My finance view

A plunge in Facebook’s stock didn’t faze the broader U.S. market Monday. U.S. stocks bounced back from their worst week of the year on renewed optimism that European leaders would find a way out of the sovereign debt crisis.

The Dow posted its biggest gain in over a month, while the S&P 500 delivered its best performance in over two months. The tech-heavy Nasdaq enjoyed its best gains of the year.

"I think it’s just more of a relief rally after being down so many sessions in a row," said Dave Rovelli, managing director at Canaccord Adams. "People are looking for stocks that have sold off a bit."

Over the weekend, the Group of Eight nations met and reaffirmed their commitment to keeping Greece in the eurozone. And two opinion polls released in Greece reportedly put the pro-bailout New Democracy party ahead of the anti-austerity Syriza party.

The combination of the G8 and the poll results was enough to boost sentiment across world markets, with European and Asian stocks eking out gains and the euro holding steady at around $1.28 against the U.S. dollar.

Paul Zemsky, head of asset strategies for ING Investment Management, said the rally was the result of "a smidgen of good news in an oversold market."

"You had a tremendous amount of pessimism, but nothing bad came out of Greece this weekend," he said. "There’s some optimism that perhaps the Greek people are realizing how damaging it would be for them to leave [the eurozone]."

The Dow Jones industrial average () rose 135 points, or 1.1%. Blue chips, including Caterpillar (, Fortune 500), Boeing (, Fortune 500) and IBM (, Fortune 500) led the gains.

The S&P 500 () gained 21 points, or 1.6%, and the Nasdaq () rose 68 points, or 2.5%.

Shares of Facebook () plunged as much as 13.7%, before finishing down 11% at $34.03, well below the $38 initial public offering price.

The sharp drop "weighed heavily" on markets at the start of trading, said Anthony Conroy, head trader at ConvergEx Group, noting that the tech-heavy Nasdaq briefly slid into negative territory.

What’s next for Greece

But trading might be choppy this week as worries about Europe will continue to dominate. Elisabeth Afseth, a fixed income analyst with Investec in London, said the weeks leading up to Greece’s June 17 election are likely to be volatile for both equity and bond markets.

An informal summit of European leaders is scheduled for Wednesday.

Despite Thursday’s bounce, stocks are still down considerably in May, on track for the worst monthly losses since September. The Dow has finished in the red on all but three of the 15 trading days this month.

The blue chip index and the S&P 500 are off more than 5% in May, while the Nasdaq is more than 6% lower.

U.S. stocks closed lower Friday, after the euphoria surrounding Facebook’s Friday IPO had worn off. All three indexes clocked their worst weekly losses of the year last week.

World markets: European stocks closed with significant gains. Britain’s FTSE 100 () climbed 0.9%, the DAX () in Germany rose 1.1% and France’s CAC 40 () jumped 1%.

Asian markets ended mixed. The Shanghai Composite () edged 0.2% higher and Japan’s Nikkei () ended up 0.3%. The Hang Seng () in Hong Kong shed 0.2%.

Companies: Yahoo (, Fortune 500) and China’s Alibaba Group have agreed to a $7.1 billion deal, in which the Chinese Internet giant will buy back half of Yahoo’s 40% stake in the company.

JPMorgan loss: It’s going to get worse

Speaking at a Deutsche Bank conference, JPMorgan Chase (, Fortune 500) CEO Jamie Dimon said the firm would suspend its stock buyback program but would keep its dividend.

Lowe’s (, Fortune 500) reported better-than-expected earnings but issued mixed guidance. The stock fell 10%.

Campbell Soup (, Fortune 500) posted a slight decline in earnings per share but performed slightly better than forecasts. The stock fell 2%.

Some social media stocks fell along with Facebook, though not as steeply. Zynga () fell less than 1% and LinkedIn () declined just 2%. But Groupon () surged 7%.

Currencies and commodities: The dollar posted modest gains versus the Japanese yen, but slipped slightly against the euro and the British pound.

How Iran could double its oil output

Oil for June delivery rose $1.09 to settle at $92.57 a barrel.

Gold futures for June delivery dropped $3.20 to settle at $1,588.70 an ounce.

Bonds: The price on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury fell Monday morning, pushing the yield up to 1.75% from the 1.70% level late Friday.  

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Barnes-Jewish Hospital agreed to pay back $725,185 to a Medicare contractor, according to a government audit released Monday showing that the hospital overbilled for patient care.

According to the audit, the hospital received $660 million in 2009 and 2010 for care provided to patients with Medicare, government health insurance for people who are older than 65 or have a disability.

As part of a regular review of those payments, government auditors checked 240 claims that were deemed at-risk for billing errors, including those with payments above $150,000 and inpatient stays of zero or one day. The auditors found errors in 58 of the claims that resulted in overpayments of $392,829 for outpatient and $332,356 for inpatient charges. Barnes-Jewish “did not have adequate controls to prevent incorrect billing of Medicare claims,” according to the report from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General quick payday loans.

The billing errors involved calculation mistakes on dosages of injected drugs, unreported credits from device manufacturers, duplicate or incorrect coding and incomplete doctors’ orders.

The mistakes were attributed to human error and problems coordinating doctor signatures, dates and times on the paperwork.

The hospital refunded the full amount to Wisconsin Physician Services, a Medicare contractor, according to a letter dated March 30 from hospital President Richard Liekweg.

Barnes-Jewish also bought new billing software and trained employees on Medicare coding, Liekweg wrote.

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U.N. nuclear inspectors arrived in Iran on Monday in the latest push to hold key talks with Iranian officials about how far the country’s controversial nuclear program has come.

The trip is the second in less than a month by the International Atomic Energy Agency team, reflecting growing concerns over alleged weapons experiments _ something Iran has so far both denied and refused to discuss.

Herman Nackaerts, a senior U.N. nuclear official, said in Vienna before the team departed on Sunday that he hoped for progress in the talks but his careful choice of words suggested little expectation the meeting will be successful.

The West suspects Iran’s nuclear program is geared toward making weapons, a charge Iran denies, insisting it’s for peaceful purposes only, such as power generation.

Iran’s state TV said the IAEA team arrived early Monday morning for a two-day visit. The state radio, meanwhile, said the inspectors hope to meet Iranian nuclear scientists and pay a visit to the Parchin military complex.

The radio said the IAEA had requested to visit Parchin, an Iranian military base and conventional weapons development facility outside of Tehran. The site has also been suspected of housing a secret underground facility used for Iran’s nuclear program, a claim denied by Iranian authorities.

IAEA inspectors visited the site in 2005, but only one of four areas of potential interest within the grounds. The nuclear watchdog did not report any unusual activities, and has not mentioned Parchin in its reports since 2008.

“Whatever the reasoning of the agency is, it proves the IAEA is not loyal to its previous commitments,” the radio said. The tone of the commentary suggested the visit to the military complex would likely be denied no fax cash advances.

The IAEA visit comes as Iran last week announced what it described as key advancements in its nuclear program, inserting the first domestically made fuel rod into a research reactor in Tehran and installing a new generation of Iranian-made centrifuges at the country’s main uranium enrichment facility in the central town of Natanz.

Beyond concerns about the purported weapons work, Washington and its allies want Iran to halt uranium enrichment, which they believe could eventually lead to weapons-grade material and the production of nuclear weapons. Iran has been enriching uranium up to 20 percent, while uranium enriched to more than 90 percent can be used for a nuclear warhead.

The IAEA team wants to talk to key Iranian scientists suspected of working on an alleged weapons program. They also hope to break down opposition to their plans to inspect documents related to nuclear work and secure commitments from Iranian authorities to allow future visits.

Iran has denied alleged weapons experiments for nearly four years, saying they are based on “fabricated documents” provided by a “few arrogant countries” _ a phrase authorities in Iran often use to refer to the U.S. and its allies.

The IAEA summarized its information last November in a 13-page document drawing on 1,000 pages of intelligence. It stated then for the first time that some of the alleged experiments can have no other purpose than developing nuclear weapons.

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A year ago, when Sydney property agent Peter Green

In the land of big-time deficits and trillion dollar budgets, Congress is spending less money on at least one thing.

Itself.

After voting last year to cut its own operating budget by 5%, House members have reduced the number of paid positions on their staffs, and are spending less on office supplies and computers.

The cuts have translated to 948 fewer salaried staff positions, a 62.5% drop in spending on computers and 30.7% less spending on office supplies, according to an analysis conducted by the Sunlight Foundation.

Staff assistant positions were the hardest hit, registering a 16.6% decline, while the number of part-time employees dropped 15.6%. Meanwhile, the number of slots for communication directors actually increased.

The House has around 12,000 staffers, and the job cuts amounted to a 7.4% overall decline in positions, according to Sunlight.

When compared to current deficits, the House spending reductions don’t add up to much in the way of savings. But for a Republican-controlled chamber, they are an important reflection of legislative priorities.

"The cuts are such a tiny fraction of the overall budget," said Lee Drutman, a data fellow at Sunlight. "And the reality is it makes it harder for them to do a decent job."

And more cuts are on the way, as funding will decrease another 6.4% for the legislative year that kicks off Tuesday.

Commentary: Debt crisis must be solved in the open

With many of the easy cuts already made, and staff salaries accounting for about half of congressional budgets, things might get tricky for lawmakers trying to keep a full roster of employees saving account pay day loan.

A report from the Congressional Management Foundation, a non-profit that helps congress improve its operations, backs that up.

"The 2011 cuts were manageable," the report said. "However, the consensus is that the cumulative two-year cut of 11.4% will require the large majority of offices to make painful cuts that will be felt by virtually all staff."

Drutman warns that any further reduction in staff levels will hurt the ability of congressional offices to independently produce sound policy recommendations and legislation.

"Capitol Hill staffers are already stretched incredibly thin," Drutman said. "And that means if you’re a staffer, you’re more dependent on outside sources."

And who are those outside sources?

For the most part, said Drutman, they’re lobbyists. And dependence on lobbyists for policy expertise is a dicey proposition.

Lobbyists can help fill policy knowledge gaps on congressional staffs, but at the same time come with deep-pocketed backers seeking a specific legislative outcome. 

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The U.S. is starting the year on a positive note, a sign that investors may be too gloomy.

Payrolls rose 200,000 in December, double the gain in November. A weekly measure of consumer confidence ended 2011 at a five-month high. And manufacturers reported their business in December grew at the fastest pace in six months. The combination indicates the world

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U.S. stock futures are falling Monday as the initial enthusiasm over last week’s agreement on fixing the European debt crisis is replaced by worries that it won’t be enough.

The deal would allow for a central European authority to oversee future budgets for the 17 countries that use the euro. But it doesn’t help cut existing debt, which has caused Greece, Ireland and Portugal to need bailouts and is threatening Italy and Spain.

Less than an hour before the opening of trading in New York, futures for the Dow Jones industrial average are down 99 points to 12,044 while futures on the broader S&P 500 index are down 11 points to 1,242.

Markets in Europe are dropping, with France’s CAC-40 down 1.5 percent to 3,123.71, Germany’s DAX off by 1.2 percent to 5,862.44, and London’s FTSE 100 down 0.5 percent to 5,499.62.

Credit rating agency Moody’s said last week’s summit “offers few new measures.”

“The announced measures therefore do not change Moody’s previously expressed view that the crisis is in a critical and volatile stage,” Moody’s said, warning that it still intends to review all EU governments’ ratings for possible downgrades during the first three months of 2012.

Asian stocks mostly closed higher, as they caught up with the gains made in Europe and the U.S. on Friday.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index jumped 1.4 percent to close at 8,653.82. South Korea’s Kospi added 1.3 percent to 1,899.76 and benchmarks in Singapore, Taiwan, Australia and Indonesia also rose.

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Employers likely added more jobs in November, encouraged by signs of modest economic growth. But the gains aren’t expected to be enough to lower the unemployment rate.

Economists forecast that employers added a net 125,000 jobs last month, an improvement from October’s gain of 80,000. The unemployment rate is expected to stay at 9 percent for the second straight month.

Some economists have revised their estimates even higher _ to roughly 150,000 _ after a spate of positive economic reports. And payroll provider ADP said Wednesday that private companies added 206,000 jobs last month.

Still, analysts say that while the economy is growing at a steady pace, it’s not accelerating enough to prompt employers to hire more aggressively.

And Europe’s financial crisis threatens to slow U.S. growth next year. A recession in Europe could reduce U.S. exports, hurt global financial markets and dampen business confidence.

Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics, estimates that the economy will expand 2.5 percent in the last three months of this year. But he expects growth to slow to 1.5 percent in 2012, partly because of the crisis in Europe.

“Things are getting a bit better, but perhaps only temporarily,” Ashworth said.

Weak job growth means companies don’t have to raise pay to keep their employees. Fewer jobs and lower pay leaves consumers with less money to spend. That’s holding back economic growth.

In the past three months, the economy has added an average of 114,000 net jobs per month. That’s barely enough to keep up with population growth. In the first four months of this year, the economy generated an average of 179,000 jobs per month.

For now, most recent economic reports have been positive.

Factories are expanding. The Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing managers, said Thursday that its manufacturing index rose to 52.7 in November, up from 50.8 in October. Any reading above 50 indicates expansion.

The ISM’s report also found that new orders and production both rose to seven-month highs. That’s a good sign for future output. Even export orders increased, despite the turmoil overseas.

Retailers reported a strong start to holiday sales over the Thanksgiving weekend, consumer confidence surged in November to the highest level since July, and Americans’ pay rose in October by the most in seven months.

Car sales also rose sharply in November, normally a lackluster month for the auto industry. Chrysler, Ford, Nissan and Hyundai all reported double-digit gains on Thursday, compared to a year ago.

Another report Thursday showed that U.S. builders spent more in October on new homes, offices and shopping centers. Construction spending rose for a third straight month, the Commerce Department said. Despite the gains, overall construction spending remained depressed.

Those reports have caused many economists to forecast a pickup in growth in the final three months of the year, to about a 3 percent annual rate. That would be an improvement from growth of 2 percent in the July-September period.

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