Financial life in a big town

Agribusiness conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland Co. says it will cut 1,000 jobs company wide.

CEO Patricia Woertz said in a Wednesday statement that the majority of the positions will be salaried staff. The move will cut about 15 percent of the company’s corporate staff.

The Decatur, Ill.-based company employs 30,000 people worldwide.

Woertz says the company is cutting jobs to boost productivity and profits. The company does everything from processing crops to make food ingredients, to shipping grain overseas.

The last year has been a volatile one for agribusiness companies, with crop prices swinging wildly on global markets.cher Daniels Midland to cut 1,000 jobs

Eds: APNewsNow. Will be updated.

Agribusiness conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland Co business card. says it will cut 1,000 jobs company wide.

CEO Patricia Woertz said in a Wednesday statement that the majority of the positions will be salaried staff. The move will cut about 15 percent of the company’s corporate staff.

The Decatur, Ill.-based company employs 30,000 people worldwide.

Woertz says the company is cutting jobs to boost productivity and profits. The company does everything from processing crops to make food ingredients, to shipping grain overseas.

The last year has been a volatile one for agribusiness companies, with crop prices swinging wildly on global markets.

Source

Greece’s government warned Tuesday that the debt-crippled country will have to ditch the euro if it fails to finalize a second, euro130 billion ($169 billion) international bailout.

Spokesman Pantelis Kapsis said negotiations in the next three or four months with international debt monitors will “determine everything,” including whether Greece escapes a disastrous bankruptcy.

Greece is being kept afloat by a first, euro110 billion ($142 billion) international bailout agreed in May 2010, after investors shocked by the country’s huge budget deficit and debt mountain demanded sky-high interest rates to continue buying Greek bonds.

An additional bailout was agreed in October, when it became clear that the first batch of funds would not suffice, but that deal has yet to be finalized.

Sorting out the details of the bailout, which also foresees a euro100 billion writedown of Greece’s privately held debt, is the main task of the coalition government headed by former central banker Lucas Papademos, whose short mandate is expected to expire in early April.

“This famous loan agreement must be signed, otherwise we are outside the markets, out of the euro and things will become much worse,” Kapsis told private Skai TV.

In return for its first batch of rescue loans from its European partners and the International Monetary Fund, Greece imposed deeply resented austerity measures to contain its budget deficit _ set to hit at least 9 percent of GDP last year despite repeated spending cuts and tax hikes.

Kapsis said further cutbacks, possibly including new taxes, might be required to address a revenue shortfall,

“We will see what the shortfall is and it is very likely that measures will be required,” he said. “I also don’t believe it is easy to impose new taxes, but what does cutting spending mean? To close down the public sector?”

“There is no easy solution,” Kapsis said.

The details are expected to be determined during talks later this month with debt inspectors from the EU, the European Central bank and the IMF, who will determine whether the country receives its next loan installment.

“We can’t take (approval of the next installment) for granted,” Kapsis warned.

Source

Ask the people who invest billions for a living to name their favorite picks for 2012 and you’ll get a smorgasbord worthy of a holiday party: Brazilian stocks, U.S. junk bonds, and government debt from Colombia. Ask them what they dislike and they’ll name one of the top-performing investments this year: U.S. government bonds.

Investors can rattle off a long list of reasons to avoid Treasurys. They pay next to nothing and are bound to plunge in value whenever interest rates begin climbing from their historically low levels. It seems nobody likes Treasurys, yet everybody keeps buying them anyway.

“Our least favorite asset is Treasurys,” said Christine Hurtsellers, chief investment officer for fixed-income at ING Investment Management during a recent press briefing. “We still have a lot, but it’s hard to make the argument for them.”

It’s a tricky problem for bond-fund managers at a time when everyday Americans are trusting them with more of their savings. Among investors, there’s a solid belief that Treasury prices must fall and push interest rates up at some point. But those who have bet on a Treasury market collapse this year got burned.

Bill Gross, the bond-world version of investment sage Warren Buffett, dropped nearly all Treasury holdings from the fund he manages at Pimco in early 2011. He argued that if Republicans held up lifting the government’s borrowing limit, the country would risk default. Borrowing rates would spike as the world’s investors dropped U.S. government debt, just as they have in Europe.

Most of what Gross predicted came true. The debt-limit fight raised worries about default and led to Standard & Poor’s taking away the country’s AAA credit rating in early August. But instead of spiking, U.S. borrowing rates plunged as traders sold everything else to buy U.S. government debt. The race into Treasurys helped drive the entire bond market up 3.8 percent from July to September. Gross got the big picture right but his big bet against Treasurys didn’t pan out. Pimco’s Total Return Fund lost 1.2 percent, its worst quarterly performance in three years.

It’s been a recurring story since the financial crisis hit in 2008. For three years running, pundits have predicted that investors will eventually refuse to finance the U.S. government’s $15 trillion in debt and the Treasury market will collapse. But worries over the U.S. economy and the perilous state of Europe’s financial system keep drawing banks and money managers from around the world back to the U.S. dollar and Treasurys.

That demand continues to push U.S. government bond prices up, the main reason why the Treasury market has returned 8.5 percent this year, despite microscopic yields, according to Bank of America-Merrill Lynch data. The benchmark for stock market funds, the S&P 500 index, has returned less than 1 percent, including dividend payments, and that’s with a 7.4 percent surge over the past week.

“It’s been a pretty strong year for bonds,” said Michael Gitlin, director of fixed income at T. Rowe Price, “and it’s largely a result of Treasurys.”

Judging by the gauges money managers usually check before making a move, buying Treasurys still looks like a bad idea. Consider this sample:

(asterisk) The benchmark 10-year Treasury pays just 2 percent a year. Take inflation into account and the payout on Treasurys equals negative 1.5 percent, what finance types call the real rate.

(asterisk) Treasury yields pay less than top-grade corporate bonds at 3.7 percent and even less than the stock market’s 2 percent dividend yield.

“My colleagues say there’s little value in 10-year (Treasurys) and I’d agree,” Gitlin said. “People have been saying there’s a fixed-income bubble. No, there’s a Treasury bubble.”

If there’s so little to like about U.S. government bonds, why are the world’s investors still buying Treasurys instead of dumping them? In a word, it’s Europe.

As the crisis seemed to spread from country to country this year, the world’s traders plowed more money into Treasurys. The higher the demand for U.S. debt, the lower the interest rate, or yield. So when it looked like Greece might default on its debts earlier this year, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note sank below 3 percent. And when attention turned to Italy and its government debts the yield sank even further, dipping below 2 percent in September. The shift of money out of Europe and into the U.S. has pushed Europe’s borrowing rates to dangerous levels while causing U.S. interest rates to sink.

“You can hate the budget situation and hate the low yield, but if there’s a panic it’s the asset that outperforms,” said Robert Robis, head of fixed-income strategy at ING Investment Management.

A good reason to hold Treasurys, in other words, is that the Treasury market remains the world’s favorite hiding spot. So, for many fund managers Treasurys aren’t exactly an investment. Buying Treasurys is like taking out an insurance contract, Robis said. They’re protection against global financial trouble.

The ING Global Bond fund, for instance, has 15 percent of its $641 million in Treasurys, less than the 20 percent in the benchmark Barclay’s bond index. Robis said having none would be like betting European governments will come to a quick solution to the region’s debt crisis and that the U.S. economy will soon recover its health.

“There’s still a need to hold Treasurys,” Robis said. “Just don’t expect to make a fortune off them.”

Source

Bistate wage gender gap

The wage gap between men and women yawns wider in Missouri and Illinois than elsewhere, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The average full-time woman worker in Missouri made just 75 percent of the average man’s earnings in 2010. Women in Illinois did a little better at 78 percent. The national average is 81 percent.

The bureau doesn’t blame the gap on state-to-state differences in sexism. Instead, it cites “variations in the occupations and industries found in each state and the age composition of each state’s labor force.”

In Missouri, the median weekly wage stood at $813 for men and $616 for women. Illinois was at $814 for men and $634 for women. The national average is $824 for men and $669 for women. (Jim Gallagher)

Ralcorp in ‘buy’ mode

OTTAWA

Stocks edged between small gains and losses Friday afternoon as traders scrutinized a plan to contain Europe’s debt crisis that sent the market soaring a day earlier.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended up nearly 23 points at 12,231. The Dow surged 339 points the day before, its biggest gain since Aug. 11. The Dow is headed for its biggest monthly gain since 1987.

“It’s a kind of sobering-up after a day of partying,” said Jerry Webman, chief economist with Oppenheimer Funds in New York.

European leaders unveiled a plan early Thursday to expand their regional bailout fund and force banks to keep bigger cash buffers. Banks agreed to forgive half of Greece’s debt. The Dow and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index both gained more than 3 percent.

Optimism ebbed on Friday as analysts raised questions about the plan, which lacks many key details. It is not yet clear how the rescue fund will work, for example. European markets mostly fell, and the euro declined against the dollar.

“We got back to what’s more of a square position, closer to where we want to be, and now we’re going to take a couple of deep breaths and reassess what this really means,” Webman said short term personal loan. He said there are still plenty of obstacles to overcome before the crisis is resolved.

One troubling sign: Borrowing costs for Italy and Spain increased, signaling that traders remain worried about their finances.

The S&P 500 index was up less than a point at 1,285. The Nasdaq composite index slipped a little over a point to 2,737.

The Dow is up 11.9 percent this month, the S&P 13.4 percent. Both indexes are on pace to have their best month since January 1987.

In less than four weeks, the Dow has risen 14.5 percent from its 2011 low, reached on Oct. 3. The S&P has gained 16.6 percent in that time. However, the Dow remains 4.8 percent below this year’s high, reached on April 29. The S&P is 6.1 percent below its high.

Source

Enormous oil wealth lies thousands of feet below Libya, but whether it will be claimed, and by whom, now that Moammar Gadhafi is gone is very much an open question.

Drilling and shipping equipment has been damaged in the Libyan civil war, land mines must be cleared around oil fields, and a legal framework for how oil money is collected and distributed must still be worked out.

Whatever government is formed could open vast regions of Libya for drilling at reasonable terms _ or it could demand that foreign oil companies pay exorbitant royalties or require them to build infrastructure in exchange for access to oil.

Libya sits on the biggest reserves of oil in Africa. Those resources could help Libya recover from Gadhafi’s decades-long corruption and the civil war. Or the oil could be kept out of reach by political chaos, crumbling infrastructure or violence.

“It’s extraordinary how the Gadhafi regime squandered so much oil wealth and left it a deprived country in terms of infrastructure,” says Daniel Yergin, chairman of IHS CERA, an energy research firm, and author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the oil industry. “The country will need oil revenues to rebuild and recover.”

The oil industry had already begun to recover in recent months, especially in parts of the country where fighting had long since stopped. Libya is producing about a quarter of the 1.6 million barrels per day of oil it pumped out before the war.

Gadhafi’s death reduces the threat of further fighting in other parts of the country, especially the west and south, where the country’s most important oil fields are. In the best outcome, the national oil company and international companies will soon be able to return to those fields, repair equipment and get oil flowing again.

Analysts say it will take about a year for the country to return to full oil production, but many uncertainties remain.

The country has the potential to someday produce much more oil than it has in recent years, but the oil industry could languish if Libya’s dozens of tribes can’t form a representative government and the country falls into chaos.

The first and most important step is to establish security, experts say. International oil companies with a presence there won’t bring in engineers to assess damage to oil fields and pipelines until they are reasonably sure their workers will be safe.

Gadhafi loyalists are thought to have planted land mines around critical oil infrastructure. Thousands of shoulder-fired missile systems have disappeared from Libyan weapons depots and could be in the hands of Gadhafi loyalists or insurgents.

“If you want to cripple the state, you attack its biggest source of revenue,” says Helima Croft, an analyst for Barclays.

Next, the country must set up a system for oil companies to negotiate contracts for finding, retrieving and selling oil. At least in the interim, it appears that a government oil minister will set policy, such as how much oil companies must pay to extract Libyan oil, and the head of the national oil company will oversee operations.

But the details will probably remain in flux until an interim government can be established. Until then, oil companies can’t be sure that their existing contracts in Libya will remain in effect, although the head of the national oil company has said contracts will be honored at least for a while. It would be up to an elected government to determine whether the contracts would be revised.

What’s most important, analysts say, is that oil companies feel assured that whatever terms are set will not change in the future. Otherwise, they will never agree to spend tens of billions of dollars to repair fields and infrastructure and restore production. Some of the nation’s oil fields, pipelines, refineries and shipping terminals are in relatively good repair, but others are badly damaged.

In general, though, analysts say infrastructure in Libya is in better shape than once feared.

“What we haven’t seen is oil fields blazing,” says Jon Marks, an Africa and Middle East expert with London-based consulting firm Cross-border Information.

Major international oil companies that operated in the country before the civil war, such as Italy’s Eni and Spain’s Repsol, are beginning to assess the situation and restore production in the oil fields offshore and in Libya’s east, long held by anti-Gadhafi forces.

But international oil companies have yet to assess oil fields in the south and west, which produce most of the nation’s oil. U.S. companies that were active in Libya before the war, including Hess Corp. and Marathon Oil Corp. have not returned workers to the country.

Nuri Berruien, the head of the national oil company, told The Associated Press earlier this month that most of the damage appears to be from corrosion. Some older oil fields, such as those of the Sirte basin, require water or natural gas injection to maintain pressure in the reservoir, and that has not been done for more than six months.

Two important oil terminals, which are needed to export oil, are said to be severely damaged, but another is said to have suffered little damage. Also, looters have made off with essential oil field equipment such as power generators, pumps and trucks.

And there are other issues. Many of the country’s most experienced and senior oil engineers are seen by workers as Gadhafi loyalists. At one field, workers are refusing to work until these top engineers are removed.

___

AP Business Writers Tarek El-Tablawy in Kabul, Afghanistan, Alan Clendenning in Madrid, and Adam Schreck in Dubai contributed to this story.

Source

Fewer people bought previously occupied homes in June, putting this year on pace to be the worst for sales since the housing bust.

Home sales fell 0.8 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.77 million homes, the National Association of Realtors said Wednesday. That’s far below the 6 million homes per year that economists say represents a healthy housing market.

Through the first six months of this year, the sales pace is behind last year’s 4.91 million homes sold _ the weakest sales in 13 years. Sales have fallen in four of the past five years.

The Realtors’ group said a record number of people who signed contracts canceled deals last month. And first-time buyers fell to a smaller share of the market.

Declining home prices have kept many people from selling their houses and taking new jobs in growing areas. They have also made people feel less wealthy and that has reduced the consumer spending that drives about 70 percent of economic activity.

Roughly 16 percent of home deals were canceled last month, the highest level since such records began being kept more than a year ago. It was unclear what the chief reason was for the high rate. But some buyers have canceled purchases after appraisals showed that the homes were worth less than the buyers’ initial bids. A sale isn’t final until a mortgage is closed.

First-time homebuyers made up just 31 percent of sales. They normally make up about half of all home sales. First-time buyers are critical to a strong and stable housing market no fax cash advances. They tend to keep their homes for years. What’s more, their purchases of low and moderately priced homes allow sellers to move up to pricier homes.

Bigger down payments, tougher lending rules, high debt and a shortage of desirable starter homes are keeping many would-be buyers away. Even some with good credit and enough money for a down payment are holding off because they are worried home prices will keep falling.

Foreclosures and short sales _ when a lender agrees to sell for less than what is owed on a mortgage _ make up an increasingly large portion of all home sales. And a wave of foreclosures are being held up, either by backlogged courts or lenders awaiting state and federal probes into troubled foreclosure practices.

Re-sold homes are a bargain compared to new homes. The median price of a new home is more than 30 percent higher than the median price for a previously occupied home. That’s twice the normal markup.

A glut of millions of unsold homes is also weighing on prices, forcing sellers to slash their prices in order to grab the attention of potential buyers.

Most economists say home prices will keep falling, by at least 5 percent, through the rest of the year. Many forecasts don’t anticipate a rebound in prices until at least 2013.

Source

Wells Fargo & Co. says its second-quarter profit rose 30 percent, boosted by a release of reserves set aside to cover souring loans as its customers continued to improve their loan and credit card payments.

The San Francisco bank says its net income rose to $3.73 billion, or 70 cents per share, in the three months ended June 30. Wall Street was expecting 69 cents per share, on average.

Revenue edged down 5 percent to $20.39 billion, just short of analyst estimates for $20.43 billion. Revenue in its largest segment, community banking, fell credit score.

The largest contributor to the quarter’s results came from a $1 billion release from the money set aside to cover uncollected loans and credit card bills, as the amount written off from bad loans dropped.

In premarket trading, Wells Fargo shares added 33 cents to $27.21 per share.

Source

The economy’s continuing struggles aren’t just confounding ordinary Americans. They’ve also stumped the head of the Federal Reserve.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told reporters Wednesday that the central bank had been caught off guard by recent signs of deterioration in the economy. And he said the troubles could continue into next year.

“We don’t have a precise read on why this slower pace of growth is persisting,” Bernanke said. He said the weak housing market and problems in the banking system might be “more persistent than we thought.”

It was the Fed chief’s most explicit warning yet that the economy will face serious challenges next year. For several months, he had said the factors working against economic growth appeared to be “transitory.”

The Fed cut its forecast for economic growth this year to a range of 2.7 percent to 2.9 percent from an April forecast of 3.1 percent to 3.3 percent. It also cut its forecast for next year to a range of 3.3 percent to 3.7 percent from an earlier 3.5 percent to 4.2 percent. The Fed also said unemployment would stay higher than it had expected earlier.

In a policy statement issued at the end of a two-day meeting, the Fed blamed the worsening economic outlook in part on higher energy prices and the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, which slowed production of cars and other products.

But at a press conference afterward, the second of what the Fed says will be regular question-and-answer sessions with reporters, Bernanke conceded the economy’s troubles are more puzzling and potentially more long-lasting than a pair of temporary shocks.

The Fed announcement, at 12:30 p.m., had little effect on the stock and bond markets. Bernanke began speaking at 2:15, and stocks started falling at about 2:30, when he acknowledged that some of the economy’s problems could linger into next year. The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 80 points for the day.

The Fed’s statement Wednesday stood in contrast to the Fed’s more upbeat view when officials last met, eight weeks ago. At that time, the central bank said the job market was gradually improving.

Since then, the economic news has been gloomy. The government reported that the economy grew at an annual rate of only 1.8 percent in the first three months of the year. It isn’t expected to grow much faster in the current quarter. The economy added 54,000 jobs in May, far fewer than in the previous two months. Consumer spending has weakened, too.

The bad economic news is taking a political toll on President Barack Obama personal loans for people with bad credit. For the first time this year, an Associated Press-GfK poll found that fewer than 50 percent of respondents believe Obama deserves re-election. Obama’s overall approval rating fell to 52 percent in the new poll. It had risen as high as 60 percent after the U.S. raid last month in Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden.

The new Fed statement acknowledged a slowdown over the past two months. “They see the weakness,” said Bruce McCain, chief investment strategist at Key Private Bank. “You can hear their concern about economic weakness despite their hope it is likely to be temporary.”

The Fed stuck to its plan to bring an end this month to a program to help the economy by buying $600 billion in government bonds. The Fed also intends to keep short-term interest rates near zero “for an extended period,” a phrase it has been using the past two years. Though the central bank noted that inflation has risen, it expects that to be temporary as well.

The Fed has kept rates at ultra-low levels since December 2008. Abandoning the promise to keep them there for an “extended period” would be viewed as a signal that the Fed is preparing to raise interest rates. Many private economists think it will be another full year before the economy has recovered enough for the Fed to do it.

Economists looking for clues to the Fed’s next move didn’t get much help Wednesday. “There’s no obvious hint of tightening here,” said Jim O’Sullivan, chief economist at MF Global. “There’s no hint of new easing.”

The bond-buying program has been controversial. Supporters say the bond purchases have kept interest rates low and encouraged spending. Low long-term rates make it easier to buy homes and cars and for companies to expand.

They also argue that those lower rates fueled a stock rally. Since Bernanke outlined plans for the program last August, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index is up 24 percent. Lower rates made stocks more attractive to investors than bonds, whose yields were falling.

The average rate on a 30-year mortgage has stayed below 5 percent for all but two weeks this year and was 4.5 percent last week. But low rates haven’t helped home sales much. They fell in May to the lowest level since November.

Critics, including some Fed officials, saw things differently. They warned that by pumping so much money into the economy, the Fed increased the risks of high inflation later.

Source