Business and Finance
U.S. economic growth may not top 2 percent this year and a third round of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve would have little effect, said Martin Feldstein, a professor of economics at Harvard University.
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Claims for U.S. jobless benefits rose last week, displaying the usual volatility around holidays that has masked an improvement in the labor market.
Applications (INJCJC) for unemployment insurance payments climbed by 21,000 to 377,000 in the week ended Jan. 21, up from an almost four-year low in the prior period, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 47 economists in a Bloomberg News survey projected 370,000.
Companies are picking up the pace of hiring as job cuts abate. At the same time, faster job gains are needed to maintain household spending, the biggest part of the world
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Hungarian Premier Viktor Orban pledging to yield in a row with the European Union helped the central bank leave the European Union
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Hopes that Greece will eventually reach a deal with private creditors on lowering its debt supported markets on Monday, as investors looked past delays in reaching an agreement that would further ease Europe’s debt crisis.
The country’s private creditors are being asked to accept longer maturities and lower interest rates on new bonds swapped for their existing ones.
Greece, which is negotiating alongside fellow eurozone nations and the International Monetary Fund _ its bailout rescuers _ wants interest rates as low as 3 percent on the new bonds. But the private creditors believe that is too low and are aiming for about 4.5 percent.
Both sides say a deal is nevertheless very close, heartening investors. The euro was the main beneficiary, climbing a further 0.9 percent to $1.2995.
Greek officials say negotiations on the private debt writedown are continuing over the phone, while no appointment has been set yet for new face-to-face talks this week.
An agreement is necessary if Greece is to get the next batch of bailout cash that would prevent a devastating debt default _ Greece does not have enough money to cover a euro14.5 billion ($18.7 billion) bond repayment in March. A deal would allow the country to receive a second bailout package from other European governments and the IMF, and cut Greece’s debt from an estimated 160 percent of its annual economic output to 120 percent by 2020.
Greece will likely be the main topic of discussion at a meeting later of the 17 eurozone finance ministers in Brussels.
“Hopes are high that today’s meeting in Brussels will produce some positive plans to tackle the ongoing debt issues and balance out some of the frustration felt by the inability of Greece to come to an agreement with its lenders,” said David Jones, chief market strategist at IG Index.
Those hopes have helped shore up markets at the start of a week, which will also feature the annual meetings in Davos, Switzerland and the U.S. Federal Reserve’s first rate-setting meeting of the year.
In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was up 0.5 percent at 5,759 while Germany’s DAX rose 0.2 percent to 6.414. The CAC-40 in France was 0.3 percent higher at 3,332.
Wall Street was poised for a steady, if unspectacular, opening with little economic news on the calendar _ Dow futures were unchanged at 12,658 while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 futures rose 0.1 percent at 1,310.
Optimism that Greece will clinch a deal as well as a run of successful European bond auctions and solid economic and corporate news, not least from the U.S. and China, have brightened market sentiment this year. Many stock indexes have risen to five-month highs, while the euro has clambered off 17-month dollar lows to head back towards the $1.30 mark.
Later in the week, investors will be monitoring the meeting at the Fed.
Though the Fed is expected to keep its super-loose monetary policy unchanged, there will be great interest in the outcome of the meeting. It will be the first time the Fed will be publishing its interest rate forecasts out to 2016, part of a strategy to enchance communication with financial markets.
Investors will be particularly interested to see how long it expects interest rates to remain low _ previously the Fed said it expected to keep them low until the middle of 2013.
“Most, ourselves included, expect the projections to suggest the Fed sees rates on hold well into 2014,” said Adam Cole, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets.
In the oil markets, traders are watching developments in the Persian Gulf, too. Iran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz if the U.S. and other countries impose more sanctions on it because of its nuclear program. Many analysts doubt that Iran could set up a blockade for long, but any supply shortages would cause supplies to tighten.
As a result, prices have remained well-supported _ benchmark crude was up 30 cents at $98.63 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
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Are Missouri’s two largest utilities coordinating rate case filings to overwhelm consumer advocates?
The state’s top utility regulator wants to know.
In an unusual move, PSC Chairman Kevin Gunn asked attorneys for Ameren Missouri and Kansas City Power & Light in letters sent Tuesday, and is threatening to formally investigate depending on the answers he receives. He gave utilities until Jan. 27 to respond.
“I have some concern over the possibility that rate cases have been timed to overwhelm the resources of the commission staff, the office of Public Counsel and any other intervener,” the letter said. “That would be especially troublesome if there was evidence of communication between the utilities, or internal utility communications, to file rate cases closely together.”
The inquiry reflects a growing concern about dwindling resources for groups responsible for scrutinizing rate requests by investor-owned utilities at a time when such requests are more frequent and complex. Those groups include the PSC staff, which advises commissioners on rate cases, and especially the Office of Public Counsel, which is the main advocate for individual consumers and small businesses.
According to spokespeople for Ameren and KCP&L, the fact that filings were made within days of each other is nothing more than coincidence.
“We take filing a rate case very seriously and have a comprehensive process for determining when we file,” Ameren’s Rita Holmes-Bobo said in an emailed response. “Our decision to file a rate case is based on solid business considerations, including when costs have been incurred and facilities have been put into service.”
Chuck Caisley of KCP&L likewise said the company doesn’t consider what others utilities do, and plans a thorough response to the PSC chairman’s letter by the deadline. He also noted that the utility had indicated as early as February that it would seek a rate increase in late 2011 or early 2012.
Investor-owned utilities in Missouri must give notice at least 60 days prior to filing a rate case that they believe will be contested.
St. Louis-based Ameren, which sells electricity to about 1.2 million customers in St. Louis and eastern and central Missouri, indicated on Nov. 28 its intent to seek an electric rate increase as soon as late January. KCP&L filed a similar notice on Dec. 1.
The PSC has 11 months to rule on a request to increase rates.
Gunn, in an interview, said there’s no proof that utilities purposefully timed the filings so close together. It’s also no guarantee the companies will actually seek rate increases around the same time. Nonetheless, there’s a danger that electric rate cases filed by the state’s largest utilities at the same time “could swamp people that don’t have similar resources.”
Gunn was speaking about the the public counsel, a state office created in the 1970s, that has seen its staff shrink to 10 people and its annual budget decline to about $700,000 — a tiny fraction of the $300 million in profits that Ameren Missouri generated in just the first nine months of 2011.
“We only barely have staff to deal with one rate case at a time,” Public Counsel Lewis Mills Jr. said. And of all the utility rate issues his office deals with, “the 800-pound gorilla are the electric utility rate cases.”
Until last year, funding for the office came from the state’s general revenue fund. But that source was eliminated, and the office now gets its funding from the PSC. Recent efforts to boost the public counsel’s budget have failed.
A new attempt to increase funding for the public counsel’s office is now part of a ballot proposal that also seeks to increase utilities’ reliance on renewable energy resources — a measure that the utility industry lobby says it opposes for a variety of reasons.
In the meantime, Gunn has vowed to make sure the state’s investor-owned utilities aren’t taking advantage of a weakened consumer advocate.
Regardless of the outcome of the inquiry, he said, “I want to make it clear that we’re paying attention.”
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U.K. home sellers cut asking prices for a third month in January, according to Rightmove Plc (RMV), which said the property market will remain
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France’s prime minister said Saturday his country will push ahead with cost-cutting measures after its top-tier debt rating was downgraded, a blow with repercussions across financially beleaguered Europe.
Other European countries from Austria to Cyprus assailed ratings agency Standard & Poor’s after a raft of downgrades Friday night. The move may make it more expensive for struggling countries to borrow money, reduce debts and avoid a new recession.
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon struck a somber, measured tone when responding Saturday to the downgrade, which was particularly wounding to France’s self-image and could hurt bailout efforts for struggling eurozone countries. France is central to those efforts, and the downgrade, by pushing up its own borrowing costs, could make it harder for France to help others.
Fillon said the downgrade confirmed his conservative government’s plans for more reforms to bring down debts, despite worries that more austerity measures could suffocate growth.
The downgrade, coming three months before France holds presidential elections, was “an alert that should not be dramatized any more than it should be under-estimated,” he said. He insisted that France is a reliable investment.
Standard & Poor’s stripped France of its coveted AAA status, knocking it down one notch to AA+. It dropped Italy even lower. Germany retained its top-notch rating, but Portugal’s debt was consigned to junk.
Cyprus’ finance minister called Standard & Poor’s two-notch downgrade of his eurozone country to junk status “arbitrary and unfounded.”
Kikis Kazamias said on Saturday that the agency ignored the island’s deficit-cutting measures as well as the discovery of significant offshore natural gas deposits payday loans in one hour. He said the action illustrates once more how credit ratings agencies exacerbate Europe’s debt crisis.
Austria’s chancellor criticized S&P’s decision to strip his country of the top AAA rating, and noted that his coalition government is working on an austerity package.
Werner Faymann wrote on his Facebook page that “Austria’s economic data remain very good.” He added that the decision showed “that Austria must become more independent from the financial markets.”
The man who tops polls ahead of France’s presidential elections, Socialist Francois Hollande, said the downgrade was a punishment for conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy’s policies. He lashed out Saturday at austerity measures saying they were stifling growth and France’s competitivity.
The downgrade brought a downbeat end to a mildly encouraging week for Europe’s heavily indebted nations and served a reminder the 17-country eurozone faces another tough year.
France’s downgrade to AA+ lowers it to the level of U.S. long-term debt, which S&P downgraded last summer. S&P had warned 15 European nations in December that they were at risk for a downgrade.
Stocks fell Friday as downgrade rumors reached the trading floors of Europe and the United States. But the declines were nothing like the wrenching swings of last summer and fall, when the debt crisis threw the markets into turmoil.
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European Central Bank President Mario Draghi says his strategy for battling Europe
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