My finance view

OTTAWA

It came and went in a flash, a number on a board for seconds at a time, but its symbolic power couldn’t be dismissed.

The Dow Jones industrial average, powered higher all year by optimism that the economic recovery is finally for real, crossed 13,000 on Tuesday for the first time since May 2008.

The last time the Dow occupied such rarefied territory, unemployment was a healthy 5.4 percent, and Lehman Brothers was a solvent investment bank. Financial crises happened in other countries, or the history books.

The milestone Tuesday came about two hours into the trading day. The Dow was above 13,000 for about 30 seconds, and for slightly longer at about noon and 1:30 p.m., but couldn’t hold its gains. It finished up 15.82 points at 12,965.69.

Still, Wall Street took note of the marker.

It was just last summer that the Dow unburdened itself of 2,000 points in three terrifying weeks. S&P downgraded the United States credit rating, Washington was fighting over the federal borrowing limit, and the European debt crisis was raging.

A second recession in the United States was a real fear. But the economy grew faster every quarter last year, and gains in the job market have been impressive, including 243,000 jobs added in January alone.

“Essentially over the last couple of months you’ve taken the two biggest fears off the table, that Europe is going to melt down and that we’re going to have another recession here,” said Scott Brown, chief economist for Raymond James.

The tumult of last summer and fall left the Dow as low as 10,655. Its close Tuesday put it 22 percent above that low. The Dow is less than 1,200 points from an all-time high, a 9 percent rally from here.

A long-awaited deal to cut the debt of Greece and prevent a potentially catastrophic default on its debt, announced before dawn in Europe after 12 hours of talks, helped the Dow clear 13,000.

Under the bailout deal, Greece will get euro130 billion, or about $172 billion, from other European nations and the International Monetary Fund. In a separate deal, it will owe euro107 billion less to investors who own its government bonds.

After months in which the talks crawled along and vague headlines yanked the market up and down, the conclusion was almost anticlimactic because the markets were already expecting an agreement.

European markets didn’t take the news as well. Stocks closed down 3.5 percent in Greece, where stocks have lost 80 percent of their value since 2007. Stocks declined less than 1 percent Tuesday in Germany, France and Britain.

Investors noted that Greece remains in deep recession. Its bond investors will take a 53.5 percent loss on the face value of their bonds, which could discourage future investment.

In the U.S., investors were cheered by earnings from Home Depot, watched closely as a barometer of American spending on homes, and Macy’s. Wal-Mart missed Wall Street expectations, and its stock lost 4.2 percent, worst among the 30 stocks in the Dow.

The Dow has climbed 6 percent this year and has not lost 100 points on any day. The Greek debt crisis may be receding, but high gasoline prices are emerging as a threat to the economic recovery, and thus the stock market.

A gallon of regular gas costs $3.57 on average, the highest on record for this time of year. With tension building over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Iran has halted oil exports to Britain and France and threatened to stop shipping to other European countries.

The price of oil settled at $106.25, up $2.65 for the day and its highest level since last May. Airline stocks got clobbered. United Continental lost 9 percent, Delta Air Lines 7 percent. The Dow transportation average lost 1.5 percent.

Materials, telecommunications and energy companies led the industries gaining ground. Health care companies, makers of consumer staples and utilities, traditionally stocks to own in more cautious times, were lower.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index surpassed 1,363, its peak from April 2011, but closed at 1,362.21, up 0.98 point. The Nasdaq composite, which is heavy with technology stocks and trading at levels not seen since December 2000, closed down 3.21 points at 2,948.57.

Metals prices jumped because of expectations that demand may improve after the Greek bailout package was approved and China took another step to stimulate economic growth. Silver finished up 3.7 percent, and platinum, copper and palladium all rose 3 percent or more. Gold ended up 1.9 percent.

The Dow industrials last closed above 13,000 on May 19, 2008. The next day, they crossed under 13,000, not to return for almost four years. They fell as low as 6,547 on March 9, 2009. A reading of 13,094 would double that.

Dan McMahon, director of equity trading at Raymond James, called the 13,000 mark “just a big round number” as a matter of market fundamentals. But he added: “Psychologically, it matters.”

The milestone could motivate cautious investors to pump more money back into the stock market. The yield on the government’s benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.06 percent from 2.01 percent Friday, a sign that fewer investors wanted the bonds and were instead willing to buy riskier stocks.

“You need notches along the way to measure things,” and Dow 13,000 is as good as any, said John Manley, chief equity strategist for Wells Fargo’s funds group. “Is 50 older than 49 and a half? Yes, by six months. Do those six months really make a difference? Probably not. But it does give us a fixed point, something we can look at.”

The Dow is also an imperfect measure of the economy’s health. It is made up of just 30 companies, and it’s weighted so that the few with the highest stock prices carry the most heft.

A tiny percentage change in the stock of IBM, which is trading around $194, sways the index much more than a giant change in the stock of Bank of America, which is trading around $8.

Last year, the Dow rose 5.5 percent. But strip out IBM and McDonald’s, the two stocks with the highest prices last year, and it rose just 1.8 percent, according to calculations by Birinyi Associates.

Dow Jones, which decides which 30 companies are the best barometer, says the index can accurately represent the economy because they make up 25 to 30 percent of the market value of all U.S. public companies.

Among the big movers:

_ Barnes & Noble fell 4 percent after missing expectations. Rising costs offset higher sales of both traditional books and digital books. Investors seemed encouraged that the bookstore chain, a survivor in an era that has felled competitors like Borders and Waldenbooks, plans to introduce a cheaper Nook to compete with Amazon’s Kindle Fire.

_ J.C. Penney, which is trying to reinvent itself and just brought in an Apple veteran as CEO and changed its logo, fell 3 percent after Fitch Ratings dropped its credit grade to junk status.

_ Wal-Mart fell 4 percent after missing analysts’ expectations for revenue and per-share earnings.

_ High-end department store Saks rose 3 percent after beating analysts’ expectations.

Source

White House hopeful Rick Santorum lags behind both his 2012 competitors and wealthy Americans in general when it comes to charitable giving, according to tax documents.

Santorum gave $81,500 to charity over the past four years, or 2.2% of the more than $3.6 million in total income he earned since leaving the Senate, the documents showed.

The tax returns, provided to CNN on Thursday, did not break down charitable giving by recipient.

From 2007 to 2009, Santorum’s rate of charitable giving fluctuated between 2.03% and 2.67% of his earnings.

In 2010, the rate dropped to 1.76% of his $923,411 in income. That same year, President Obama gave 14.2% of his income to charity, while Mitt Romney donated 13.8% and Newt Gingrich gave 2.6%.

Ron Paul has not released his tax returns.

Rich, Gingrich and crazy rich

According to data from the IRS and the Congressional Budget Office, taxpayers with income in excess of $500,000 donate 3.4% of their income to charity on average.

"His donation level is on the low side," said Ken Berger, the president and CEO of Charity Navigator, who also noted that research suggests religious individuals donate more than the non-religious.

"When you put it in the context of people of faith, then it really is on the low side," Berger said.

The relatively low contribution level is also a bit puzzling for a senator who championed non-profits and charitable organizations while in office.

"We should be proactive in finding ways to more fully engage the American public in charitable giving," Santorum said in a 2005 statement on the CARE Act, a bill he sponsored that sought to promote the interests of charities and provide incentives for Americans to donate.

Santorum has also come under fire for the giving practices of a charity called Operation Good Neighbor that he started more than a decade ago.

In his "founder’s letter," Santorum wrote that one of the charity’s goals was to help "break the cycle of poverty that sours the lives of too many men, women and children in our nation."

The group collected at least $2.3 million in contributions between 2001 and its termination in 2007, but only spent around 45% of total revenue on beneficiaries, according to IRS documents.

The rest went to fundraising, office space and personnel costs. In essence, the charity was spending more on itself than the people it was designed to help.

The charity, Berger said, lagged far below industry standards.

Get more from your donation to charity

"Seventy-five percent or more reaching beneficiaries is excellent, and 65% or more is okay. If you fall below 50% you’re really performing poorly," he said. "I would recommend donors flee from an organization like this."

While the Santorum campaign did not respond to calls and e-mails from CNNMoney on Thursday, the campaign did provide comment to the Washington Post, which detailed the charity’s practices in January.

"Senator Santorum was very committed to helping raise funds for Operation Good Neighbor and did so with the understanding that those funds would be used to help many organizations and families located in urban areas of Pennsylvania," Santorum campaign adviser John Brabender told the paper.

CNN’s Dana Bash contributed to this report 

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Manufacturing in the New York region expanded in February at the fastest pace since June 2010, a sign factories are propelling the expansion.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Rioters set fire to buildings and battled police in downtown Athens as the Greek Parliament prepared to vote on Prime Minister Lucas Papademos

Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos began negotiating with leaders of the political parties supporting his caretaker government as he tried to make up for lost time to secure a second aid package.

Papademos met with the chiefs in Athens today after delaying the gathering for a second time in as many days as Greek officials and international creditors haggled over terms. He held an unscheduled meeting late last night with the so- called troika of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, to put final touches on a 130 billion-euro ($172 billion) rescue plan.

Yesterday

Japan

President Barack Obama, offering an election-year prescription to spur the economy, said the wealthiest Americans should pay more taxes in the name of fairness, to bring down the deficit and ensure those trying to make ends meet don

Anheuser-Busch President David Peacock, who has led the brewery’s U.S. operations since 2008, has resigned from the company.  

Employees were notified today of Peacock’s resignation, which is effective today. He’s leaving to spend more time with his family and pursue other business interests, according to the company.

Peacock will continue to serve in an advisory role, according to an email sent by Luiz Edmond, who is assuming leadership of the brewery’s U payday loans.S. operations based in St. Louis.

 Peacock was formerly vice president of marketing at the brewery.

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European Union governments returned to German Chancellor Angela Merkel