Financial life in a big town

The Czech government

Quote and apply online or speak with an agent in your area. Compare health insurance plans for individuals and families.

Threatened last year with demolition, the historic “flying saucer” building in midtown St. Louis soon will be an emporium for $6 lattes and gourmet burritos.

Starbucks and Chipotle are near completion of leases for the former Del Taco outlet near St. Louis University. Developers plan to renovate and expand the unusually shaped building in time for the start of SLU’s fall semester.

Hany Abounader, a partner in the development, said the building, at 212 South Grand Boulevard, will serve as a southern gateway to midtown.

“It’s going to be a landmark for the SLU campus and the Grand Center area,” he said.

Preservation of the building, erected in the 1960s as a Phillips 66 gas station, represents a turnabout for the owner, Rick Yackey, who last year sought city permission to replace the structure with a conventional retail building. His effort prompted protests from preservationists and sidewalk demonstrations.

Yackey at first insisted that the saucer’s preservation made no economic sense. But after the only occupant — a Del Taco — closed last summer, Yackey said he would keep the building and hunt for new tenants. The outcry against demolition affected his decision, he said this month.

“Frankly, we got a lot of pushback from a lot of people,” he said.

Those favoring preservation said the saucer is a prized example of mid-century modern architecture. It is within a district of low-rise and high-rise residential buildings on the National Register of Historic Places.

Starbucks and Chipotle had yet to sign lease agreements but Yackey and Abounader said they are confident the two national chains will occupy the building when it opens in August or September.

A Chipotle spokesman said Thursday the company does not comment on new outlets until leases are signed. A Starbucks representative was unavailable for comment. 

The developers will preserve the round concrete roof and erect a mostly glass addition on the east side of the building to house Chipotle easy pay day loans. Starbucks will use much of the original building, which will get new glass walls to reproduce the structure’s original see-through appearance. The businesses will seat about 100 people combined, plus 50 more on a patio beneath the saucer’s broad overhang. Starbucks will have a drive-thru window.

Randy Vines, a Cherokee Street businessman who helped organize the save-the-saucer effort last summer, cheered the decision to preserve the structure.

“Although most of us would have preferred local businesses, the preservation and rehabilitation of the iconic saucer has always been our primary goal,” he said. “Thanks to Rick Yackey for choosing vision over generica.”

Yackey said the $2.5 million development will produce a 4,400-square-foot building half the size of the commercial structure he had initially proposed for the site. State historic preservation tax credits will help fund the saucer project but the trick was finding suitable tenants, he said.

“We always liked the building,” Yackey said. “The problem was making it work economically.”

Fifty of the more than 17,000 Starbucks coffee shops worldwide are in the St. Louis area. The midtown Chipotle will add to the chain’s eight quick-Mexican food outlets in the region. Chipotle has more than 1,200 restaurants.

Abounader, a commercial real estate broker at Balke Brown, said he believes the reborn saucer will be a catalyst for further retail development in the immediate area. He and Yackey are marketing two nearby buildings with a total of about 9,000 square feet of space. Both are within The Flats at 374, a residential complex for 300 SLU students.

“We’ve got tons of interest from local and national retailers to take that space,” Abounader said. “We’re looking for the type of retail opportunity that can serve this community and the students.”

Source

Payday loan online from $100 to 1000 loan payday with no faxing. Get a cash advance loan now. Click here for immediate funding.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Monday banks need to have more capital at hand in order to ensure the financial system is stable.

Bernanke said regulators were taking steps to force financial institutions to hold higher capital buffers, even if they allow for a long period of implementation to prevent any market disruptions.

“We need to have higher capital, and that’s what Basel III does,” he said in response to questions at an Atlanta Fed conference, referring to the latest international effort to tighten bank oversight. “That’s essential for a stable financial system.”

Bernanke made the comments the same day that an international bank lobby group, the Institute of International Finance, urged policymakers to pause in regulating the industry.

Toughened capital standards, new liquidity requirements and rules that limit activities all restrict banks’ ability to provide businesses and households with the credit needed to lift economic growth, the IIF said in a letter to central bankers and finance ministers.

Whether big banks have sufficient levels of capital to protect against possible losses has been an ongoing source of contention. A call by the head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, last year for European banks to raise up to 200 billion euros in new capital was quickly rejected by European politicians.

In his prepared remarks on Monday, Bernanke said the U.S. economy has yet to fully recover from the effects of the financial crisis, and regulators must continue to find new ways to strengthen the banking system.

“The heavy human and economic costs of the crisis underscore the importance of taking all necessary steps to avoid a repeat of the events of the past few years,” Bernanke said.

In a speech that did not touch directly on the outlook for economic growth or monetary policy, Bernanke focused on the lingering blind spots for financial authorities trying to prevent a repeat of the 2008-2009 meltdown.

He said financial stability matters had historically played second fiddle to monetary policy issues in the list of central bank priorities, but the crisis changed that.

“Financial stability policy has taken on greater prominence and is now generally considered to stand on an equal footing with monetary policy as a critical responsibility of central banks,” he said.

Bernanke said recent bank stress tests will become a regular feature of the supervisory landscape, and for that reason the latest round of tests is being reviewed to identify possible areas of improvement in “execution and communication.”

He reiterated a worry that he and other top policymakers have expressed about the continued vulnerability of money market funds.

“Additional steps to increase the resiliency of money market funds are important for the overall stability of our financial system and warrant serious consideration,” Bernanke said.

“The risk of runs … remains a concern, particularly since some of the tools that policymakers employed to stem the runs during the crisis are no longer available,” he said.

Read more

China reported its biggest monthly trade deficit in at least a decade in February as imports rebounded after a Lunar New Year holiday slowdown, but a broader measure showed global and Chinese demand both weakening.

Exports grew 18.4 percent over a year earlier to $114.5 billion, up from a 0.5 percent contraction in January, when factories were idled for a two-week holiday break, customs data showed Saturday. Imports jumped 39.6 percent to $145.9 billion, reviving after the previous month’s 15 percent decline.

China’s global trade deficit was $31.5 billion _ the biggest since at least the 1990s and a rare exception to a recent string of multibillion-dollar surpluses.

The deficit reflected China’s relatively strong growth amid Europe’s debt crisis and U.S. economic troubles. The economy expanded by 8.9 percent in the final quarter of 2011 and the government’s growth target this year is 7.5 percent.

But a broader measure, combining February’s strong showing with the January slump, showed growth in both imports and exports decelerating markedly.

January-February export growth slowed to 6.9 percent over the same two-month period last year, barely half of December’s 13.4 percent rate. Imports for the two months rose 7.7 percent, down from December’s 11.8 percent.

Analysts look at the combined period to offset the impact of the Lunar New Year, which comes at different times in January or February each year, distorting trade figures as producers rush to fill orders before closing for two weeks or more.

Chinese demand for oil, iron ore, other commodities and industrial components has cooled as export-driven factories see orders fall and Beijing tries to steer its overheated expansion to a sustainable level.

China often records a trade deficit for one month early in the year as factories restock after the holiday, but rarely as large as February’s. Last year, the only monthly deficit was $7.3 billion in February, while surpluses hit a high of $31.5 billion in July.

January’s trade declines were the sharpest since the 2008 global crisis.

China is one of the biggest importers and the top export market for many of its Asian neighbors and commodity suppliers as far away as Australia and Africa, which means cooling demand could have global repercussions.

The International Monetary Fund is forecasting 8.2 percent growth this year but has warned that could fall by as much as half if Europe, China’s biggest export market, suffers a severe decline in activity due to its debt woes.

Exports to the 27-nation European Union contracted by 1.1 percent in February from a year earlier to $19.4 billion, the General Administration of Customs of China reported. China’s trade surplus with Europe contracted by 79 percent to $1.6 billion.

Despite the surge in imports, China’s politically sensitive trade surplus with the United States rose by 1 percent to $8.1 billion.

Source

Gas prices are spiking. But this time, Detroit is ready.

When prices soared in 2008, the city’s three U.S. automakers were caught flat-footed. They didn’t have competitive small cars and relied on trucks and SUVs for profits. When gas prices peaked at $4.12 in July of that year, sales from the Big Three plummeted more than 20 percent. That same month, sales of the fuel-sipping Toyota Corolla jumped 16 percent.

Fast forward to February 2012. Overall U.S. auto sales rose 16 percent to 1.1 million last month, largely on the strength of Detroit’s small cars. The annual sales pace hit 15.1 million, the best rate in four years.

This time, the Detroit Three saw a 13-percent sales increase. The difference: They have spent billions since 2008 to roll out new models such as the Dodge Dart and Chevrolet Cruze.

The timing is fortunate. Buyers are shifting to small cars again. Twenty-three percent of new-car sales were small cars in February, up from 17.9 percent in December, according to auto information site Edmunds.com.

So far, the shift isn’t as dramatic as it was in 2008, when small-car sales leaped to 27 percent of the market in May as gas suddenly spiked to near $4 per gallon. But prices have never been as high for this time of year. The price of a gallon of gas is up 46 cents this year to an average of $3.74. Analysts say gas could hit $4.25 by late April.

It bodes well for Detroit, which has a newfound confidence that it can weather the pain at the pump.

“We are very well positioned as a company to thrive in a world of escalating gasoline prices,” Bill Ford, chairman of Ford Motor Co, told The Associated Press in a recent interview.

Sales of the Focus small car, which Ford rolled out last year, more than doubled to 23,350, making it the best February for the Focus in 12 years. The new Focus gets up to 40 mpg on the highway, seven miles per gallon better than the 2008 model. The company’s sales were up 14 percent in February compared to the same month last year.

The story is the same at General Motors Co. In July 2008, Honda Motor Co. sold 12,266 Fit subcompacts, besting the Chevrolet Aveo by nearly 5,000 cars. But GM recently replaced the unappealing, underpowered Aveo with the sportier Sonic, which gets up to 40 mpg on the highway and has luxurious options like heated side mirrors. The company sold 8,000 Sonics in February, outselling the Honda Fit and Toyota Yaris combined.

Don Johnson, GM’s U.S. sales chief, said that three years ago, just 16 percent of the cars and trucks GM sold got over 30 mpg on the highway. Now, it’s close to 40 percent.

“We believe that this puts us in a very strong competitive position,” Johnson said Thursday. GM’s sales rose 1 percent in February.

Even Chrysler Group, whose lineup is weighted toward SUVs and big cars, will become a bigger player in the small car market this spring, when the new Dodge Dart goes on sale. In the meantime, its Fiat 500 subcompact had its best month ever in February, helping Chrysler’s sales climb 40 percent.

Carl Galeana, who owns a Fiat dealership north of Detroit, said sales were flat in the first part of the month but picked up the last two weeks as gas prices jumped. Shoppers were constantly asking about the fuel economy of the 500, which can get up to 38 mpg on the highway, Galeana said.

“All of the sudden, boom! We’re starting to sell Fiats,” Galeana said.

Japanese carmakers are also benefitting. In 2008, they saw sales slide because they couldn’t make their most efficient cars, like the Toyota Prius hybrid, quickly enough to satisfy demands. But this February, Toyota’s sales rose, led by a 52-percent jump in the Prius hybrid. Honda’s sales were also up, thanks to a 36-percent increase for the small Civic.

Bigger vehicles from both U.S. and Japanese automakers are also less vulnerable to gas spikes, since they get better gas mileage than they did in 2008. Ford’s new Explorer SUV, which came out last year, sits lower and is more aerodynamic to save fuel. It gets up to 28 mpg on the highway; its 2008 predecessor didn’t even get 20. Honda’s new CR-V gets up to 31 mpg compared to 27 for the 2008 model.

But many buyers are still choosing to downsize. Dennis Beshear of Monument, Colo., recently bought a new Focus for his 100-mile round-trip commute to Denver. The advertising salesman now gets around 35 miles per gallon, up from just 21 mpg in the 2006 Nissan Murano crossover SUV he used to drive. He fills up the Focus every third day, compared with every day and a half with the Murano.

Gas prices were his main motive for buying.

“I had a feeling they were going to go up. They were just too good to be true,” he said.

For automakers, there’s tough competition ahead for small cars. They’re trying to make them more profitable by loading them up with pricey features such as leather seats and navigation systems. As a result, prices are rising. Vehicles sold for an average of $30,605 last month, up almost 7 percent from a year earlier, mostly due to more luxurious small cars, according to the TrueCar.com automotive website.

Companies that don’t move fast enough in the small-car market will be hurt.

The Honda Civic, Chevrolet Cruze and Ford Focus all gained market share in the compact car segment last month, with some of the sales coming at the expense of Toyota’s aging Corolla, said Jeff Schuster, senior vice president of forecasting for the LMC Automotive consulting firm. That’s a very different story than 2008, when the Corolla was the runaway best-seller in the segment.

The shift to smaller cars is becoming a regular pattern. Buyers also leaned toward smaller cars at the beginning of last year, when gas prices jumped 80 cents between February and May before moderating in the summer. Last March, when gas prices reached $3.74 per gallon, 23 percent of buyers purchased small cars. But they went back into bigger cars once gas prices eased.

Edmunds chief economist Lacey Plache said rising gas prices won’t make car buyers hold off on purchases altogether. That’s because they’re more confident about the jobs market and because cars on U.S. roads are getting so old that they have to be replaced. She says people will simply put more emphasis on fuel economy and cut back on the miles they drive.

Source

Ferrari will unveil its fastest street car ever at next month’s Geneva Motor Show.

The Ferrari F12berlinetta is intended to replace the 599, which is currently the automaker’s top-of-the-line production car. The 599 has a starting price of about $310,000. Pricing for the F12berlinetta has not yet been announced.

The new car will be powered by a 730-horsepower, 6.3-liter V12 engine. It will be capable of going from zero to 60 miles an hour in about three seconds — the fastest zero-to-60 time for any Ferrari — with a top speed of 211 miles per hour.

In addition to being faster, Ferrari said the F12berlinetta also more fuel-efficient. The new car uses 30% less fuel than the 599, which would put its combined city and highway fuel economy at about 17 miles per gallon.

Gallery: Consumer Reports’ Top car picks

The F12berlinetta is a mid-front-engined coupe, Ferrari said. The engine is mounted as far back under the hood and as low as possible to optimize the car’s balance and center of gravity. Ferrari also promises "exceptional in-car space and comfort" despite an overall smaller size.

Last year, Ferrari had record sales and profits. It sold a total of 7,200 cars worldwide while earning a profit of $280 million. Almost 2,000 of the cars were sold in the United States, which was also a record for the brand.

Ferrari is almost wholly owned by Italy’s Fiat, which is partnered with Chrysler Group in the United States. 

Source

Lowe’s Cos. said Monday its fiscal fourth-quarter net income rose 13 percent, better than analysts expected, as homeowners took on more home-improvement projects during mild winter months.

The results are the latest sign that the housing sector may slowly be improving. Last week, Lowe’s larger rival Home Depot Inc. reported its fourth-quarter profit rose for similar reasons.

“We have seen an uptick in activity,” Lowe’s CEO Robert Niblock said in a telephone interview. “We did have favorable weather, but even beyond that there’s a greater willingness of the consumer to spend.”

Home repair and maintenance are still the biggest projects people take on, he said, with demand for larger-scale renovations such as kitchen remodeling still lagging, Niblock said.

The company has also been moving away limited-time sales in favor of lowering prices permanently in some areas to better compete with chief rival Home Depot. Niblock said the price-cutting is largely complete and now the company is working with vendors to lower costs.

He declined to give specifics on how much the company has lowered prices, but said some categories, like appliances, will still see periodic sales rather than across-the-board price cuts.

Lowe’s reported net income of $322 million, or 26 cents per share, for the period ended Feb. 3. That’s up from $285 million, or 21 cents per share, a year earlier.

The most recent quarter included 3 cents per share for store closings and other items. Removing those items, earnings were 29 cents per share.

Analysts predicted 24 cents per share, according to a FactSet survey. Analysts’ estimates typically exclude unusual items.

Revenue rose to $11.63 billion from $10.48 billion, topping Wall Street’s estimate of $11.35 billion.

The Mooresville, N.C., company said that an extra week in the period contributed $766 million to its sales and about 5 cents per share to its earnings.

Revenue at stores open at least a year rose 3.4 percent overall and 3.5 percent in the U.S. This metric is a key indicator of a retailer’s health because it excludes results from stores recently opened or closed.

For the full year, Lowe’s earnings declined 9 percent to $1.84 billion, or $1.43 per share, from $2.01 billion, or $1.42 per share, a year earlier. Annual revenue rose 3 percent to $50.21 billion from $48.82 billion.

Revenue at stores open at least a year was nearly flat for the year.

One analyst said Lowe’s was moving in the right direction.

“We continue to believe that a housing recovery is coming, and when it arrives we would expect even stronger (revenue in stores open at least one year) and margin expansion,” said Credit Suisse analyst Gary Balter, who rates the company “Outperform.”

Lowe’s predicts fiscal 2012 earnings of $1.75 to $1.85 per share. Revenue is expected to rise 1 percent to 2 percent, which implies $50.69 billion to $51.2 billion.

Analysts foresee full-year earnings of $1.81 per share on revenue of $50.23 billion.

Lowe’s had 1,745 stores in the U.S., Canada and Mexico at the quarter’s end.

Its shares rose 11 cents to $27.27 in morning trading.

Source

Turkey stands by its forecast of 4 percent growth this year, Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan said, dismissing International Monetary Fund projections that the economy may barely expand.

The global environment is uncertain and there are major decisions to be taken in developed nations in the next four or five weeks that could change the outlook completely, Babacan said in a televised interview from Davos today. The IMF is

French President Nicolas Sarkozy bluntly declared Monday that a harsh downgrade by Standard & Poor’s of France’s formerly top-rung debt rating “changes nothing” for the eurozone’s No. 2 economy.

Sarkozy, in a testy exchange with a journalist at a Madrid news conference, suggested that a solid investor demand for a French debt auction Monday and a reaffirmation from rival ratings agency Moody’s of France’s triple-A sovereign debt had offset S&P’s much-publicized downgrade.

“We have to react to this with calm, by taking a step back,” he told reporters during a visit with Spain’s new prime minister, Mariano Rajoy. “At the core, my conviction is that it changes nothing.”

The S&P downgrade Friday _ which Sarkozy’s own finance minister called “bad news” _ came just 100 days before the president faces what is expected to be a tough re-election campaign.

The news conference began combatively when Sarkozy refused to answer a question about whether France’s downgrade would affect its ability to lead Europe out of the crisis _ and if the move prompted the postponement of a crisis summit for him and the leaders of Germany and Italy next week.

Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have taken the lead in proposing solutions to the crisis and major decisions are often hashed out at their meetings ahead of European summits.

“You don’t have the latest information,” Sarkozy retorted to a reporter who asked about the downgrade and the summit. Sarkozy refused to answer even after the reporter rephrased his question twice.

The French leader later confirmed that the three-way summit would take place in February and downplayed the S&P downgrade, but never gave a clear answer as to why the summit was rescheduled.

Sarkozy did manage to win much-needed political support from Rajoy _ notably for his pet project for a financial transaction tax that could help ailing European state coffers get out of the red.

France, which has long enjoyed relatively low borrowing costs and had S&P’s top-tier AAA rating uninterrupted since the mid-1970s, on Friday was the largest of nine eurozone members hit by S&P downgrades _ dropping one notch to AA+. The agency also kept a negative outlook on French state debt.

Analysts said Sarkozy’s denial that the downgrade meant much was wishful thinking guaranteed payday loan.

“The fact that there is a negative outlook, it means that there is a probability _ a quite high probability _ of further downgrade in 2012, 2013,” said French economist Norbert Gaillard. “So it’s bad news for France.”

But in a vindication of sorts for Sarkozy, France sold euro8.6 billion ($10.9 billion) in short-term debt on Monday. The yields _ or the interest rates charged by investors on the debt _ fell, a sign investors still see the country as a good bet.

Spain was also hit by an S&P downgrade, from AA- to A+, but Rajoy said that blow and downgrades for other European nations shouldn’t be seen as a sign they will have trouble emerging from the financial crisis.

Rajoy’s Socialist predecessor also supported the financial transaction tax, but Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero was ousted from office by Spaniards angry about the country’s hurting economy and high unemployment.

The European Commission has estimated that the tax could raise as much as euro57 billion ($72.2 billion) a year, funds that could be used to help reduce the substantial budget deficits crippling European economies.

Moody’s cited France’s economic strength as a reason for affirming its top rating, but said bleak growth prospects in France and the region present “risks to the French government’s fiscal consolidation plans.”

Moody’s said it would again review French debt later in the first quarter as part of a broader look at sovereign debt within the EU _ meaning a decision is likely close to France’s two-round presidential vote in April and May.

Sarkozy’s challengers for the presidency _ including Socialist nominee Francois Hollande _ have seized on the S&P downgrade as evidence that his policies are wrong-headed and ineffective.

It will be a bruising election battle for Sarkozy, a dynamic leader who has a strong international profile but is widely disliked at home. Leftists say he has coddled the rich, while many of those who supported him in his 2007 campaign say he hasn’t fulfilled his promises.

And Hollande is currently leading in the polls.

Source

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