Business and Finance

The declining U.S. jobless rate may soon get another push downward as Americans lose extended unemployment benefits.

From April 7 through May 12, about 370,000 Americans in 23 states stopped getting the benefits, which provide payments for as long as 99 weeks, according to estimates from the National Employment Law Project. People in the remaining six states and the District of Columbia who still qualify may lose eligibility by September, bringing the program to an end, the report showed.

Some recipients who lose their benefits may decide to accept jobs they view as less than ideal. Others may give up looking for work and drop out of the labor force, eliminating them from the ranks of the jobless. Those outcomes may trim the unemployment rate by 0.1 percentage point to 0.2 point in the next few months, according to economists Dean Maki at Barclays and Michael Feroli at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Looking for accurate and precise life insurance quotes that will help you choose the right policy? This is the site where you will find all life insuranceand senior life insurance.

The biggest tech IPO in history took off like a slightly-delayed rocket this morning, with Facebook shares rising more than $7 to $45 in the first few minutes of trading, before falling back down to its launch price of $38 in the first hour of trading. So will the company be a long-term high flyer or will it just soars briefly before fizzling out?

The company

Compare and purchase low cost car insurance rates from multiple auto insurance companies immediately online.

The U.S. mortgage delinquency rate declined in the first quarter to the lowest level since 2008 as an improving job market and low interest rates helped more borrowers pay their bills.

The share of home loans at least 30 days late dropped to 7.4 percent from 7.58 percent in the previous three months, according to a report today from the Mortgage Bankers Association. The rate peaked at 10.1 percent in the first quarter of 2010 and was last lower in the third quarter of 2008, when it was 6.99 percent.

Charter Communications cut its losses in the first quarter, while managing to reverse a long decline in customers subscribing to cable TV.

The company, by far the largest Internet and TV provider in St. Louis, reported a loss of $94 million, or 95 cents per share. A year earlier, the company lost $110 million or 97 cents per share.

Charter is gradually becoming less of a cable TV company and more of an Internet service and phone provider. Still, cable TV provides the biggest piece of its revenue, and the slow drop off of cable video customers has long vexed the company.

That trend changed in the March quarter as Charter added 20,000 video customers, bringing the total to 4.16 million, compared to a loss of 24,000 in the same period a year earlier. That was the first quarterly video growth in five years, said CEO Tom Rutledge in an investor conference Tuesday.

Rutledge said the company has been improving the quality of its TV picture signal and the number of channels. It will be offering 100 high definition channels by mid-year, he said. It’s also been raising prices; about 40 percent of its video customers saw a 3 percent price increase recently.

Loss of video customers is common story in the cable TV business, which is facing more competition as telecom companies role out video services, such as AT&T’s U-verse, in a broader geographic area. Charter’s strongest competition is from satellite TV companies, Rutledge said. Internet streaming services, such as Netflix, aren’t a big factor in cable TV subscriber losses, he said.

“Our video competitors often offer more channels, including more HD channels, and typically only offer digital services which have a better picture quality compared to our analog product,” the company said in a filing Tuesday with the SEC. Charter offers both analog and digital services. People using older TVs without a digital converter box receive an analog signal.

Despite the rise in customers, revenues from video dropped 2 percent, in part because fewer people are paying for premium channels or using its pay video-on-demand service.

Overall, Charter’s revenue grew 3 percent as demand for Internet and phone service increased. Charter added 141,000 residential Internet customers compared a 90,000 gain a year earlier. It added 31,000 phone customers, up from 24,000 last year.

While making money on its basic operations, Charter remains burdened by $12.8 billion in debt and faces continuing costs to upgrade its systems.

Source

Billionaire Warren Buffett says his company’s purchase of his hometown newspaper last year may not be the last one even though newspapers face significant challenges.

A Berkshire Hathaway shareholder questioned whether last year’s purchase of the Omaha World-Herald in Buffett’s hometown was a personal indulgence.

Buffett defends the deal and says he believes Berkshire will profit from its ownership of the Omaha World-Herald company and the Buffalo News. It’s just that the profits won’t be as good as they used to be guaranteed payday loan.

Buffett says newspapers are usually still the primary source of local information, and that’s an advantage in places where community is important.

Buffett acknowledges that newspapers face difficult competition from online news sources and have high costs, but says Berkshire’s newspaper deals should work out OK.

Source

Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker said the central bank needs to be ready to raise interest rates even if joblessness exceeds 7 percent.

Speaking in an interview today at the Bloomberg Washington Summit hosted by Bloomberg Link, he said the Fed will probably have to raise rates in mid-2013. Adding more monetary stimulus now would raise inflation risks without doing much to boost growth, he said.

Unemployment

U.S. stocks finished near the highs of the day Wednesday, as investors digested comments from Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and cheered strong corporate results from big companies including Apple and Boeing.

All three major indexes rallied right out of the gate, on the back of stronger-than-expected financial results, but pulled back slightly leading up to Bernanke’s news conference.

The indexes regained momentum after the Fed chief said that the central bank remains "entirely prepared to take additional balance sheet actions…should the economy require additional support."

But the Fed was also more positive with its outlook, boosting its economic growth projection for the year and lowering its unemployment rate target.

"The Fed sounded a bit more upbeat on the economy than I was expecting," said Frank Fantozzi, CEO and President of Planned Financial Services. "It doesn’t have evidence to take any further stimulus action, and wants the economy to keep healing and improving on its own. But it also reserves the right to step in if the economy stalls or reverses course."

The Dow Jones industrial average () rose 89 points, or 0.7%, with a 5.3% jump in shares of Boeing (, Fortune 500) leading the gains. The aerospace and defense company reported earnings that trounced Wall Street’s expectations. Caterpillar (, Fortune 500) was the biggest loser on the blue-chip index, after it reported revenue that fell short of forecasts.

The S&P 500 () gained 19 points, or 1.4%, and the Nasdaq () added 68 points, or 2.3%.

Apple’s (, Fortune 500) nearly 9% pop made it one of the biggest gainers on both indexes Wednesday. The world’s most valuable company reported that its net income nearly doubled, on much stronger-than-expected iPhone sales.

Apple literally does rule the world

Apple shares had been struggling ahead of its quarterly results, losing nearly 12% over an 11-day stretch. But Wednesday’s rally helped push the stock back above $600 a share, and just 5% away from its all-time high.

"Apple’s earnings are certainly having a big impact," said Dave Hinnenkamp, CEO of KDV Wealth Management. "Apple is a bellwether for the technology industry, and investors are influenced by positive reports from market leaders."

Insiders are selling. Should you?

Shares of companies that make chips or accessories for iPhones also rode the good-news wave, including Cirrus Logic (), Skyworks Solutions () and Triquint (). ARM () and Qualcomm (, Fortune 500), two semiconductor companies, also gained traction.

Shares of Omnivision (), which makes camera sensors for the iPhone, jumped, while Zagg (), a popular maker of iPhone accessories like cases and screen protectors, also rallied.

U.S. stocks finished mixed Tuesday. Better-than-expected earnings boosted the Dow and S&P, while Netflix () weighed down the Nasdaq.

Economy: The Fed also left its key interest rate unchanged near zero and reiterated that low rates are likely to remain through late 2014.

The central bank also expects the economy to grow between 2 business card.4% and 2.9% in 2012, which would be an improvement over 1.7% growth last year. The Fed also revised its forecasts for the labor market, predicting the unemployment rate will fall to between 7.8% and 8% by the end of the year.

Before the market open, the Commerce Department’s durable goods report came in weaker than expected, with new orders for big-ticket items falling 4.2% — worse than the 1.7% drop forecast by economists surveyed by Briefing.com.

New orders for nondefense capital goods, excluding aircraft, fell 8.9%. That reading in the report is taken as a barometer of business investment.

The Mortgage Bankers Association also reported a 3.8% decline in new mortgage applications for last week, despite the exceptionally low rates on home loans.

Companies: In addition to Apple and Boeing, Wednesday also brought more strong corporate results for investors to consider, including telecom giant Sprint Nextel (, Fortune 500), health insurer Wellpoint (, Fortune 500), and glass-maker and tech supplier Corning (, Fortune 500).

Sprint shares were slightly lower even after the wireless provider posted a loss that was narrower than forecasts. Wellpoint’s were higher than expected, while Corning, whose Gorilla glass is used in Apple’s iPhones and iPads, also topped expectations.

Harley-Davidson (, Fortune 500) shares jumped after the motorcycle maker boosted its full-year production forecast.

DuPont (, Fortune 500) shares rose after the company boosted its dividend by 5%.

Shares of Tyson Foods (, Fortune 500), one of the biggest U.S. beef processors, dipped slightly after at least one major South Korean retailer suspended the sale of U.S. beef Wednesday, one day after after authorities confirmed a case of "mad cow disease" in the carcass of a dairy cow in central California. But Korean authorities have not halted imports of U.S. beef. South Korea is the No. 2 importer of U.S. beef.

World markets: European stocks finished higher, despite a reading on gross domestic product in the United Kingdom that indicated Britain has fallen back into recession. London’s FTSE 100 () edged up 0.1%, while the DAX () in Germany added 1.6% and France’s CAC 40 () gained 2.2%.

Germany’s auction of €3 billion worth of 30-year bonds was under-subscribed Wednesday morning, with only €2.7 billion in bids being received. That sent yields on the German debt higher.

Asian markets ended mixed, with the Shanghai Composite () rising 0.8% and Japan’s Nikkei () up nearly 1%, while the Hang Seng () in Hong Kong slid 0.2%.

Currencies and commodities: The dollar lost ground against the euro, but rose versus the Japanese yen and the British pound.

Oil for June delivery rose 57 cents to settle at $104.12 a barrel.

Gold futures for June delivery lost $1.50 to settle at $1,642.30 an ounce, but trading amount is up from earlier lows.

Bonds: The price on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury slipped, pushing the yield up to 1.99% from 1.96% late Tuesday.  

Source

U.S. investors thought they were buying access to a stock-picking robot named “Marl.” Instead, they paid millions to teenage twin brothers in England who now face civil fraud charges for an alleged penny-stock swindle.

The robot didn’t exist.

The stocks picked were companies that paid hefty fees to Alexander and Thomas Hunter, just 16 when the alleged scheme began in 2007, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Friday. As stock prices jumped, the Hunters’ clients dumped their shares for a profit.

“While touting their supposed breakthrough investment technology on two websites, the Hunters were racking up fees as stock promoters through a third,” said Thomas Sporkin, chief of the SEC’s office of market intelligence, in a statement.

The SEC filed a civil suit against the Hunters, who are now 20, in U.S. District Court in Manhattan Friday.

Officials are asking the court to block the twins from the securities industry and order them to return the money they collected from investors. They are also seeking additional financial penalties.

It all began with a website called daytradingrobot.com, according to a narrative sketched out by the SEC.

The Hunters drew roughly 75,000 investors, who were promised stock tips generated by a sophisticated program. The investors, most of them in the United States, paid at least $1.2 million for newsletters revealing the robot’s insights and a “home version” of the robot software.

“The longer Marl is allowed to run on a computer … The More Advanced He Becomes!” one of the Hunters’ websites crowed, according to the SEC complaint. The Marl “home version” cost an additional $97. For that, investors got a program that grabbed ticker symbols fed in by the Hunters.

The twins collected an additional $1.9 million from companies seeking Marl’s endorsement, the SEC said. On the site equitypromoter.com, Thomas Hunter wrote that his websites attracted thousands of visitors each day, many of whom followed his investing recommendations.

“One email to this list of people rockets a stock price,” the website said, according to the SEC complaint.

In 2008, after they promoted a music publishing company called UOMO Media Inc., its share price doubled to 69 cents. Another round of promotion in 2009 lifted UOMO’s stock to $1.06. UOMO has not traded above a penny since September 2010.

For another promotion, Alexander Hunter purchased 21,000 shares for 16 cents, pumped the price up to 51 cents and sold the shares for a profit of less than $6,000. He videotaped the trading and used the footage to promote the newsletter, the SEC said.

Marl, the fictional robot’s name, was a combination of the names of its supposed creators: Michael Cohen and Carl Williamson. The Hunters claimed that Cohen had developed a Goldman Sachs trading model that generated more than $4 billion in annual trading profits.

Goldman never employed a Michael Cohen for that kind of work, the SEC said.

The Hunters’ skills apparently did not include computer programming. In 2007, they advertised for programmers who could make “a small software program which will appear to the user that once running it is analyzing thousands of penny stocks,” according to the SEC’s complaint.

In a note marked “IMPORTANT,” they added: “This software does not actually find stocks at all. . . . Basically this is almost a `fake’ piece of software and needs to simply appear advanced.”

Source

Disney movie studio boss Rich Ross is stepping down, a month after the family entertainment giant booked a huge loss on the movie “John Carter.”

Two and a half years ago, Ross took over for then-studio chair Dick Cook.

Ross said in a memo to staff Friday that the role of chairman of Walt Disney Studios was no longer the right professional fit for him.

A month ago, Disney booked a $200 million loss on “John Carter,” the sci-fi epic based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs book series cash advance loan. The loss will pull the entire studio into a loss of $80 million to $120 million in the quarter through March.

The Walt Disney Co. did not name a successor.

Source

Stocks are opening sharply lower after a mostly strong start to the week, yanked down by concerns about the debt crisis in Europe.

The Dow Jones industrial average is down 75 points to 13,041 in the opening minutes of trading Wednesday, a day after soaring 194 points, its biggest this year.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 is down six at 1,384 and the Nasdaq composite index is down 11 points to 3,032.

Spain, which sent markets higher Tuesday after its successful bond sale, reported that the proportion of bad loans at the country’s banks rose to an 18-year high low fee payday loans.

In the U.S., Halliburton rose 3 percent after the oil services company posted a 23 percent jump in first-quarter profits.

Source