times the national rate which is one household for every 387 receiving a filing.

Arizona had the second highest rate; Florida the third; and California the fourth. California, the largest state in the union, had nearly 70,000 filings, more than any other state. Michigan, where the vast number of foreclosures can be traced to job losses and economic turmoil, recorded more than 19,000.

The metro area market that recorded the highest rate of foreclosure filings in April was Las Vegas, where one of every 60 homes was delinquent, Second was Modesto, Calif., with one in 101, and neighboring Merced, where one in 104 homeowners was in some stage of default. 

Source

The Pentagon is telling bidders for a major tanker project to be ready to start the contract on Nov. 12.

The contract is worth at least $35 billion to build 179 refueling jets. Bids are expected from Boeing Co. and European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Tuesday that the Pentagon still hopes to award the contract in the fall, but that it set the Nov. 12 start date so that bidders could plan around it.

The request for proposals calls for the contract to be awarded on Aug. 12. That has appeared unlikely since the Pentagon extended the bidding deadline by two months, until July 9, so that EADS could bid.

The Nov. 12 date was set in an update on the tanker posted on a federal procurement website on Thursday. It includes a question about the estimated date the contract will be awarded. The answer says bidders should "prepare their proposals assuming a contract start date" of Nov. 12. Morrell said the contract start date is not the same as the date it will be awarded.

The Pentagon has said it will try to compress the time between when the bids come in and when it picks a winning bidder.

The Air Force needs to replace its KC-135 refueling tankers, which date to the 1950s. It has been trying to pick someone to make the new tanker since 2003.

Source

The government’s Recovery Act is responsible for between 2.2 million and 2.8 million jobs through the first quarter of 2010, according to the latest stimulus report from President Obama’s chief economic adviser.

The report, from the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, says the $787 billion economic stimulus is on track to create or save 3.5 million jobs by the end of the year.

"From tax cuts to construction projects, the Recovery Act is firing on all cylinders when it comes to creating jobs and putting Americans back to work," Vice President Joe Biden said in a statement.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which was signed into law in February 2009, is the largest simulus program in the nation’s history. While the Obama administration credits the stimulus with lifting the United States from the recession, Republican critics also look to the nation’s 9 on line pay day loans.7% unemployment rate as proof that the act fails to create long-term jobs.

So far $525 billion of the simulus money has been committed to specific projects and $370 billion has been paid out.

More than $110 billion went to tax relief through credits for first-time homebuyers, for college expenses and for energy-efficient home improvements. Another $90 billion went to unemployment benefits and food assistance through the end of March.

The report is based on a mathematical formula that calculates the number of jobs likely saved or created by stimulus money. The government also collects reports showing the actual number of jobs directly funded by stimulus spending, with the next one due to be released April 30. 

Source

The number of Americans filing for unemployment insurance for the first time jumped last week, according to government data released Thursday.

There were 460,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week ended April 3, up 18,000 from an upwardly revised 442,000 the previous week, according to the Labor Department’s weekly report.

Economists surveyed by Briefing.com expected new claims to fall to 435,000 in the week. The number of new claims were just below the level reached in the Feb. 27 week, when initial claims totaled 466,000.

The Labor Department also tracks the 4-week moving average of initial claims, which smoothes out volatility in the measure. That number was 450,250 for the week, up 2,250 from the previous week’s downwardly revised average of 448,000.

The data may have been clouded by factors that included the end of the first quarter and religious holidays, which made it difficult to get an accurate reading, according to a Labor Department official who asked not to be named.

The report also said that 4,550,000 people filed continuing claims in the week ended March 27, the most recent data available. That figure, the lowest level since Dec. 20, 2008, was down 131,000 from the preceding week’s 4,681,000 claims, and below the 4.63 million economists expected, according to Briefing.com.

The 4-week moving average for continuing claims was 4,648,250, a decrease of 36,000 from the preceding week’s revised average of 4,684,250.

Continuing claims data exclude people whose benefits expired or those who have moved to state or federal extensions. It reflects those filing each week after their initial claim until the end of their standard benefits, which usually last 26 weeks.

"The general trend in the jobs market is improving, reinforced by the decline in continuing claims," said Carl Riccadonna, senior U.S. economist for Deutsche Bank. "That’s a good indication that the next move in the unemployment rate could be lower."

President Obama and lawmakers in the House and Senate in March pushed for more relief, by extending the deadline to file for unemployment insurance and instituting a number of tax breaks for businesses.

The goal of these measures has been to spark job growth and bring down the national unemployment rate, which hovers at 9.7%.

Jobless claims rose the most in Texas, with an increase of 3,640, primarily due to more layoffs in the finance, service, and manufacturing industries. Oregon and New Jersey rounded out the top three states with the largest increases in new claims.

Conversely, Michigan, Illinois and Oklahoma were the top three states with the largest declines in initial claims.

The report came after last week’s much anticipated non-farm payrolls figures, which showed the U.S. economy added 162,000 jobs in March. Full-time positions unexpectedly outnumbered temporary Census-related jobs.

Still, initial claims will be top of mind for economists, as movement in the figure is likely to affect non-farm payrolls and the unemployment rate.

"If we see initial claims break lower than 400,000 for an extended period, that would be a good sign that we’re going to see sustained triple-digit non-farm payroll gains," said Riccadonna.  

Source

If the economy cooperates and auto sales recover a bit, General Motors Co. has a reasonable chance of turning a full-year profit in 2010, its new chief financial officer said Wednesday.

Former Microsoft Corp. CFO Chris Liddell, at his first meeting with reporters, said the automaker was making money in Brazil and China, in the middle in North America and struggling in Europe cheapest personal loan rates.

Source

Australia may resume leading the world in raising borrowing costs, increasing the benchmark interest rate for the fourth time in five meetings, economists say. Traders aren’t so sure.

Governor Glenn Stevens will boost the Reserve Bank of Australia’s overnight cash rate target to 4 percent from 3.75 percent, according to 14 of 19 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Futures traders estimate a 54 percent chance of an increase when the decision is announced at 2:30 p.m. tomorrow in Sydney.

Australia’s economy probably grew the most in 1 1/2 years in the fourth quarter, a separate analyst’s survey ahead of a report on March 3 shows, boosted by A$22 billion ($20 billion) in spending by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on roads and schools. Concerns about sovereign debt in Europe and financial markets turmoil may prompt Stevens to wait another month, some economists say.

“Tomorrow’s decision is close to a coin toss,” said Stephen Walters, chief economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Sydney and the only analyst surveyed by Bloomberg who correctly predicted Stevens’ first rate increase in October. “Rates need to go up, but if they don’t it’s because there’s uncertainty about how the consumer will hold up, sovereign debt, and weak data out of the U.S.”

Group of 20

Boosting the benchmark rate tomorrow would make Stevens the first central banker from a Group of 20 economy to raise borrowing costs this year. He was the first in the world to increase rates three times last quarter, when he raised the key rate in three quarter-point steps to 3.75 percent from a half- century low of 3 percent.

By contrast, the U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said last week the world’s largest economy is in a “nascent” recovery that still requires low interest rates. The Fed has kept its benchmark rate close to zero since late 2008. The European Central Bank’s rate is at a record low of 1 percent.

A rebound in Australian consumer confidence, higher business optimism, surging house prices, a drop in unemployment, and signs of an investment boom in resources projects such as Chevron Corp.’s Gorgon natural gas field off Western Australia are forecast by the central bank to fuel an acceleration in Australia’s economy, one of few to skirt last year’s recession.

Australian manufacturing expanded last month at the fastest pace in more than two years, a report showed today. The performance of manufacturing index increased 2.8 points from January to 53.8, Australian Industry Group and PricewaterhouseCoopers said.

‘Gentle Retreat’

Gross domestic product probably rose 0.9 percent in the fourth quarter from the previous three months, when it gained 0.2 percent, according to the median estimate of 18 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. The economy probably expanded 2.4 percent from a year earlier, they said. The figures will be released at 11:30 a.m. on March 3.

“With the shrinking unemployment rate and the likely rebound in December-quarter GDP, we are convinced that another gentle retreat from the accelerator is required,” said Annette Beacher, an economist at TD Securities Ltd. in Singapore.

A report published last week showed business investment jumped in the fourth quarter at almost three times the pace predicted by analysts as companies raised their forecasts for investment plans to the highest level in five years.

Chinese Demand

BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s largest mining company, said last month it will increase capital spending on iron-ore mines and oil fields by 63 percent next year to $20.8 billion from $12.8 billion this year.

Rising Chinese demand for Australian iron ore and coal is stoking a record boom in mining investment that may last more than a decade, central bank Deputy Governor Ric Battellino said on Feb guaranteed online payday loans. 23. Investment in new mines, ports and infrastructure may reach 6 percent of GDP, more than double the amount spent during the last resources boom in the late 1970s, he said.

Chevron, Exxon Mobile Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc have this year begun construction on the A$43 billion Gorgon natural- gas venture, the nation’s single-biggest investment project that is forecast to generate as many as 10,000 jobs.

The economy has less scope than previously expected for “robust” growth that doesn’t stoke inflation, Governor Stevens told a parliamentary committee in Canberra on Feb. 19. “Monetary policy must therefore be careful not to overstay a very expansionary setting.”

House Prices

While inflation in Australia cooled in 2009 amidst the global recession, the central bank has pointed to accelerating house prices as a key reason for boosting borrowing costs last quarter.

House prices jumped 11.8 percent in the year through January, according to a Feb. 26 report by real-estate monitoring company RP Data-Rismark, whose figures are used by the central bank in its quarterly monetary policy statement.

Retail sales rose 0.5 percent in January after falling in December for the first time in five months and building approvals gained for a third straight month, according to Bloomberg surveys of analysts ahead of reports to be released tomorrow.

“Australia’s economy is in much better shape than was anticipated when rates were cut to a generation low a year ago,” said Rory Robertson, an economist at Macquarie Group Ltd. in Sydney. “I’ll be very surprised if the Reserve Bank doesn’t decide to continue its ‘normalization’ process” tomorrow.

“After all, it has already paused for nearly 90 days having hiked three times in just 60 days,” he said.

Not Convinced

Still, not all investors are convinced that Stevens and his board will boost borrowing costs in tomorrow’s announcement.

Traders are betting there is a 54 percent chance of a quarter-percentage-point rate increase, according to Bloomberg calculations based on interbank futures on the Sydney Futures Exchange at 8:55 a.m.

Reports published late last week have stoked speculation that the global recovery will be hampered by weak growth among the world’s biggest economies.

Confidence among households and companies in the 16-nation euro economy fell and bank loans to the private sector declined for a fifth month, plus Standard & Poor’s said Feb. 25 that it may soon downgrade Greece again as the country grapples with the region’s largest budget shortfall.

The number of Americans filing first-time claims for unemployment insurance unexpectedly rose last week, the Labor Department said in Washington.

That contrasts with Australia where reports published last month showed business confidence rebounded and employers added 194,600 jobs in the five months through January, the biggest increase in more than three years that has cut the unemployment rate to an 11-month low of 5.3 percent.

“If anyone is going to boom, surely it’s Australia,” Gerry Harvey, chairman of Australia’s largest electronics retailer Harvey Norman Holdings Ltd., said in a Feb. 26 interview. “We never really went into a recession at all. Our unemployment rate was projected to reach 7, 8, 9, or 10 percent, but it never even got to 6 percent.”

Source

Goldman Sachs has filed a lawsuit against seven former Atlanta-based executives in its wealth management division for soliciting employees and former clients after their departure for rival Credit Suisse.

The suit, filed Feb. 17 in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, alleges that Credit Suisse facilitated the executives’ departure promising payouts worth of millions of dollars.

The suit seeks to block the defendants from contacting their former Goldman clients and colleagues.

The five vice presidents and two associates are accused of “pirating” Goldman’s clients and trying to coax employees to defect to Credit Suisse in violation of non-solicitation clauses, the suit alleges. The suit was first reported by Reuters.

Named in the suit were: David Greene, Craig Savage, Andrew Thompson, Sharran Srivatsaa, John Pitt, Stephanie Dennard and Kim Tyson.

Atlanta’s wealth management firms have been embroiled in the industry-wide shakeup of personnel and clients, with established players and newcomers fighting over top talent.

The lawsuit states that the seven investment executives “abruptly” left Goldman on Feb. 5, after Credit Suisse offered the team “tens of millions of dollars to leave.”

The group “immediately began soliciting Goldman Sachs’ clients and employees in violation of non-solicitation clauses” that Greene, Savage, Thompson, Srivatsaa and Pitt had previously accepted. The suit alleges that Dennard and Tyson did an end around the non-solicitation clauses by approaching former colleagues and clients on their superiors’ behalf to convince them to move over to Credit Suisse, and also improperly used confidential Goldman information.

The suit states that Greene and Savage met with the head of Goldman’s Atlanta office late Feb. 5 and announced their intent to leave, and later Greene said in a phone call that he had been promised $11 million to join Credit Suisse.

The suit also alleges that the defendants told clients about a shakeup and claimed that it had destabilized the Atlanta office.

Another Goldman executive claimed in the suit he received an unsolicited offer to leave for Credit Suisse in exchange for $10 million.

Source