Financial life in a big town

The most hyped IPO of the year is here, but you won’t be able to trade Facebook’s stock right when the market opens at 9:30 on Friday.

That’s because Facebook () will trade on the Nasdaq exchange, which doesn’t open up initial public offerings until a bit later in the trading session.

"It’s not a delay or a problem, just a matter of style," said a source familiar with Nasdaq’s process. "We want to have an IPO stand alone at its own special time."

The company in question — right now, that’s Facebook — can decide when to debut and works with Nasdaq to set the time. Technically, an IPO stock could even start trading in the afternoon, as long as it’s well before the closing bell at 4 p.m. ET.

But most recent Nasdaq IPOs have typically begun trading a few minutes before 11 a.m. ET. That’s when Groupon (), Zynga () and Angie’s List () made their debuts.

Still, the opening times vary. For example, Splunk () began trading on the Nasdaq at 11:20 a.m. on April 19. The next day, Proofpoint () opened at 10:25 a.m.

A representative from Nasdaq declined to comment on what time Facebook’s stock will open on Friday.

The trading site StreetInsider.com typically posts that information as soon as it’s available. StreetInsider editor Lon Juricic says the site gets its timing information after Nasdaq releases it to traders in the morning.

How it works: On the morning that an IPO begins trading on the Nasdaq, the exchange starts a process called the "IPO cross." During that time, traders can submit buy and sell orders. The Nasdaq matches up those orders in real-time on its electronic marketplace — a process that typically takes 40 microseconds or less.

Those orders can be entered into the system, but they aren’t actually completed until the stock begins trading.

"It’s really business as usual," a source close to Nasdaq said of the plans for Friday’s trading. "Same policies, same procedures. This time there are just more questions because it’s Facebook."

By comparison, the New York Stock Exchange starts trading IPOs soon after the opening bell. Recent IPOs LinkedIn (), Pandora (), Yelp () and Annie’s () all began trading on the NYSE by 10 a.m.

– CNNMoney’s Hibah Yousuf contributed reporting. 

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They lacked a business plan, site review or financial feasibility study.

What Ron and Ruth Carter did have, however, was a wealth of kitsch accumulated at flea market and garage sales, along with an ideal locale to peddle the stuff.

Gifts and Decorations requires no introduction to anyone who has driven along North Kingshighway near Delmar Boulevard.

It’s tough to miss the queen-sized Notorious B.I.G. bedspread or the array of themed rugs and wall motifs adorning the storefront where Kingshighway meets Vernon Avenue. 

A sidewalk inventory sheltered only by an awning did not occur by happenstance.

“We pretty much have to put everything outside,” Ron Carter explains. “Nobody will know if we’re here if we sit inside eating jelly donuts. There’s not a lot of windows here.”

Statistics tracking the longevity of small businesses can be confusing.

A 2010 United Capital Funding study that drew on several sources, including data from the U.S. Census, Commerce Department and Small Business Administration is probably closest to the mark. It calculates that the small business survival rate is 49 percent for five years, 34 percent for ten years and only 26 percent for ten years or more.

How, then, to explain the staying power of Gifts and Decorations? This year, the Carters will commemorate a quarter century of selling DVDs, CDs, scarves, ponytail bungees, socks, dirty magazines, mass-produced art and  rugs, including one with the indelible image of the late reggae icon Bob Marley toking a joint.

Carter, 61, gives a simple answer: “It’s not just caring about what you sell. It’s how you treat people, too.”

Gifts and Decorations traces its roots to a spot a few blocks east and south, along Lindell Boulevard. There, Carter — then an elementary school arts teacher — sold handcrafted ashtrays, statuary and figurines molded from plaster of Paris in the early 1980s.

The figurine and ashtray market proved to be fairly successful.

But as the collection of knick-knacks picked up at the flea markets, and other sales approached critical mass, the Carters decided to broaden their inventory.

When the couple – married 35 years – set up shop on Kingshighway in November 1987, the stretch included a beauty shop, a barber shop, a repair shop, a Chop Suey joint and a bar. 

The Carters gradually took over the neighboring real estate as each of the businesses dropped away. Eventually, Gifts and Decorations occupied the entire building.

But only for the purpose of storage. For rare is the customer that makes it past the entrance of 1158 North Kingshighway.

Peddler such impulse buys on the sidewalk is “a lot easier than trying to get them through the door,” Carter says.

Outdoor merchandising captures the peripheral vision of the driving public payday loan no faxing. That’s key to attracting passerby shoppers like Helen King, who pulled curbside after spotting a framed Last Supper triptych, in which artist Wolfgang Otto cast people of color as Christ and his disciples.

“Ten dollars,” King said, loading the print into her car. “You can’t beat it.”

Rotating or rearranging the inventory on a daily basis is another marketing trick. Close observers of Carter’s downmarket bazaar will notice the Betty Boop bedspread, for example, rarely hangs in the same spot.

“That’s another secret,” said Carter. “Don’t put (stuff) in the same place everyday.”

Of course, there’s a downside to conducting business in the great out-of-doors.

Winter isn’t the problem.

“Snow is not so bad, it comes down slow and you can get the stuff inside,” said Carter.

It’s the other seasons, with the storms that tend to descend on St. Louis out of nowhere, that pose the biggest threat.

It takes the Carters about an hour each morning to wheel out the smaller inventory and clamp the rugs and bedspreads to the clothesline running the length of the building.

Carter has never put it to a stopwatch. But he assures it takes a lot less time to get the merchandise inside when high winds and thunderbolts erupt without warning.

Carter says business has dropped off since a city health inspector two years ago ordered Gifts and Decorations to halt the sale of frozen ice – which the Carters call “snow balls.”

“Everybody liked our snowballs, because we gave them a lot of juice,” he said. “And when people stopped for a snowball, there was no telling what else they’d buy.”

Carter is keenly aware that sidewalk transactions, even after 25 years, doesn’t fit the traditional business model.

But he points out that Gifts and Decorations is as vulnerable to the market and economic forces as the grocer across the street or the auto parts supplier on the next block.

Besides taking a hit in the recession, Gifts and Decorations is engaged in constant give and take with wholesalers over the cost of the Chinese goods that dominate the inventory. And the Carters grind their teeth over the bane of businesses of every shape and size – taxes.

Ron Carter may complain that “I don’t know if I’ll be in business that much longer if they keep raising my taxes.”

Still, the couple allows that a healthy supply of merchandise is stockpiled beyond those doors that his customers never enter.

And nearly 25 years after they first arrived at the corner of North Kingshighway and Vernon, they have no plans to clear the sidewalk anytime soon.

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JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon was overwhelmingly optimistic Monday — but was quick to say things would be even better were it not for government policies.

His reasons for optimism: the world’s strongest military, best businesses, most entrepreneurial workforce and deepest capital markets. "We have the royal straight flush," Dimon told Fortune.

So what’s the problem? Dimon cited three examples of where the government went wrong: The debt ceiling crisis, the failure to adopt Simpson-Bowles and what he calls the "constant attack on business."

When asked why, at a time of record profits, Corporate America isn’t hiring more, Dimon said American businesses had added 4 million jobs in the past two years no fax needed payday loans. "I don’t think government policy had anything to do with it," Dimon said. "It should have been 8 million.

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Stock markets recovered around the world following an early stumble caused by election results in France and Greece that appeared to jeopardize Europe’s plans for fighting its debt crisis.

Greek voters over the weekend punished mainstream politicians who had backed cost-cutting plans demanded by the country’s international lenders, leaving the country without clear leadership. In France President Nicolas Sarkozy was thrown out in favor of Socialist Francois Hollande, who pledged “to finish with austerity.”

Investors on Monday worried that the shifting political landscape in Europe could undermine the region’s long battle to keep its shared currency intact and restore the faith of global investors. European markets slumped early on, but closed higher after worries about the political changes dissipated and investors focused on Hollande’s pledges to encourage economic growth.

Investors were also relieved after Spain announced a plan to present measures this week to support the country’s ailing banks. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said he would not rule out lending or injecting public money into the country’s financial system.

Stocks rose sharply in Spain, ending up 2.7 percent. France’s main index gained 1.7 percent. The euro also recovered ground it lost against the dollar.

In the U.S., the Dow Jones industrial average fell as much as 68 points in early trading, but recouped its losses and even gained 10 points by the afternoon. The Dow finished the day down 29.74 points, or 0.2 percent, at 13,008.53.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 also started the day lower but ended up 0.48 points at 1,369.58. The Nasdaq composite index rose 1.4 points to 2,957.76.

The election results in Europe showed that voters were rejecting the extreme belt-tightening required by international bailouts and favored by Germany’s leadership.

Investors are waiting hear the newly-elected leaders articulate their visions for how to deal with the euro zone’s debt crisis, which is why there is a muted reaction from stock markets, according Kim Caughey-Forrest, equity research analyst at investment firm Fox Pitt Capital Group.

“There is no reason to cry until you get hurt,” said Caughey-Forrest.

The verdict from European voters will likely force leaders there to go back to the table and come up with more acceptable solutions to the debt crisis that has plagued many nations. The deep cuts in government spending have already worsened the situation in many countries, leading them into deeper economic distress and increasing already high unemployment.

Many believe the austerity programs are necessary to keep bond investors from panicking about the possibility that more European nations will default or require bailouts Faxless payday loans.

However, a growing number of politicians, like France’s Hollande, say the cuts have been too much, too fast. They say the region’s economy can’t return to growth unless governments stop tightening the fiscal noose and start spending again to create demand. Some economists also now believe that the cuts have to be accompanied by some government economic stimulus to promote growth.

“We are going to hear a more balanced prescription coming out of the European leadership,” said Quincy Krosby, a market strategist at insurer Prudential Financial. “The elections were a strong message for pro-austerity leaders from the people.”

Initially, traders also bought up ultra-safe Treasurys overnight when stock markets in Europe were falling. That pushed the yield on the 10-year note as low as 1.83 percent early Monday morning, a level it hadn’t reached since early February. However, the yield rebounded to 1.88 percent in late trading, the same level it was at late Friday.

Earlier in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei index plunged 2.8 percent to its lowest finish in three months. In addition to Europe’s elections, it was also the first time for investors in Asia to react to a weak jobs report Friday in the U.S. Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng index slid 2.6 percent.

Among U.S. stocks that made big moves:

_ Disney rose 2 percent after its movie “The Avengers” pulled in $80.5 million in its domestic debut Friday, the second-best haul ever on opening day. The movie was made by Disney’s Marvel Studios unit and is based on Marvel Comics heroes.

_ Cognizant Technology Solutions plunged 19 percent after the information technology services provider lowered its forecast for the full year on low demand, echoing the bleak outlook from other rivals due to uncertainty in the global economy.

_ Meat products maker Tyson Foods rose over 3 percent after reporting an increase in its second-quarter profit on higher beef and chicken prices.

_ Frontier Communications fell 7 percent after the regional telecommunications provider said it was losing residential and business customers. The company had bought rural landlines from Verizon Communications two years ago, which led to several quarters of growth last year.

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Post-Dispatch Editor Arnie Robbins announced Friday that he will step down this month. Editorial Page Editor Gilbert Bailon will take over, becoming the paper’s eighth editor in its 134-year history.

Robbins, 59, has led the Post-Dispatch since 2005, after seven years as managing editor.

The last seven years have been a tumultuous time for the newspaper industry, including the Post-Dispatch. The paper has endured falling print circulation and several rounds of newsroom layoffs and buyouts. But it also has seen website visitors nearly double since 2007 and has been named a finalist for the industry’s top honor, the Pulitzer Prize, three times in the last four years.

Despite the economic challenges, Robbins made his mark on the paper and the St. Louis region, said publisher Kevin Mowbray.

“Arnie has done a fabulous job managing this newsroom through change, with honor and grace,” Mowbray said. “I’m really sad to see him go.”

In a speech to the newsroom Friday afternoon, Robbins stressed that he alone decided to step down, wanting “balance in my life.” He started considering it seriously on a hiking trip earlier this year.

That decision, Robbins said, comes with mixed emotions.

“I’ll miss walking around the newsroom. I won’t miss waking up at 3 a.m. and worrying about the newsroom,” he said. “We’ve been through a lot together. I’m happy, but I’m sad.”

Robbins said he has no immediate plans, that he might explore university or foundation work, and that he and his wife hope to stay in St. Louis.

Stepping into his shoes will be Bailon, 53, who has been the newspaper’s editorial page editor since late 2007. He previously spent 21 years at the Dallas Morning News, where he rose through the ranks from nightside general assignment reporter to the post of executive editor and then editor and publisher of Al Día, the paper’s Spanish-language subsidiary.

Bailon said he understands the challenges facing big metro newspapers but called their mission as vital as ever.

“We’re not going anywhere,” he said. “People want information. They want to pick up something and know they can trust it. We can provide that.”

If anything, Bailon said, the proliferation of news platforms — from print to smartphones to tablets — provides more opportunity for an organization such as the Post-Dispatch.

“I see a good future for us,” he said.

Having a top editor who thinks creatively about technology and the economics of journalism has never been more important, said Jill Geisler, who teaches newsroom leadership at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank in Florida.

“Being a superb journalist, that’s the starting point now,” she said. “There has to be a much deeper understanding of audience, a deeper understanding of the business side.”

Bailon brings that understanding, Mowbray said.

“I’m confident that Gilbert will continue the outstanding and exceptional work that is produced by our newsroom each and every day,” he said.

In an unrelated move, Sports Editor Reid Laymance left the Post-Dispatch on Friday. Steve Parker, deputy managing editor for news, will replace him on an interim basis while retaining oversight of Page 1. No replacement has been named for Bailon on the editorial page.

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The cell phone capacity problem is getting bigger by the day, but one potential solution has wireless carriers thinking smaller — way smaller.

As smartphone and tablet usage soars, the giant cell towers that mobile devices communicate with are getting overloaded. As a result, cell phone companies have begun to get behind the idea of "small cells": tiny antennas that you can hold in your hand.

Small cells make much more efficient use than traditional towers of carriers’ increasingly precious wireless spectrum. The low-powered devices can cut back on interference, improve cell reception indoors and become Wi-Fi hotspots to offload traffic from cramped cellular networks.

Such spectrum-maximizing tricks are becoming increasingly important as mobile traffic booms. By 2016, more than half of the Internet’s traffic will come from mobile devices, and 71% of that will be big video files, according to Cisco’s (, Fortune 500) latest Mobile Visual Networking Index, the industry’s most comprehensive annual study.

Carriers would typically handle that growth by adding new cell towers or more radios to existing towers. But that’s an expensive process, and many metropolitan areas are now so packed with towers that new ones would be riddled with interference concerns.

"That has major implications for how you build out mobile infrastructure," said Murali Nemani, head of service provider marketing for Cisco. "The rationale behind small cells has a lot to do with this perfect storm that is brewing."

Echoing Apple’s proclamation of a "post-PC" world, Cisco CEO John Chambers said last month that we are entering a "post-macrocell era."

Telecom analysts agree. Small cells will make up 90% of total cell tower deployments by 2015, Nomura analyst Stuart Jeffrey predicts.

One of the main selling points is their low cost. The revenue generated by small cell infrastructure sales will make up just 5% of the total revenue from base station sales, Jeffrey estimates, even as small cells grow to dominate the market.

They also offer greater flexibility. Wi-Fi is a potent tool for fighting the spectrum crunch — carriers can use it to offload traffic from their cell networks — but today’s networks can be painfully tricky to use. Customers have to seek out a network, remember their credentials, and manually sign in.

Cisco’s small cells use a new "passpoint" standard, certified by the industry-governing Wi-Fi Alliance, that allows carriers to automatically sign their customers in to hotspots. The technology is expected to be released this summer. One day soon, you could walk into a mall with your iPhone and be switched to your carrier’s Wi-Fi network without even knowing it.

The carriers aren’t touting the technology just yet — Verizon (, Fortune 500), Sprint (, Fortune 500) and AT&T (, Fortune 500) all declined to comment for this article about their small-cell investments — but they’re all in various stages of deploying it.

AT&T recently won approval from Palo Alto, Calif., city officials for a significant test project throughout the city. Verizon’s top network planning executive said at a conference last year that the carrier will use small cells to help manage its network capacity, while Sprint recently partnered with small cell hardware maker AirWalk Communications.

Cisco is just one of many mobile infrastructure providers hoping to get on the bandwagon. Alcatel-Lucent (), Powerwave () and others are promoting their own small cells, each with a different feature set.

Alcatel-Lucent’s lightRadio, introduced last year, is a cube that fits in the palm of your hand and can be fastened to the top of lamp posts or placed on the sides of buildings. The company is developing several new devices, based on lightRadio, that will bring coverage indoors and be capable of sending both 3G and 4G signal simultaneously.

Powerwave’s small cells are able to plug into an ethernet connection and broadcast a carrier’s signal. They are also designed to blend in to their surroundings so they don’t become an eyesore in places like office buildings or stadiums.

"There is a huge opportunity coming," said Juan Santiago, head of Powerwave’s product management. "No one wants a giant cell tower in their backyard." 

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Less than a decade ago, Argentina was an exporter of oil and natural gas. Now the government has to spend billions of dollars to import fuel.

This dramatic reversal of fortune is why Argentina, already a global financial rogue after its historic debt default, is willing to risk becoming even more of a pariah by seizing control of its leading oil company from Spanish hands, analysts say. President Cristina Fernandez infuriated Spain, its largest foreign investor, but elated many Argentines by expropriating Repsol YPF SA’s majority stake in Argentina’s formerly state-owned YPF energy company.

Only two months earlier, Repsol YPF had upped its estimate for the shale oil and gas it found in Argentina to nearly 23 billion barrels, enough to double the country’s output in a decade .But the Spanish company said it would cost $25 billion a year to develop, and warned that Argentina would need to overhaul its energy policy to attract the necessary investment.

Instead, Fernandez simply seized the company, giving her government access to billions of dollars’ worth of cash, enough energy to answer domestic demand in the short term, and potentially even solving Argentina’s chronic money woes in the future.

She accused Repos of draining YPF since gaining control in the 1990s, underinvesting in its oil and gas fields and failing to keep pace with the needs of Argentina’s growing economy even as it paid huge dividends to shareholders.

Repos blames Argentina’s ever-changing mix of subsidies, price caps and export taxes for depressing production as the country’s demand for energy soared since 2003, when her husband, President Nestor Kirchner, came to power.

Both are partly right, says Eduardo Fernandez, an independent consultant and former fuels director in Argentina’s energy ministry.

The problem was a government approved practice of allowing Repos to use profits to pay shareholder dividends rather than invest that money in the company’s future. “That led to a lack of reinvestment in utilities, little exploration and dwindling reserves, as oil fields dried up and productivity fell,” Fernandez said.

Argentine oil production plunged 22 percent from 2000 to 2010, even as demand surged more than 40 percent, according to data from the Argentine Oil and Gas Institute and the Energy Ministry compiled by a former energy secretary, Emilio Apud.

Argentina’s production has fallen so low that the government now spends billions of dollars a year on expensive imported fuels that it provides at a loss to companies and consumers.

Cheap energy helped Argentines rebuild after a world-record debt default and devaluation in 2002 left the economy in ruins. It makes less sense now, after nearly a decade of growth, but letting consumer energy prices rise too quickly could cause already high inflation to spiral, and provoke popular discontent in a country where pot-banging street protests have driven other presidents from office.

The energy subsidies spiked by 63 percent in 2010 to $5.6 billion, according to a former energy secretary, Alieto Guadagni. At the time, oil traded at about $80 a barrel internationally. With oil now going for more than $100 a barrel, this year’s bill could be nearly $10 billion, even as the economy cools with less demand from China and Brazil.

Fernandez squarely blamed a Repose’s lack of investment for a $3 billion energy deficit when she announced the takeover.

“The worst thing is that if we don’t do this, we’ll turn into an unsustainable country, because of its business policies and not because of a lack of resources,” she said, noting that Argentina holds the world’s third largest reserves of shale oil and gas, after China and the United States _ a resource that remains entirely untapped.

“Our model is one of recovering our sovereignty,” she added, noting that the company will not be state-owned, but run as a mixed entity, able to bring in new private shareholders.

But rather than raise fuel prices that are now about five times lower than in Brazil and Uruguay, her expropriation measure insists that oil companies must serve Argentines first, even if it means selling the energy they produce at a loss.

In the lead up to the nationalization, as prospects for quick returns diminished in Argentina, Repos YPF sought to protect its shareholders by diversifying and making long-term investments elsewhere in Latin America.

Other oil companies did the same. With oil capped at $55 a barrel in Argentina while trading above $100 on the world market, they followed the money, Eduardo Fernandez said.

“So there’s no interest in making investments in Argentina when in other countries they’re paying in full. So Repos went to Brazil, Trinidad and Tobago, Bolivia. All of this provoked the disinvestment,” he said.

Repos President Antonio Bureau said Repsol invested billions of dollars in Argentina, and tried to head off the expropriation with promises to spend more. But by then, the Argentines were already determined to regain control. All Brufau could do in the end was demand $10.5 billion, which he said was the market price of the shares Argentina seized.

Deputy Economy Minister Axel Keillor accused Repos of hiding the true value of its Argentine unit, and said a thorough review of its books now that he’s in control of the company’s offices in Buenos Aires will affect whatever compensation is eventually paid.

“These morons think that the government is stupid enough to buy everything” that Repsol demands, the 40-year-old Kicillof said, sporting an open shirt and long, Elvis-like sideburns in a heated senate session this week.

Latin America’s third-biggest economy hasn’t been able to tap international debt markets since its default, but has been able to manage with dollars rolling in from taxes on grains, nationalizing private pension funds and the flagship airline, and by tapping central bank reserves.

By re-nationalizing YPF _ and not paying Repsol until international courts resolve the case years from now, if then _ Argentina can reinvest profits to develop new reserves and use the fuel Repsol was exporting to save consumers from price shocks as it weans them off the subsidies.

The shale deposits trapped deep under the “Vaca Muerta” (”Dead Cow”) basin of Neuquén province could increase Argentina’s oil reserves by at least 750 million barrels, and probably three times that much, said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy and Economic Research.

Strategic partners will be key, and the Argentines aren’t waiting for them to come knocking. Planning Minister Julio de Vido assured Brazilian officials Friday that Argentine assets of their state-run oil giant Petrobras would not be expropriated, and secured a promise to increase their Argentine market share from 8 percent to 15 percent this year. Brazilian Energy Minister Edison Lobao called Petrobras’s current investment of $500 million in Argentina “good business.”

De Vido also secured promises of increased natural gas production from French-owned Total Austral, and planned meetings Monday with executives from Chevron and Exxon.

He said he had not heard from China’s No. 2 Sinopec oil company, “but that doesn’t mean that we won’t have contacts in the future.”

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Spanish, Italian and Portuguese banks are loading up on bonds issued by their own governments, a move that shifts more of the risk of sovereign default to European taxpayers from private creditors.

Holdings of Spanish government debt by lenders based in the country jumped 26 percent in two months, to 220 billion euros ($289 billion) at the end of January, data from Spain