Archive for category Favourites
Median Pay For Top Executives
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Business, Favourites on Июль 8th, 2011
The final figures show that the median pay for top executives at 200 big companies last year was $10.8 million. That works out to a 23 percent gain from 2009. The earlier study had put the median pay at a none-too-shabby $9.6 million, up 12 percent.
Total C.E.O. pay hasn’t quite returned to its heady, prerecession levels — but it certainly seems headed there. Despite the soft economy, weak home prices and persistently high unemployment, some top executives are already making more than they were before the economy soured.
Pay skyrocketed last year because many companies brought back cash bonuses, says Aaron Boyd, head of research at Equilar. Cash bonuses, as opposed to those awarded in stock options, jumped by an astounding 38 percent, the final numbers show.
Granted, many American corporations did well last year. Profits were up substantially. As a result, many companies are sharing the wealth, at least with their executives. “We’re seeing a lot of that reflected in the pay,” Mr. Boyd says.
And at a time of so much tumult in the media business, it might be surprising that some executives in media and communications were among the most richly rewarded last year. Read the rest of this entry »
Big Banks Easing Terms on Loans Deemed as Risks
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Banks, Favourites on Июль 6th, 2011
As millions of Americans struggle in foreclosure with little hope of relief, big banks are going to borrowers who are not even in default and cutting their debt or easing the mortgage terms, sometimes with no questions asked.
Two of the nation’s biggest lenders, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, are quietly modifying loans for tens of thousands of borrowers who have not asked for help but whom the banks deem to be at special risk.
Rula Giosmas is one of the beneficiaries. Last year she received a letter from Chase saying it was cutting in half the amount she owed on her condominium.
Ms. Giosmas, who lives in Miami, was not in default on her $300,000 loan. She did not understand why she would receive this gift — although she wasted no time in taking it.
Banks are proactively overhauling loans for borrowers like Ms. Giosmas who have so-called pay option adjustable rate mortgages, which were popular in the wild late stages of the housing boom but which banks now view as potentially troublesome.
Before Chase shaved $150,000 off her mortgage, Ms. Giosmas owed much more on her place than it was worth. It was a fate she shared with a quarter of all homeowners with mortgages across the nation. Being underwater, as it is called, can prevent these owners from moving and taking new jobs, and places the households at greater risk of foreclosure. Read the rest of this entry »
Euro Area Backs Greek Aid, Looks to New Bailout
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Favourites, Trading Markets on Июль 4th, 2011
The euro area approved its share of a 12 billion-euro ($17.4 billion) aid payment for Greece and pledged to complete work in the coming weeks on a second rescue package for the cash-strapped nation to prevent a default.
Finance ministers agreed to disburse 8.7 billion euros of loans under last year’s 110 billion-euro bailout by July 15, rewarding Greek Premier George Papandreou for pushing an extra austerity plan through parliament. The International Monetary Fund is due to provide the rest of the July aid installment, the fifth under the 2010 package.
The spotlight now turns to a second bailout to which banks and insurers plan to contribute following German demands for taxpayer relief. Euro-area governments and investors will provide 70 percent of new aid that may total as much as 85 billion euros, with the IMF offering the rest, Thomas Wieser, an Austrian Finance Ministry official, said on June 30.
“The Greek authorities provided a strong commitment to adhere to the agreed fiscal adjustment path,” the 17 euro-area finance chiefs said in an e-mailed statement yesterday after a conference call that was joined by the IMF’s acting chief, John Lipsky, and European Central Bank President Jean- Claude Trichet. “The precise modalities and scale of private- sector involvement and additional funding from official sources will be determined in the coming weeks.” Read the rest of this entry »
Americans may hit gas again after reserve release
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Favourites, Trading Markets on Июнь 29th, 2011
Going lightly on the gas pedal, getting a few dollars of gas rather than filling up, cutting out the cruising, and swapping the BMW for a Dodge Caliber — those are ways Americans are coping with gasoline prices well above $3 a gallon.
But people pumping gas on Friday from Miami to San Francisco saw prospects for lower prices thanks to President Barack Obama’s decision on Thursday to tap the country’s emergency petroleum stockpile as part of a global effort to bolster tight oil supplies.
The release of 30 million barrels from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve may not make people reschedule long summer road trips but could spell welcome relief for household budgets crimped by an anemic economic recovery.
While it might be a political move by Obama to help his re-election bid for 2012, as some speculate, most drivers seemed happy to get a break, even a small one. Jonathan Sifuentes, a 26-year-old power company employee, called the decision «the right thing to do» as he fueled up a Toyota Camry sedan on Miami’s outskirts.
«Everyone is hurting, with the economy, and unfortunately we do need gas to maintain our lifestyle, to go to work, to get groceries, to pick up our kids,» he said. Read the rest of this entry »
Obama takes flak for tapping emergency oil reserves
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Favourites, Trading Markets on Июнь 28th, 2011
President Barack Obama took withering fire from the oil industry and Republicans for agreeing to release the nation’s emergency oil supplies, a decision that senior officials said was prompted by the need to prop up the ailing economy.
Critics blasted the release of 30 million barrels of oil — half of a global injection coordinated by the International Energy Agency — as an ill-timed misuse of reserves at a time when U.S. supplies are relatively high, despite the loss of Libya’s exports for the past three months.
Some OPEC officials went further, calling it a political ploy that ignored Saudi Arabia’s promise to step up production and the fact that oil prices had already fallen sharply. But the move fueled questions about the timing and catalyst for releasing the stocks, which in the past have been reserved to address abrupt disruptions like natural disasters.
The Obama administration was also concerned about tight markets ahead of peak demand in the summer, when many Americans take to the roads for vacations. The jump in gasoline prices earlier this year was hurting Obama’s support as the White House was gearing up for its re-election campaign. Read the rest of this entry »
Are Taxes in the U.S. High or Low?
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Budget, Favourites on Июнь 9th, 2011
Historically, the term “tax rate” has meant the average or effective tax rate — that is, taxes as a share of income. The broadest measure of the tax rate is total federal revenues divided by the gross domestic product.
By this measure, federal taxes are at their lowest level in more than 60 years. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that federal taxes would consume just 14.8 percent of G.D.P. this year. The last year in which revenues were lower was 1950, according to the Office of Management and Budget.
The postwar annual average is about 18.5 percent of G.D.P. Revenues averaged 18.2 percent of G.D.P. during Ronald Reagan’s administration; the lowest percentage during that administration was 17.3 percent of G.D.P. in 1984.
In short, by the broadest measure of the tax rate, the current level is unusually low and has been for some time. Revenues were 14.9 percent of G.D.P. in both 2009 and 2010.
Yet if one listens to Republicans, one would think that taxes have never been higher, that an excessive tax burden is the most important constraint holding back economic growth and that a big tax cut is exactly what the economy needs to get growing again. Read the rest of this entry »
The Stupidity of Hope: Greece Is Still Going to Default
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Favourites, Trading Markets on Июнь 2nd, 2011
Keeping in mind that the words “hope” and “Greece” should almost never be used in the same sentence, here would be the one exception: Let’s “hope” markets aren’t rallying on “hope” for “Greece.”
Hope, apparently, does spring eternal, however, and it seems as though despite all the evidence to the contrary, there are still people out there with money to spend who believe that Greece can be rescued yet from its seemingly intractable fiscal position.
How else to explain Monday’s surge in the euro and drop in the US dollar, which had been rallying on well-placed hopes that the periphery of Europe was sliding further into the debt abyss and ready to implode?
Irrationality, we now can conclude, comes in many forms. The latest form is in some weakly substantiated murmurs out of Germany that the core of the core of euro zone nations might be softening its stance towards a Greek bailout and is ready to ease its demands that the nation speed up its ultimately unavoidable debt restructuring.
Despite compelling evidence that Germany is in no political position to turn suddenly benevolent towards its free-spending weak sister to the south, the rally was on. Read the rest of this entry »
Mobius Says Fresh Financial Crisis Is Around Corner
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Favourites, Investing on Май 30th, 2011
Mark Mobius, executive chairman of Templeton Asset Management’s emerging markets group, said another financial crisis is inevitable because the causes of the previous one haven’t been resolved.
“There is definitely going to be another financial crisis around the corner because we haven’t solved any of the things that caused the previous crisis,” Mobius said at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo today in response to a question about price swings. “Are the derivatives regulated? No. Are you still getting growth in derivatives? Yes.”
The total value of derivatives in the world exceeds total global gross domestic product by a factor of 10, said Mobius, who oversees more than $50 billion. With that volume of bets in different directions, volatility and equity market crises will occur, he said.
The global financial crisis three years ago was caused in part by the proliferation of derivative products tied to U.S. home loans that ceased performing, triggering hundreds of billions of dollars in writedowns and leading to the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in September 2008. The MSCI AC World Index of developed and emerging market stocks tumbled 46 percent between Lehman’s downfall and the market bottom on March 9, 2009. Read the rest of this entry »
If you must buy a car now, here’s what to do
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Budget, Favourites on Май 27th, 2011
Rising prices and a looming vehicle shortage make this summer one of the worst times in years to go car shopping. But if your vehicle is on its last leg or your lease is about to come due, here are some tips on how to navigate through a difficult market.
• Consider cars with incentives: Manufacturers still offer some incentives, especially for cars that are near the end of their model cycle or are slow sellers. Most of the big auto information companies, including Edmunds.com, TrueCar.Com and kbb.com (Kelley Blue Book), offer incentive data on their websites.
• Check supply: While inventories are tightening across the board, some manufacturers will have ample inventory for some vehicles, and these will have the better deals. TrueCar’s TrueTrends report offers a monthly listing of new vehicles with the shortest and longest days’ inventory. This month’s report, for example, will tell you that Hyundai dealers have only an eight-day supply of their hot-selling Elantra sedan. It’s also tough to find a Ford Explorer — only a nine-day inventory. But if you want a BMW Z4, start shopping. The Z4 is about to be replaced with a new-generation model, and BMW dealers have a fat 161-day supply — more than five months’ worth. Similarly, Hyundai dealers are sitting on a 133-day inventory of the automaker’s Azera sedan.
• Be a contrarian: For now, that means bigger. With many buyers gravitating to smaller, fuel-efficient vehicles, consider buying something that drinks a bit more gas. Yes, it will cost you more each time you go to the pump, but with small-car prices going up rapidly you might find that the price gap between a compact vehicle and something larger has narrowed considerably. Large cars and trucks have the biggest discounts this month, and that’s likely to be the case throughout the summer. Read the rest of this entry »
Best option for car shoppers: Postpone buying
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Favourites, Trading Markets on Май 26th, 2011
Inventory shortages caused by the effects of Japan’s earthquake have led to rising prices for new and used vehicles, creating what one analyst describes as a ‘huge seller’s market.’ Attention all car buyers: The era of cut-rate financing, generous cash-back offers and big discounts is coming to an end.
With the effects of the earthquake in Japan rippling through the industry and causing shortages, prices are rising for both new and used cars, and fewer models and options will be available come summer, especially for the hybrids and fuel-efficient vehicles that Japan produces.
That’s prompted many experts to voice something rarely said in the sales-happy auto industry: With consumers facing the toughest market in recent memory, if you can, put off purchases until things sort out, probably early next year.
«If you don’t have an immediate need, you are probably better to wait and figure out where the market is headed,» said Jesse Toprak, an analyst with auto information company TrueCar.com. Read the rest of this entry »
-
-
You are currently browsing the archives for the Favourites category.
Big Banks Easing Terms on Loans Deemed as Risks
6 Июль 2011Euro Area Backs Greek Aid, Looks to New Bailout
4 Июль 2011Americans may hit gas again after reserve release
29 Июнь 2011Obama takes flak for tapping emergency oil reserves
28 Июнь 2011
Свежие комментарии