World financial news

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

For online payday loans no faxing or no fax quick instant cash loans turn to us.

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

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

The leaders of the Group of Eight world economic powers have taken the first steps toward a "broad consensus" on the need to balance growth with shrinking deficits, a senior White House official said Friday.

President Obama attended a luncheon at the G-8 summit in Toronto to discuss economic policies with the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United Kingdom, according to the official.

The official acknowledged that there were different "points of emphasis" among the leaders at the meeting, which is in its early stages. But he said there is a "convergence of views" and that the president is "confident" about the upcoming meetings of the Group of 20 nations, which includes China, India and other developing economic powers.

"There is broad consensus among G-8 leaders on how to maintain durable growth while reaffirming our shared commitment to fiscal consolidation going forward," the official said.

President Obama has stressed the need to keep economic stimulus measures in place to prevent a global slowdown. But European nations have been moving toward more conservative fiscal policies as the region grapples with an ongoing debt crisis.

In a letter to G-20 leaders sent earlier this week, the president wrote that safeguarding and strengthening the economic recovery should be "our highest priority in Toronto lowest fee payday loans."

"This means that we should reaffirm our unity of purpose to provide the policy support necessary to keep economic growth strong," he wrote. "In fact, should confidence in the strength of our recoveries diminish, we should be prepared to respond again as quickly and as forcefully as needed to avert a slowdown in economic activity."

Meanwhile, European nations have been cutting back on public spending and raising taxes to cope with massive budget deficits. The euro has been in a tailspin as investors bet against the proposed austerity measures and worry the European Union could slide back into recession.

On Tuesday, the United Kingdom unveiled one of its harshest budgets in decades. The five-year budget, widely anticipated by fiscal experts, may hold lessons for U.S. policymakers who will face similar quandaries about how to rein in debt.

"The president sees deficit reduction as part of a long-term growth strategy," the White House official said. 

Source

Guilford County School has applied for more than $17 million in federal grants to help it achieve goals contained in the district's strategic plan.

One application is to the Teacher Incentive Fund for $12.5 million to support individual and school-wide incentive programs. A separate grant of $5 million from "Investing in Innovation" or i3 would be directed toward plan goals in recruitment, retention and employee development.

“The Strategic Plan calls for staff to put strategies in place that will lead to increases in student achievement, and educators are the greatest factor impacting student success,” said Amy Holcombe, executive director of talent development. “At least 80 percent of our budget is devoted to people. An investment in educators is an investment in our students.”

Source

Hawaii Biotech, a company that has been struggling to reorganize in bankruptcy court, will go up for auction next month.

A request to convert the company’s Chapter 11 filing to a Chapter 11 363(b) asset sale provision, which is what GM and Chrysler used for their recent reorganizations, was accepted by bankruptcy court Judge Robert Faris on Monday.

The auction is scheduled for July 19, and bidding interest and notification is due to the company by July 12.

“We currently have a stalking horse bid in for the company,” said CEO Elliot Parks. “Our goal is to keep the company intact and keep trials going easy payday loans.”

Hawaii Biotech filed for bankruptcy protection on Dec. 11, at which time it claimed between $1 million and $10 million in assets and liabilities. The company listed nearly 400 unsecured creditors, with its largest being its landlord, Redico. Its claim was for $500,929 in unpaid rent, according to PBN research.

Hawaii Biotech, which has 23 full-time employees, entered into human clinical trials for West Nile and dengue fever vaccines within the past two years.

Source

Goldman Sachs’ legal troubles just keep piling up — and it’s becoming a bigger headache for the investment bank and its shareholders.

Shares of Goldman Sachs sat out Thursday’s market rally. The stock tumbled nearly 3% in mid-afternoon trading and hit a new 52-week low after reports surfaced late Wednesday that the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating a mortgage investment Goldman bundled and sold in 2006 called Hudson Mezzanine.

The SEC is already investigating possible fraud involved with an investment Goldman created called Abacus. A spokesman for the SEC declined to comment on whether the agency was indeed conducting an investigation into Hudson Mezzanine.

The reports follow news that Wall Street’s top firm was hit with a lawsuit from Basis Capital, an Australian hedge fund that invested in Timberwolf, another mortgage-backed security that Goldman sold in 2007. Basis is seeking more than $1 billion in damages in its civil suit.

A representative from Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500) declined comment on the reported government investigation, but issued a sharp rebuke to the Timberwolf suit, calling it "a misguided attempt by Basis…to shift its investment losses to Goldman Sachs."

The latest developments are another setback for the once-impervious investment bank. A number of shareholder suits have been filed against Goldman in recent months. There have also been reports it is facing a criminal investigation by federal prosecutors.

At the center of it all however, is the SEC’s civil suit against Goldman, in which it charged the firm with defrauding clients on the sale of Abacus, a collateralized debt obligation, or CDO.

So far, there have been few signs of progress on the case. But that may soon be changing.

According to documents filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Goldman currently has until June 22 to file a formal response to the SEC’s suit.

Experts suggest that Goldman will most likely call the government’s bluff and demand it drop the case as opposed to reaching a settlement by the deadline.

Such a move could help Goldman save face after it has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. It would also potentially give the firm more insight into the SEC’s case as well as additional time to negotiate a possible settlement.

The spokesmen for the SEC and Goldman Sachs declined to comment on the status of the Abacus case.

But legal observers are confident that neither party has the stomach for an ugly courtroom battle cash till payday advance. Some have suggested the SEC does not want to risk an embarrassing courtroom loss given how anxious it has been to shore up its reputation in the wake of the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme.

Goldman, on the other hand, doesn’t want to tangle with one of its biggest regulators and bringing any more negative attention to the company.

"Both parties are in very deep water," said Thomas Gorman, a former attorney in the SEC’s division of enforcement who now works in private practice at the law firm Porter Wright.

What seems certain is that the two sides will eventually reach a settlement. How quickly that happens remains anyone’s guess. According to several recent reports, Goldman attorneys have met with SEC officials. But the two parties are apparently no closer to an agreement.

Jay Brown, a professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, who focuses on corporate and securities law, said the possibility of a settlement by June 22 was "a very unlikely prospect."

Brown added that even if they were getting nearer to a deal, the parties would probably need more time just to hammer out the details.

Experts have said that one of biggest potential stumbling blocks in any negotiation is the terms of the settlement, versus any fine Goldman might be assessed.

Many believe that Goldman will attempt to seek a deal in which it agrees to lesser charges to avoid any impact on its client base and limit its exposure to the various shareholder suits the company faces. That may be a tough compromise however for the SEC, which is betting its reputation on this case.

"Goldman will want to get rid of that fraud charge and there is no reason for the SEC to drop it now," said Gorman.

One former high-ranking official in the SEC’s enforcement division said dragging out the settlement talks, however, won’t help either party. While the SEC has plenty of other cases to prosecute, Goldman is just as anxious to get out of the spotlight and get back to the business of making money.

"It doesn’t help Goldman or the SEC to have it go on for a long period of time," said the attorney, who requested anonymity out of fear of the impact it could have on business at his current law firm. "If you are going to settle, do it sooner and get it over with." 

Source

Decades of booming personal computer sales helped Intel become a chipmaking behemoth, but consumers’ rapid shift away from PCs may leave the tech giant out in the cold.

As Intel’s old marketing campaign proclaimed, the company’s chips are "inside" practically every kind of computer, from PCs to Macintoshes to netbooks. But PCs are yesterday’s news. Mobile Internet devices like smart phones and tablets are where all of the growth is but Intel (INTC, Fortune 500) hasn’t been able to gain much traction.

Where Intel has so far failed, a little-known British company called ARM has had roaring success. ARM is to mobile devices what Intel is to computers — the company develops and licenses the basic chip designs for practically all of the world’s cell phones, smart phones and Apple’s (AAPL, Fortune 500) iPad.

Tech analysts left and right are proclaiming that the mobile device market will outpace or perhaps even replace the PC market in the next five years. In fact, the market grew 56.7% during the first quarter, according to IDC.

Could a tiny British company that took in just less than $500 million in sales last year really be in a better position to take advantage of that forecasted growth than Intel, which had over $35 billion in revenue during the same period?

"Few companies have championed and invested in the shift to wireless computers and PC-like devices like Intel has," said Intel spokesman Bill Kircoss.

Analysts also say it’s premature to dismiss Intel. "ARM is ahead right now, but I’ve become smart enough to know that Intel can’t be counted out," said John Bruggeman, CMO of Cadence Design Systems. "Intel will figure it out, or it’ll spend its way out."

How we got here

Next to Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500), Intel has perhaps been the greatest benefactor of the PC boom of the past three decades. Intel’s patent on the x86 processor, which is required to run Windows, helped it become the biggest chipmaker in the world. Intel designed its chips for performance and power, making PCs lightning-fast and able to perform multiple complex tasks simultaneously.

ARM, meanwhile targeted a different, smaller market. By designing chips that use as little power as possible, ARM made its way into practically every cell phone on the market (about 20 billion mobile devices over the past 19 years, according to the company). Unlike Intel, ARM doesn’t actually make chips, but licenses designs to 220 companies around the world, including giants like Qualcomm (QCOM, Fortune 500), Texas Instruments (TXN, Fortune 500), Nvidia (NVDA), Samsung and Apple.

Both companies were humming along until Apple introduced the iPhone in the summer of 2007. The iPhone was years ahead of any other phone on the market at the time, allowing users to carry a device in their pockets that performed PC tasks.

"There was a huge technological disruption that took place at the launch of the iPhone," said Bruggeman. "Now, mobile is the high volume category and it’s the only one that matters. The only question is will it be Intel-based or ARM-based?"

Because of its vast experience in the mobile sector, ARM won the contract to design the iPhone’s processor and has since appeared in a large number of smart phones. Apple’s iPad also uses an ARM-licensed chip.

Atom bomb

The Intel vs. ARM battle is far from over. Mobile devices are rapidly improving, but none yet offer the same deep, rich Internet experience of a PC or run all of the complex tasks of a computer.

Next year, Intel plans to unveil a new "Atom" mobile device processor (code named "Moorestown"), which Intel thinks can outperform competitors and help it give ARM a run for its money.

First-generation Atom chips can be found in just about every netbook on the market. Though Intel offers the chips for smart phones, most devices with Intel inside only run the unsuccessful MeeGo platform. Intel so far has not been able to tap into the rampant success of Apple’s iPhone OS or Google’s (GOOG, Fortune 500) Android platform.

But the Atom 2 might change that. Though experts say Atom chips won’t soon be found in an iPhone, Intel recently demonstrated its Moorestown chip seamlessly running Android 2.1 at the Computex technology expo in Taipei.

"In just the past 30 days alone, we’ve expanded this chip line to cars, TVs, tablets and smartphones and plan to keep bringing new, and even more power-sipping Atoms to market," said Intel’s Kircoss.

Even ARM admits that its market dominance doesn’t mean that it has won.

"People don’t care what’s underneath, they just want to buy stuff that they think is cool," said Bob Morris, director of mobile computing at ARM. "Intel eventually will be successful in this area, though they’ll be one of many."

But there’s one potential hang up for Intel: Compared to its traditional PC chips, the profit margins for the Atom chip are atrocious. A small number of analysts even suggested that Intel would like the mobile market to go away.

"Maybe Intel doesn’t care who wins the mobile space," said Phani Saripella, analyst at Primary Global Research and a former Intel manager. "It might be better off defending its turf [on the higher end devices]."

Stay tuned. 

Source

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday he has concerns about a signature piece of Senate Democrats’ Wall Street reform package that cracks down on complex financial products.

Bernanke wrote about the consequences from a congressional ban preventing banks from trading the complex financial products, called derivatives, in a letter to key lawmakers.

"Forcing these activities out of insured depository institutions would weaken both financial stability and strong prudential regulation of derivative activities," Bernanke wrote to an author of the measure, Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.

Dodd worked with Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., on the measure, including the swaps ban, which ranks among the top hang-ups that could threaten final passage for the overall Wall Street reform bill.

Progress on the bill has been slow going, and the Senate will continue debating amendments at least through early next week, Dodd said Thursday.

The Fed chair’s concerns about the swaps ban are similar to those raised by other high profile regulators — former Fed chairman Paul Volcker and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair. They all stopped short of blasting the measure.

The tough crackdown in question is the brainchild of Sen. Lincoln, who is facing a contentious Democratic primary in Arkansas on Tuesday in her bid for re-election. The Senate isn’t expected to propose changes to the measure until after Tuesday, congressional aides and lobbyists say.

Congress generally wants to get tougher on derivatives, which are currently traded with no oversight and were a key reason for the taxpayer bailout of American International Group (AIG, Fortune 500). But lawmakers disagree about how much to regulate them.

The measure banning bank swaps goes farther than the so-called Volcker rule, named for the former Fed chief, that would only block some banks from doing such trades for their own purposes and accounts, called "proprietary trading."

The Lincoln proposal blocks banks from all derivatives if the banks want access to cheap emergency loans that the Federal Reserve can make as lender of last resort.

Bernanke said in the letter that banks use derivatives to shed risk that can arise in deals they make over interest rates, currency and other credit risks.

"Use of derivatives by depository institutions to mitigate risks in the banking business also provides important protection to the deposit insurance fund and taxpayers as well as to the financial system more broadly," Bernanke wrote.

A House bill that passed in December would allow all banks to trade derivatives in a more transparent way. However that bill also allows some trades between some banks and certain companies, such as airlines, to continue without regulation.

But Senate Democrats are tougher on derivatives, in the aftermath of fraud charges that the Securities and Exchange Commission levied against Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500) for selling a complex mortgage-related derivative to investors while failing to tell them that a hedge fund was betting against the product.

When asked about negotiations on the derivatives piece on Thursday, Dodd said he understood that discussions were ongoing, but he wasn’t involved in them. 

Source

Consumer borrowing posted an unexpected increase in March, only the second gain in the last 14 months. It could be a sign that households are feeling more confident about boosting spending, a key development needed to support a sustained economic recovery.

The Federal Reserve reported Friday that consumer borrowing rose by $1.95 billion in March, better than the $3.85 billion drop that economists had expected.

Consumer credit was also up in January, but other than those two gains, it has been falling steadily since February of last year as households have cut back on their borrowing to repair their battered balance sheets.

The March gain represented a 1 percent rise at an annual rate following a 3 percent drop in February and a 3.2 percent January increase savings account payday loans.

The strength came from a 3.9 percent jump in nonrevolving credit, which includes auto loans. Revolving credit, which covers credit card debt, actually fell by 4.5 percent, the 18th consecutive decline.

The overall increase of 1 percent pushed total credit up to $2.45 trillion at the end of March, down 3.4 percent from a year ago.

Economists are hoping that consumer borrowing will soon stabilize and resume growing, although they caution that the rebound will be restrained by tighter credit conditions imposed by many banks in the wake of the financial crisis.

Source