The European Central Bank is considering using its bond holdings to bolster Greece
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Alberici Corp. said today it has bought a Topeka, Kan.-based company that specializes in building water treatment facilities using the design-build method.
Terms of Alberici’s deal to buy CAS Construction LLC were not released. Mike Burke, executive vice president of Alberici, said in a statement the acquisition provides Alberici with additional design-build capabilities and the ability to reach new customers and markets.
Alberici and CAS began working together three years ago, when they teamed with engineering firm Burns & McDonnell on the $73 million aquifer recharge system for the city of Wichita, Kan.
Mike Hafling, president of CAS, and other senior managers will remain with the company, which has been renamed CAS Constructors. LLC. Charles A. Stryker founded the company in 1985 and managed the business until his death in 2006.
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The number of Americans signing contracts to buy previously owned homes in December held near a 19-month high, showing the stabilization in the market that began in late 2011 will extend into the new year.
The index of pending home sales decreased 3.5 percent last month after jumping a combined 18 percent in October and November, figures from the National Association of Realtors showed today in Washington. It was the best back-to-back reading since a buyer tax credit boosted demand in early 2010.
Wall Street opened higher Wednesday following reports that the International Monetary Fund could get more cash to help countries struggling to manage their debt.
The Dow Jones industrial average is up 43 points at 12,483 after the first half-hour of trading. That’s an increase of 0.4 percent. Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are the Dow’s leading stocks. BofA rose 2.6 percent, JPMorgan 2 percent.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. jumped 3.5 percent after the investment bank reported earnings that trumped analysts’ expectations. Profit still sank 58 percent in the last three months of 2011, a result of sinking interest rates and volatile financial markets.
Other financial stocks were sharply lower. State Street Corp. dropped 6.5 percent.
Christine Lagarde, the IMF’s managing director, said Tuesday that the fund was looking at ways to increase the amount it can lend to countries, partly to deal with Europe’s debt crisis.
The S&P 500 index is up 5 points to 1,298. The Nasdaq is up 16 points, or 0.6 percent, to 2,744.
Yahoo Inc. rose 2 no credit check payday loans.5 percent on news that co-founder Jerry Yang is leaving the struggling Internet company. The departure clears the way for newly hired CEO Scott Thompson to take more radical action to shake up the company.
The Federal Reserve said manufacturing rose 0.9 percent in December, the biggest increase since December 2010. Output surged as companies bought more machines and materials.
Among other stocks making large moves Wednesday:
_ Amphenol Corp. soared 10 percent, the largest gain in the S&P 500. The manufacturer of fiber optic cables reported earnings that beat analysts’ expectations.
_ Linear Technology Corp. jumped 8.3 percent. The Milpitas, Calif.-based circuit maker said it expects revenue to rise between 4 and 8 percent in its third quarter following strong order increases in December and January. It also raised its dividend by a penny to 25 cents per share.
One in eight people earning at least $1 million annually was audited by the Internal Revenue Service last year, making them far likelier to be examined than those making below $200,000, according to IRS data released Thursday.
Just 1 in 100 individuals earning less than $200,000 had their income tax returns examined, the IRS said.
The 12 percent of millionaire earners audited in 2011 was appreciably higher than the 8 percent who were audited in 2010. IRS officials said the high ratio was part of an effort to demonstrate that tax laws are applied fairly.
“That has been something we’ve concentrated on to assure that there’s equity in the system, to assure that those at the lower end of the spectrum know that those at the higher end of the spectrum are subject to the same rules and enforcement as everyone else,” Steven Miller, deputy IRS commissioner for services and enforcement, said in an interview.
In recent weeks, President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats have sought to boost taxes on the wealthy as a way to pay for jobs programs, a theme they are expected to continue in this presidential and congressional election year. IRS spokeswoman Michelle Eldridge said the growing portion of millionaire earners’ returns audited is not related to politics.
“The IRS is an agency of civil servants, and we base our audit decisions on tax issues _ nothing else. We don’t play politics here,” she said.
Between 2004 and 2009, the percentage of millionaire earners audited ranged between 5 percent and 7 percent.
The data was divided into only three categories of income: below $200,000, $200,000 and up, and $1 million and higher.
About 1 in 25 people earning $200,000 and more was audited in 2011.
The IRS also audited a greater proportion of large corporations than smaller ones, the data shows.
Last year, 1 percent of corporations with assets under $10 million were audited. Among corporations with assets of $250 million and up, 28 percent were audited.
The IRS said its enforcement efforts to collect all taxes owed _ which include audits, court cases and other activities _ netted $55 billion last year. That is nearly $3 billion less than the previous year, which Miller attributed to a falloff in estate taxes and corporations writing off their losses.
All together, the IRS audited nearly 1.6 million of the 141 million individual income tax returns that were filed. In 2010 _ the most recent year available _ more than 8 in 10 individuals audited ended up paying additional taxes.
The agency collected a total of $2.3 trillion in revenue last year from individuals and businesses, including the $55 billion from its enforcement efforts.
The IRS figures also showed that:
_In 2011, the agency garnisheed wages or seized money from bank accounts 3.7 million times, put liens on property 1 million times and seized 776 pieces of property.
_77 percent of individual returns were filed electronically last year, up from 69 percent in 2010.
_70 percent of callers to IRS taxpayer information telephone lines got through, slightly less than the 74 percent who reached someone in 2010. Miller attributed that to budget cuts to the agency.
_The information IRS officials dispensed over the phone to taxpayers was accurate 93 percent of the time, the same as the previous year.
_The IRS website, http://www.irs.gov, was visited 319 million times in 2011, a slight increase.
The data was presented by federal fiscal years, which begin on the previous Oct. 1.
In a Dec. 30 story about iceberg lettuce being removed from grocery stores after salmonella was found in an Arizona field adjacent to the grower’s property, The Associated Press, relying on information from Kroger and its affiliated Smith’s Food and Drug, erroneously reported the lettuce had been removed from stores in North Carolina, among at least six other states. Kroger said Saturday the product never made it to its North Carolina stores.
Global stock markets were mixed Friday on 2011’s last trading day and turned in heavy losses for the year after Europe’s debt crisis and natural disasters battered a struggling global economy. Japan’s benchmark hit its lowest close in three decades.
Benchmark oil hovered below $100 per barrel and the dollar weakened against the yen but rose against the euro.
Asian traders recorded gains for the day Friday but markets in Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong ended the year with double-digit losses.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 index, after three straight days of losses, rose 0.4 percent to 8,429.45, but it was the lowest closing since 1982. China’s benchmark gained 1.2 percent to close at 2,199.42 _ still, a 20 percent loss for the year.
European shares were steady or slightly down in early trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 lost 0.2 percent at 5,555.92. Germany’s DAX was marginally down at 5,846.35 and France’s CAC-40 was nearly unchanged at 3,127.34.
Wall Street appeared headed for a lower closing, with Dow Jones industrial futures down 0.2 percent at 12,194 and S&P 500 futures slipping 0.2 percent to 1,255.40.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gained 0.2 percent to close at 18,434.39.
Australia’s benchmark S&P ASX 200 ended the year at 4,140.4 _ down 0.4 percent on the day and 14.5 percent lower for 2011. A day earlier, South Korea’s benchmark Kospi closed at 1,825.74 on Thursday _ 11 percent down on its last trading session of the year Thursday.
Analysts said global stocks tumbled in lockstep, suffering from the effects of natural disasters, a wobbly recovery in the U.S. _ and an escalating European debt crisis that has resisted repeated measures taken by the region’s governments and financial institutions.
“The big reason is Europe. Europe tried to muddle through without a real solution. They can save a small country like Greece, but they cannot save a big country like Italy. Two trillion euros in foreign debt _ nobody in the world has that kind of money,” said Francis Lun, managing director of Lyncean Holdings in Hong Kong.
“Europe will enter a lost decade, a decade of no solutions and no growth,” he said. “Maybe except in Germany, their machinery is still selling.”
Japan’s benchmark plunged after the March 11 tsunami and earthquake disaster that destroyed huge chunks of the island nation’s northeastern region, left 20,000 people dead or missing and set off the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.
Disaster damage extended to key suppliers for major companies like Toyota Motor Corp. and Sony Corp., which suffered production disruptions. The Thai flooding that followed caused similar problems for automakers, including Honda Motor Co., but on a smaller scale.
The Tokyo market also saw two big-name brands lose much of their value.
One was Tokyo Electric Power Co., the utility that runs Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, where at least three reactors went into meltdown after tsunami destroyed backup generators to keep power going at the plant.
Some officials say TEPCO may have to be nationalized because of ballooning losses and the costs to bring the reactors under control and compensate victims.
Another was camera and medical equipment maker Olympus Corp., whose offices have been raided by criminal investigators after fabricated accounting to cover up massive investment losses came to light no fax payday loans.
A British executive, who has since resigned from the board, was first to draw attention to the dubious investments, and has become a celebrity figure raising questions about old-style Japanese management.
Across the board, Japanese companies have been slammed by the rising value of the yen, which erodes the value of revenue from exports.
The Nikkei lost nearly a fifth of its value over the past year. It nose-dived right after the disaster, recouped some of those losses in July, but then started a decline that has the benchmark hovering at below the March value.
China’s benchmark Shanghai Composite Index lost 21 percent in 2011 as the impact of Beijing’s multibillion-dollar stimulus faded and the government tightened curbs on lending and investment to cool blistering economic growth.
The flood of state spending and bank lending after the 2008 crisis fueled a surge in real estate and stock prices. In 2010, Beijing responded by clamping down on credit and real estate speculation to cool inflation and soaring housing prices.
Beijing is trying to steer growth to a more sustainable level after 2010’s explosive 10.3 percent expansion. Growth eased to 9.1 percent in the three months ending in September, down from 9.5 percent the previous quarter.
Chinese leaders have promised to ease credit to help exporters and smaller companies cope with falling global demand and weaker domestic growth. But they say most controls will remain in place. That has disappointed stock traders who are hoping for interest rate cuts and looser controls on bank lending. They have responded in recent weeks by dumping stocks and moving some money to U.S. and European markets.
The benchmark Hang Seng Index slipped in the second half of the year as concerns over Europe accelerated, sending it to a 2011 low in early October before bouncing slightly to end the year at a 20 percent loss.
Hong Kong is Chinese territory, but its financial markets are open to foreign companies and investors, which made it a popular destination this year for foreign companies looking to go public, drawn by the prospect of raising their brand profiles with China’s newly wealthy as growth flags in their home markets.
Italian fashion house Prada was one of the biggest names to list in Hong Kong, with an initial public offering in June that raised $2.5 billion, making it the sixth-biggest IPO globally this year, according to deal tracking service Dealogic.
Other foreign companies that took out primary or secondary listings in Hong Kong include MGM China Holdings Ltd., the Macau casino arm of MGM Resorts International, luggage maker Samsonite S.A. and U.S. luxury handbag maker Coach Inc. However, the slumping market means share prices for many companies that went public are ending the year lower than IPO price.
Benchmark crude for February delivery fell 28 cents to $99.37 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract added 29 cents to settle at $99.65 in New York on Thursday.
In currency trading, the dollar fell to 77.58 yen from 77.65 yen late Thursday in New York. The euro fell to $1.2913 from $1.2939.
Chinese industrial companies
A top European Central Bank official has publicly discussed the reasons for his surprise resignation, saying he is not satisfied with the direction Europe’s currency union has taken.
Juergen Stark said in an interview in Monday’s edition of Germany’s Wirtschaftswoche magazine that the ECB had done its job by keeping inflation under control across the eurozone, which it does through adjusting interest rates.
But he said some governments had tolerated excessive wage costs and unsustainable real estate booms that preceded today’s debt crisis.
Stark is leaving at the end of the year, 2 1/2 years before the end of his eight-year term on the bank’s six-member executive board. The council runs the bank day-to-day at its Frankfurt heaquarters, while interest rate decisions are taken by the broader 23-member government council, on which Stark also sits.
Stark was quoted as saying that “there is a broad theme that serves as the reason for this: that I am not satisfied with the way this currency union has developed.”
Stark said the ECB had done its part by keeping inflation under control but could not be expected to clean up policy mistakes by individual governments that ran up too much debt or let their economies become uncompetitive through high labor costs.
“Don’t overburden the central bank,” he said.
He said governments should have avoided financial trouble by reining in labor costs. Stark was quoted as saying governments also failed to rein in excessive real estate booms that collapsed and contributed to the eurozone debt crisis. He didn’t mention individual countries but wage costs rose in Greece, hampering the economy and state finances, and Ireland and Spain had debt-fueled real estate booms that collapsed.
The ECB earlier said Stark was leaving at year-end for personal reasons.
Analysts have said he appears to have left because of opposition to the European Central Bank’s program to buy government bonds. But Stark was not quoted in the interview as mentioning the bond purchase program.
The purchases lower the borrowing costs faced by indebted governments such as Italy and Spain. High borrowing costs are threatening to leave them unable to be able to borrow anew to pay off bonds that are maturing, resulting in a disastrous default that would shake the eurozone and global economy.
The bank and its President Mario Draghi have said the program is limited and only aimed at steering interest rates, and that governments must reform their finances and not wait for a central bank bailout.
Stark repeated his longstanding opposition to calls for the ECB to sharply increase the bond purchases through its power to create new money. He said that would violate the prohibition in the EU treaty on the ECB using its monetary powers to finance governments, although it is a step that the U.S. Federal Reserve has been allowed to take.
Stark dismissed calls by “real or self-styled experts” to use the “big bazooka” of printing money. “It is a fundamental arrangmenet of a currency union that the monetary financing of state debts through the ECB is not permitted,” he said.
Regulators on Friday closed small banks in Florida and Arizona, boosting to 92 the number of bank failures in the U.S. this year.
The number of closures has fallen sharply this year as banks have worked their way through the bad debt accumulated in the recession. By this time last year, regulators had shuttered 157 banks.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized Premier Community Bank of the Emerald Coast, based in Crestview, Fla., with $126 million in assets and $112 million in deposits, and Phoenix-based Western National Bank, with $162.9 million in assets and $144.5 million in deposits.
Summit Bank, based in Panama City, Fla., agreed to assume the loans and other assets as well as the deposits of Premier Community Bank. In addition, the FDIC and Summit Bank agreed to share losses on $98 million of Premier Community Bank’s assets.
Washington Federal, based in Seattle, is acquiring the assets and deposits of Western National Bank.
The failure of Premier Community Bank of the Emerald Coast is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund $31.2 million; that of Western National Bank is expected to cost $37.6 million.
Florida has been one of the hardest-hit states for bank failures. Regulators closed 29 banks in Florida last year. The failure of Premier Community Bank brought to 13 the number of Florida lenders shut down this year
California, Georgia and Illinois also have seen large numbers of bank failures.
In all of 2010, regulators seized 157 banks, the most in any year since the savings and loan crisis two decades ago. Those failures cost around $23 billion. The FDIC has said 2010 likely was the high-water mark for bank failures from the Great Recession.
In 2009, there were 140 bank failures that cost the insurance fund about $36 billion, a higher price tag than in 2010 because the banks involved were bigger on average. Twenty-five banks failed in 2008, the year the financial crisis struck with force; only three were closed in 2007.
From 2008 through 2010, bank failures cost the fund $76.8 billion. The FDIC expects failures from 2011 through 2015 to cost $19 billion.
The deposit insurance fund fell into the red in 2009. With failures slowing, the FDIC’s fund balance turned positive in the second quarter of this year; it stood at $7.8 billion as of Sept. 30.