World financial news

Amazon shares plunged 13% in after-hours trading Thursday after the company’s second-quarter earnings came up far short of analyst expectations.

Amazon’s sales are still growing fast: The company had revenue of $6.6 billion in the quarter ended June 30, up 41% from a year ago. Amazon’s profit also rose, increasing 45% to $207 million.

But analysts hoped for better, and are keeping a close eye on Amazon’s bottom line to see if intensifying competitive pressures knock the e-commerce giant off its game.

Forced by Barnes & Noble (BN) into an e-reader price war, Amazon.com slashed the price of its flagship Kindle to $189 last month. It later cut its high-end Kindle DX price tag by more than $100, to $379. Meanwile, Apple’s (AAPL, Fortune 500) popular iPad — which can store thousands of e-books — could obliterate the entire stand-alone e-reader market within the next year or two No teletrack payday loans.

Amazon tried earlier this week to draw attention to its bright spots. The company announced that sales of e-books for its popular Kindle reader now outnumber Amazon’s sales of hardcover books. The company also said Kindle sales have picked up since last month’s price cut, though it once again refused to disclose how many Kindles it has actually sold.

Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500) said it expects third-quarter revenue to come in between $6.9 billion and $7.63 billion in revenue this quarter, in line with analyst estimates. 

Source

Baltimore City Council should require that all city workers are paid a higher living wage before it takes a second look at imposing the requiring on large retailers, a key city councilman said.

Councilman Warren Branch, chairman of City Council’s Labor subcommittee, raised the issue during a hearing on a proposed living wage bill. The bill, rejected July 22, would have required retailers grossing at least $10 million in sales a year to pay their employees an hourly wage set by the city. That amount is $10.59 and applies now to city contractors that do business with the city.

Branch said before the city considers the matter again it should ensure its own workers are being paid a living wage as well.

“Shouldn’t we clean our own houses out first before we talk about cleaning someone’s house?” Branch asked at Thursday’s hearing.

The city’s living wage bill does not apply to city employees, whose wages are negotiated by collective bargaining agreements. Temporary workers for the Department of Public Works’ Bureau of Solid Waste are not part of those agreements, department spokesman Robert Murrow said. There are 66 seasonal workers who get paid $7.90 an hour. That amount is

more than the state and federal minimum wage rates of $7.25 an hour but less than the city’s living wage for contractors no faxing payday loan. Another group of 25 tempoary workers with commercial driver’s licenses earn $11 an hour.

Those temporary workers are supposed to become city employees after two years of employment, but many are kept on beyond that date if full-time positions are not available. There are a dozen of those employees, but Murrow said the department is now trying to place them into permanent positions. He said the department has looked at the pay disparity and hopes to pay its temporary workers a living wage when finances permit.

“At this time that might not be fiscally possible but we’re aware of that,” he said.

Branch said he will try to rally City Council to increase those workers’ wages, which he said should happen before it takes another look at requiring retailers to pay a living wage to their employees. “As a collective group, that’s what we should do,” Branch said in an interview.

Council members James Kraft and Mary Pat Clarke also expressed support for the idea. Clarke, who sponsored the defeated living wage bill for retailers, said she will look to Branch to sponsor the wage increase for temporary city workers.

Source

A Colorado delegation's weeklong economic development mission to Israel was "a success on all fronts — business, academic and research," said Gov. Bill Ritter, who led the group.

“We created a solid foundation for future economic activity, set the stage for immediate follow-up meetings in Colorado and laid the groundwork for long-term collaboration. I’m confident this mission will lead to increased jobs, investments and economic growth for Colorado,” Ritter said in a statement upon the group's return from the July 12-18 trip.

Ritter's group met with Israeli President Shimon Peres; Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor Benjamin (Fuad) Ben-Eliezer; Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau; and Deputy Foreign Minister and former ambassador to the United States Danny Ayalon, among other officials.

In a statement, Ayalon applauded Colorado's interest in establishing cooperation with Israeli companies on such matters as renewable energy and water conservation.

"Renewable energy is the solution to the oil problem, and offers a solution to the reduction of negative oil politics around the world. Delegations such as these are important in strengthening the relationship of the people of Israel and the United States, and in the strengthening of future economic cooperation," Ayalon told Ritter during their meeting.

Among the accomplishments of the mission as cited by Ritter's staff:

• The Colorado delegation agreed to help establish workforce-development ties among Noble Energy Inc., the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion) and Colorado School of Mines. "Last year, Noble Energy discovered a vast natural gas reserve off the coast of Israel, but the country lacks the workforce to develop the resource," Ritter's office said in a statement.

In a statement, Houston-based Noble Energy (NYSE: NBL) — which has a Denver office — calls the Tamar natural-gas find "the largest exploration discovery in the history of Noble Energy, as well as the largest conventional gas discovery in the world in 2009."

• Ritter and Ben-Eliezer signed a bilateral agreement between Colorado and Israel to advance research and collaboration between companies and institutions in both areas.

• Colorado State University and Ben Gurion University’s Desert Research Center signed a collaborative agreement on water-conservation and related technologies.

• The State of Colorado, through its Departments of Natural Resources and Agriculture, entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Desert Agro Research Center focused on water and agriculture research and development in arid and semi-arid climates. The agreement focuses on such water technologies as desalination, treatment and conservation.

• The Governor’s Energy Office entered an agreement with BrightSource Energy to examine whether cogeneration technologies involving large-scale concentrated solar and natural gas can be utilized on projects in Colorado. Oakland, Calif.-based BrightSource officials will be in Colorado later this month to begin those discussions.

• Ritter, Colorado Economic Development Director Don Marostica and state Energy Director Tom Plant met with a number of Israeli clean-energy, water-technology, bioscience and venture-capital companies that may be interested in doing business in Colorado.

• Colorado Agriculture Commissioner John Stulp promoted Colorado beef exports to Israeli officials, some of whom will be in Colorado next month for livestock discussions.

• Colorado Chief Operating Officer Don Elliman met with Israeli officials regarding homeland security, including discussions about an upcoming homeland security expo taking place in Denver later this year.

• The delegation visited Ramat Negev, the Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado’s "partnership region" in Israel, where Ritter and the delegation were hosted by Mayor Shmulik Rifman.

The privately-supported trip was sponsored by the Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado. A state ethics panel created under voter-approved Amendment 41, which bars gifts of more than $50 to public officials, agreed to participation by Ritter and other state employees in the trip in a ruling beforehand.

"The mission was a great success for Colorado citizens,” Doug Seserman, CEO of the Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado, said in a statement. “We look forward to working with both Colorado and Israel in the months and years ahead to further the business relationships built on this trip.”

Source

Ohio Attorney General Rich Cordray has struck a $725 million settlement with American International Group to resolve charges of bid-rigging, accounting fraud and other practices that officials said led investors nationwide to lose millions.

New York-based AIG through the settlement has agreed to put up $175 million upon preliminary court approval of the deal. According to information from Cordray's office, the company plans to fund the remaining $550 million of the settlement through stock offerings.

At the center of the settlement are a range of fraud allegations over the company’s conduct from October 1999 through April 2005. The Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, State Teachers Retirement System and state Police and Fire Pension Fund served as lead plaintiffs in the national class-action suit, roots of which stretch back to the tenure of former Attorney General Jim Petro paperless payday loans.

The former AG sued AIG in 2004 after New York officials probed charges of bid-rigging among the firm and other insurers.

That probe uncovered new charges and led to the ouster of Hank Greenberg, AIG’s longtime CEO and a case against a reinsurer tied to AIG, General Reinsurance Corp. Four former General Reinsurance executives and a former AIG executive have since been convicted of conspiracy and fraud charges tied to a deal that allegedly helped AIG inflate its loss reserves.

A number of parties tied to AIG, including Greenberg, have struck settlements with Ohio totaling $284.5 million since the litigation began.

Source

Research Triangle Park-based Semiconductor Research Corp. is getting some big backing from IBM (NYSE: IBM) and energy giant ABB (NYSE: ABB), both of which are putting money into SRC’s $5 million clean energy initiative.

SRC supports numerous faculty research projects at universities across the country. In the clean energy effort, Purdue University will get a photovoltaic research center, and a smart grid research center will be created at Carnegie Mellon University.

Initial efforts will focus on development of new modeling and simulation tools for development of photovoltaic devices for use in solar energy as well as systems and technology to support smart grids for electricity payday loans for bad credit.

“The development of these capabilities is beyond the scale of a single company or even industry, making the cooperation between industry and academia critical to delivering the benefits of alternative energy on a global scale,” said SRC Executive Vice President Steven Hillenius in a statement.

Source

Advanced Inquiry Systems Inc., a company developing a semiconductor testing technology, has raised $10 million in a Series C round from a group of investors, according to a new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The money will be used to help bring a product to market.

The Hillsboro company closed a $11 million Series B round last year, bringing its funding up to $33 million at the time.

The company has developed a proprietary silicon-based testing platform to enable lower cost testing of memory devices pay day advance.

The company’s previous investors include OVP Venture Partners, TL Ventures, Intel Capital, Applied Ventures, KT Ventures and Northwest Technology Ventures. The Series C round included a new undiscloved investor.

The company was founded in 2002. It declined to disclose revenue on its most recent SEC filing.

Source

The board of directors of Computer Services Inc. has approved a 15.8 percent increase to its quarterly cash dividend.

The dividend was raised to 11 cents per share from 9.5 cents per share. The dividend is payable Sept. 24 to shareholders of record Sept. 1.

It is the 22nd annual increase of the quarterly dividend, according to a news release issued by Computer Services Inc. The company announced last week it recorded a record first-quarter net income and revenue.

It had net income of $5 fast payday loans.3 million, or 36 cents per share, on revenue of $39.7 million, in the fiscal first quarter, ended May 30.

Paducah, Ky.-based Computer Services (Pink Sheets: CSVI) provides core banking services such as payment processing, Internet, card services, risk assessment, fraud prevention, network management and regulatory compliance to financial institutions and corporations.

Source

Banner Corp. said it issued more than 85 million shares of stock at $2 per share in a recent stock offering and raised about $162 million, after discounts and commissions were deducted.

Last week, Walla Walla-based Banner (NASDAQ: BANR), parent of Banner Bank and Islanders Bank, said it “intends to use a significant portion of the net proceeds from the offering to strengthen Banner Bank’s regulatory capital ratios and to support managed growth . The company expects to use the remaining net proceeds for general working capital purposes.”

Source