Business and Finance

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.

Solve your money worries and apply for a faxless payday loan today!

Ally Financial’s ResCap mortgage unit filed for a prepackaged bankruptcy protection Monday, a move that the taxpayer-owned bank says will allow it to take another step to repay Treasury.

The ResCap unit, which operates under the GMAC Mortgage brand, was once one of the nation’s leading subprime lenders. Problems with those home loans for riskier borrowers and the sharp drop in the company’s core auto finance business forced Treasury to give it a $15.8 billion bailout in 2009, as part of its efforts to rescue the troubled auto industry and housing market.

The company, which started as the finance unit of automaker General Motors (, Fortune 500) under the GMAC name, changed its name to Ally following the bailout. Besides continuing its auto finance business, it now operates an online commercial bank.

Ally also said it is looking at a possible sale or other strategic alternatives for its international business.

The company said that it expects GMAC to continue to make and service mortgage loans while the bankruptcy process is completed. The portfolio of home loans it holds, now valued at less than half its original value, will be auctioned off as part of the bankruptcy process payday loan lenders.

GMAC said it will make a so-called "stalking horse" bid of $1.6 billion for those loans, but they are expected to draw a higher bid from investors.

"The action by ResCap will enable Ally to achieve a permanent solution to its legacy mortgage risks and put these issues behind us," said Ally Chief Executive Officer Michael A. Carpenter. "This action, along with pursuing alternatives for the international businesses, will allow Ally to focus 100 percent of its energies on further strengthening its already leading U.S. auto finance and direct banking franchises."

Treasury currently owns about 74% of its outstanding stock, and Ally has paid about $5.5 billion of the bailout back to Treasury through dividends and loan repayments. The company’s statement Monday said that upon successful completion of the bankruptcy auction and disposal of its international business, it should be able to have paid back about two-thirds of the government bailout. 

Source

However, if you are online you might notice there are many websites who claim to offer a freecreditscore check.

Three high-ranking executives at JPMorgan Chase are expected to leave their jobs this week after a trading blunder cost the bank $2 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.

The Journal, citing people familiar with the situation, reported that one of the executives is Ina Drew, who for seven years has run the risk-management division at the bank responsible for the loss.

The other two identified by the newspaper are an executive in charge of the London desk that placed the trades and a managing director on that team. The bank did not immediately return a message from The Associated Press.

The $2 billion loss, disclosed on Thursday by CEO Jamie Dimon, has been an embarrassment for the bank and led lawmakers and critics of the banking industry to call for tougher regulation of Wall Street.

Drew, one of the highest-ranking women on Wall Street, is the bank’s chief investment officer. She was paid $15.5 million last year and almost $16 million the year before, according to a regulatory filing.

The Journal reported that Bruno Iksil, the JPMorgan trader identified as the “London whale” because of the giant bets he placed, was also likely to leave, but the paper reported that it was not clear when that would happen.

On Friday, investors shaved almost 10 percent off JPMorgan’s stock price. Dimon said in a TV interview aired Sunday that he was “dead wrong” when he dismissed concerns about the bank’s trading last month.

“We made a terrible, egregious mistake,” Dimon said in an interview that was taped Friday and aired on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “There’s almost no excuse for it.”

Dimon said he did not know the extent of the problem when he said in April that the concerns were a “tempest in a teapot.”

The loss came in the past six weeks. Dimon has said it came from trading in so-called credit derivatives and was designed to hedge against financial risk, not to make a profit for the bank.

Dimon said the bank is open to inquiries from regulators. He has also promised, in an email to the bank’s employees and in a conference call with stock analysts, to get to the bottom of what happened and learn from the mistake.

Dimon told NBC that he supported giving the government the authority to dismantle a failing big bank and wipe out shareholder equity. But he stressed that JPMorgan, the largest bank in the United States, is “very strong.”

A piece of financial regulation known as the Volcker rule would prevent banks from certain kinds of trading for their own profit. Dimon has said the trading involved in the $2 billion loss would not have fallen under the rule.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., told ABC’s “This Week” that he hopes the final version of the Volcker rule will prevent the type of trading that led to the massive loss at JPMorgan.

Dimon conceded to NBC that the bank “hurt ourselves and our credibility” and expects to “pay the price for that.” Asked what the price should be, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said that banks will lose their fight to weaken the rule.

“This was not a risk-reducing activity that they engaged in. This increased their risk,” Levin told NBC.

“So we’ve got to be very, very careful that the regulators here are not undermined by this huge effort to weaken the rule by putting in a huge loophole” that includes the trading involved in the JPMorgan loss, he said.

Addressing public anger toward Wall Street, Dimon said he wants a more equitable society and does not mind paying higher taxes. But he said attacking all of business is “very counterproductive.”

Source

Let Greece go: It’s a possibility that’s being considered more and more publicly in Europe.

There have been two and a half years of bailouts, on top of broken promises by Greece to reform. The result: a fifth year of recession and, this week, political chaos. Voters on Sunday favored parties that either oppose the terms of the country’s international bailout or want to renegotiate them. If it cannot get more rescue loans, Greece will go bankrupt and likely have to leave the eurozone, the currency union of 17 countries.

The question confronting leaders in Athens, Berlin and other eurozone capitals could soon be: What would happen if Greece left the euro? How much damage would that do?

Among the possible scenarios:

• GREEK CHAOS: Economists agree that Greece, where unemployment is 21.7 percent, would suffer even more if it left.

So Greeks would try to pull their euros out of their bank accounts — before they could be converted into a new currency worth far less. Owners of Greek stocks would sell. As markets plunged and deposits fled, banks would collapse.

To try to limit the drain, the government would probably have to close the banks while the new currency is introduced. It might also try to prevent people from moving euros out of the country.

Every Greek company that owes money in euros would see those debts grow much heavier. Many would go bankrupt.

• A BOUNCE-BACK: On the plus side, the weaker drachma would make Greek exports cheaper and more competitive and could help the economy start growing payday loans guaranteed no fax. Companies outside Greece might be attracted by the cheaper labor and real estate, encouraging them to move plants there.

Tourism would also get a boost: booking a room on a Greek island, for example, would become much cheaper for foreigners.

• CONTAGION: The great fear, some say, is that if Greece leaves, other troubled eurozone countries might do the same.

“The big danger is financial contagion,” said Dennis Snower, president of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. “The question would be, what stops the Portuguese from doing something similar?” People might think “just in case, let me get my money out of the bank,” he said.

• MAYBE NOT: Not everyone agrees that a Greek exit would be a disaster. Greece is tiny, and it wouldn’t be a total surprise. The possibility of a euro exit has been hanging over markets since late 2009. Banks outside Greece have had time to write off their Greek investments — and not make any new ones.

“A year ago, I would have said it’s too risky, but the situation has changed,” said Commerzbank’s chief economist, Joerg Kraemer, citing the eurozone fund and ECB loans. “The combined fiscal and monetary shield is much higher than it was a year ago.”

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

The Obama administration’s top environmental official in the oil-rich South and Southwest region has resigned after Republicans targeted him over remarks made two years ago when he used the word “crucify” to describe how he would go after companies violating environmental laws.

In a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson sent Sunday, Al Armendariz says he regrets his words and stresses that they do not reflect his work as administrator of the five-state region including Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana. Armendariz, who holds a doctorate in environmental engineering, apologized last week for his remarks. A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, told The Associated Press that Armendariz has since received death threats. His resignation was effective Monday, when he informed his senior staff. Sam Coleman, a career official who led the agency’s response to Hurricane Katrina and served as Armendariz’ deputy, took over as acting regional administrator.

“I have come to the conclusion that my continued service will distract you and the agency from its important work,” Armendariz wrote in the letter, which was obtained by the AP.

Republicans in Congress had called for Armendariz’ firing, after Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe highlighted the May 2010 speech last week as proof of what he refers to as EPA’s assault on energy, particularly the technique of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

At a town hall meeting in Washington on Friday, Jackson had said only that she would continue to review the case, calling Armendariz’ words “inflammatory” and “wrong”. President Barack Obama appointed Armendariz in November 2009, at the urging of Texas-based environmental groups. He is one of the few Latinos in senior leadership at the EPA.

The regional administrator’s words “don’t comport with either this administration’s policy on energy, our policy at EPA on environmental enforcement, nor do they comport with our record as well,” Jackson said.

The EPA, perhaps more than any other agency, has found itself in the GOP’s crosshairs over its regulation of the gases blamed for global warming, steps it has taken to limit air pollution from coal-fired power plants, and its increased regulation of fracking, which is responsible for a gas drilling boom. Republicans, including presidential contender Mitt Romney _ who has called for Jackson herself to be fired _ have blamed the agency for high gasoline prices and clamping down on American energy.

Armendariz, who was based in Texas, frequently found himself at odds with the state government and the oil and gas industry, which are often aligned.

The scientist and environmental activist had long been frustrated by the government’s inability to clean up Texas’ notoriously polluted air, and he had called the EPA broken and testified on behalf of activist groups about just how badly the federal and state environmental agencies had botched things guaranteed fast personal loans.

Environmentalists said Monday that it was Armendariz getting crucified for doing his job _ enforcing the law.

“He took bold steps that have been needed for decades to move our state forward,” said Ken Kramer, director of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club. “The only people who will celebrate his resignation are the polluters who continue to foul Texas air and the politicians who serve those special interests.”

Several disputed contamination cases in Texas in which Armendariz was involved have helped stoke environmental concerns over fracking, a technique in which oil and gas producers inject water, chemicals and sand underground at high pressures to fracture rock so gas can come out.

In one case cited by Republicans, the EPA issued an emergency order in 2010 _ an unprecedented action in Texas _ accusing Range Resources of contaminating an aquifer and giving it 48 hours to provide clean drinking water to residents. Armendariz said he went around the state agency that oversees drilling because it wasn’t responding quickly enough. The order later was withdrawn after a state court ruled evidence that fracking had caused the contamination had been falsified.

“He was flat wrong,” wrote more than two dozen lawmakers in a letter to Jackson sent Friday, calling for Armendariz’ firing. “There was no contamination and his office failed to conduct appropriate or adequate science to support his claims.” The EPA has faced similar criticism for its analysis of potential drinking water contamination from fracking in Pennsylvania and Wyoming.

Armendariz’ speech was made in Dish, a small town northwest of Dallas, where residents’ concerns over the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing helped put the issue on the national stage.

Testing, which was urged by the EPA, showed some groundwater contamination and elevated toxic air pollution after operators began using a new method _ a combination of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and horizontal drilling _ to extract once out-of-reach gas.

Referring to how the Romans once conquered villages in the Mediterranean, Armendariz said, “They’d go into a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw and they’d crucify them.”

“And so you make examples out of people who are in this case not complying with the law,” he said.” Find people who are not complying with the law and you hit them as hard as you can and make examples of them.”

___

Associated Press correspondent Angela K. Brown contributed reporting from Fort Worth, Texas.

Source

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

Lamborghini could have made a four door sedan instead of an SUV, but that wouldn’t have been cool enough, said the Italian automaker’s chief executive in a telephone interview from Beijing, where the Urus SUV concept vehicle was being unveiled.

Sedans are "less emotional" than SUV’s, Stephan Winkelmann said and, therefore not as good a fit for the maker of extreme performance vehicles. "What we want to build is a real Lamborghini in any market segment we enter," he said.

Still, Lamborghini also wants to create a vehicle that can be used for more than just occasional high-speed drives.

"Today, we are not building cars which are meant to driven on a daily basis from ‘point a’ to ‘point b,’" Winkelmann said, "and this car is exactly that."

Lamborghini’s current line-up consists of two models, the V-12 powered Aventador, available at prices starting at about $375,000, and the V-10 powered Gallardo, which starts at about $180,000 and is available in numerous hard-top and convertible variations.

Gallery: Lamborghini Urus SUV

The Italian automaker has been considering something with broader appeal for years, Winkelmann said. In 2008, Lamborghini showed off a four-door sedan concept vehicle called the Estoque. But he said the global economic crisis put a stop to any further consideration of that vehicle.

Meanwhile, the SUV market has continued to expand, despite higher gas prices, as more sizes and variations of the high-riding vehicles have come to market.

Today, SUVs range from the traditional large truck-based vehicles to very small, sporty models personal loan for poor credit. According to a recent analysis by Ford Motor Co. (, Fortune 500), one in three vehicles sold in the United States last year was some sort of SUV.

"Even outside the U.S., the segment is growing," Winkelmann said.

Should Lamborghini decide to make the Urus available for sale — something Winkelmann said hadn’t been decided yet — it would cost roughly the same as the Gallardo.

Cool cars from the N.Y. auto show

Producing a vehicle like the Urus is "over 95% feasible," Winkelmann said.

Much of the concept SUV is made from expensive, but very lightweight, carbon fiber, and instead of actual side mirrors, it has video cameras.

Currently, Lamborghini sells only about 2,000 cars but is prepared to produce as many of the 3,000 of the Urus SUV alone.

That would still leave the supercar maker selling just 5,000 vehicles a year, a number that wouldn’t endanger the brand’s valued exclusivity, Winkelmann said.

Lamborghini is part of Germany’s Volkswagen Group () which also owns Audi, Bentley and Bugatti. Bentley also unveiled an SUV concept vehicle at an auto show earlier this year.

The 600 horsepower Urus would primarily be intended for on-road use, said Winkelmann, where it would offer strong acceleration and cornering without, perhaps, the top speed of a Lamborghini sports car.

Off road, it would perform about as well as other high-performance luxury crossovers. In other words, it will be able to drive in the mud and on rocks but not all that well. 

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

Europe’s sovereign debt crisis and the aftershocks of events such as the Japan earthquake and Arab Spring are expected to slow the growth in global exports to just 3.7 percent in 2012, the World Trade Organization said Thursday.

That comes after a slowdown to 5 percent in 2011 and 13.8 percent in 2010, the global trade body said in its annual report. The figures represent the total volume of merchandise exported across borders, accounting for changes in prices and exchange rates.

“More than three years have passed since the trade collapse of 2008-09, but the world economy and trade remain fragile,” WTO chief Pascal Lamy said. “The further slowing of trade expected in 2012 shows that the downside risks remain high. We are not yet out of the woods.”

The global forecasts are remain uncertain due to potential volatility caused by the eurozone crisis, U.S. debt concerns, economic aftershocks of the Japan earthquake and nuclear crisis, flooding in Thailand and the impact of continuing political unrest in the oil-rich Middle East.

The slowdown in 2012 would bring trade growth below the world average rate of 5.4 percent over the last 20 years, the WTO said. Developing economies are expected to lead the growth in goods traded this year with a forecast 5.6 percent increase in exports, compared to 2 percent for industrialized nations.

The forecast assumes a global output growth of 2.1 percent, down from 2.4 percent last year.

Lamy warned that protectionism could rise among governments grappling with the slow trade growth.

“The WTO has so far deterred economic nationalism, but the sluggish pace of recovery raises concerns that a steady trickle of restrictive trade measures could gradually undermine the benefits of trade openness,” he said.

In 2013, the growth rate is expected to recover slightly again to 5.6 percent, the organization forecast. This was the first time the WTO predicted a growth rate more than a year in advance.

Last year, developed countries did a bit better than expected, while the U.S. became a net exporter of fuels in large part because of coal exports to Japan, WTO officials said.

The U.S. saw exports grow 7.2 percent in 2011 after a rise of 15.4 percent the year before. The European Union saw exports grow 5.2 percent in 2011 after a rise of 11.5 percent the year before.

Japan’s exports contracted by 0.5 percent, a sharp turnaround from its 27.5 percent rise in exports the year before, which had made up for the sharp 24.9 percent decline in 2009.

China, the world’s biggest exporter, saw its growth in exports slow to 9.3 percent in 2011 after a surge of 28.4 percent the year before.

Measured in dollar terms, the total value of merchandise traded in 2011 was $18.2 trillion, a jump of 19 percent and an all-time global record driven by rising prices for fuels and other commodities.

The WTO, however, bases it forecast for growth rates on the volume of merchandise, since prices are difficult to predict.

The 2010 rate of 13.8 percent represented a slight downward revision to last year’s reported figure of 14.5 percent _ the biggest rise recorded since 1950 _ based on more recent and complete data showing how economies rebounded from the global downturn.

Source