Greek Bank shares leap ahead of important elections

8:00 AM ahead, elections, Greek, important, Shares No Comments

U.S. traded shares of the National Bank of Greece (NBG) is 7% in trading Friday, just a few days before an election of the country which for the Greek economy and ultimately the global financial system could have a huge impact.

The Greek parliamentary elections Sunday are displayed as a referendum for whether Greece as part of a plan to rescue the country from an enormous debt burden will accept austerity measures imposed or whether it will reject thrift and probably leave the euro zone.

According to the Greek law, not polls for weeks before an election can be published which means that the result of the vote is difficult to handicap. So the question is: why traders make bets before as a mysterious and potentially calamitous event are?

The movement in the stock could indicate that market participants think that the Greek people is a Government to choose which supports Greece bailout and strict agreements with other countries in the euro zone (something that probably the companies in the euro area would keep).

Read More

Consumer sentiment drops to 6-month low

11:00 AM 6month, consumer, drops, sentiment No Comments

U.S. consumer sentiment fell in early June to a six-month low on worries about deterioration in the jobs market and Europe's festering debt crisis, a survey released on Friday showed.

Americans downgraded their economic outlook after their confidence improved in May to its highest level since October 2007.

"It's more convincing evidence that the economy is stuck in low gear. We've had a steady stream of negative data that increases pressure on the Fed to do more," said Joe Manimbo, Travelex market analyst.

The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan's preliminary reading on the overall index on consumer sentiment fell to 74.1 in June from to 79.3 in May, falling short of the 77.5 reading predicted by economists recently polled by Reuters.

This was the weakest reading since 69.9 in December.

"Income losses were reported by nearly one-third of all households in early June and the news reaching consumers about job prospects turned negative for the first time since late 2011," survey director Richard Curtin said in a statement.

"In addition, a small but rising number of consumers reported their concerns about the fallout from Europe, the most that mentioned the potential domestic impact from an international crisis since the Asian flu in 1998," he said.

Consumer sentiment is seen as a predictor of consumer spending, which accounts for roughly two-thirds of the U.S. economy.

There has been data pointing to a pullback in spending. On Wednesday, the government reported retail sales fell for a second straight month after steady growth in the first quarter.

Renewed concerns about jobs and problems in Europe undermined consumers' current and future outlook on the economy.

The survey's barometer of current economic conditions fell to 82.1 in early June, the lowest level in six months and below the 85.3 figure predicted by analysts. It stood at 87.2 at the end of May, which was the highest since January 2008.

The survey's gauge of consumer expectations declined to 68.9 in early June, the lowest since December and falling short of a median forecast of 71.8. It was 74.3 at the end of May, which was the highest since July 2007.

This less optimistic outlook in early June coupled with a drop in the likelihood that families will buy cars, refrigerators and other big-ticket items, the survey showed.

Its index on buying conditions for durables fell to 125, matching the level seen in March, from 132 in May.

The survey's one-year inflation expectation among consumers was unchanged at 3.0 percent, but its five-to-10-year inflation outlook rebounded to 2.9 percent in early June after falling to 2.7 percent in May.

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters.

Read More

Housing recovery blip: Foreclosures jump

3:30 AM Foreclosures, housing, Recovery No Comments

The housing market has shown some promising signs of late, but a fresh batch of foreclosure data offers a reminder that any recovery from the housing bust will likely be slow, spotty and painful.

RealtyTrac reported Thursday that foreclosure filings rose by 9 percent in May from a month earlier, to 205,990 total properties that were subject to default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions.

The jump in foreclosure activity was likely because lenders are finally getting to a backlog of homes they might have started foreclosing on last year if they weren’t facing criticism for cutting corners and pushing foreclosures through too quickly and without adequate controls, said Daren Blomquist, a vice president with RealtyTrac.

He noted that the major increases came from properties that are just starting the foreclosure process.

Still, the figures for May are down 4 percent from a year ago. In addition, the report noted, recent sales data suggests that not all homes with foreclosure filings will result in the bank taking the property.

“Based on the rise in pre-foreclosure sales we’ve seen so far this year, a higher percentage of these new foreclosure starts will likely end up as short sales or auction sales to third parties rather than bank repossessions going forward,” Brandon Moore, RealtyTrac’s CEO, said in a statement.

That’s important because bank-owned homes tend to sell for less than homes in earlier stages of foreclosure.

RealtyTrac’s data shows that a home that is in pre-foreclosure sells for 21 percent less than a non-distressed home, on average. A bank-owned home sells for 33 percent less on average.

Blomquist cautioned that some of these houses entering the foreclosure process will end up being repossessed by the bank. In addition, the increase in foreclosure activity that is expected as banks work through their backlog could put a damper on housing prices once again, at least in some parts of the country.

“I actually think the stabilization in home prices and home sales is, in part, a result of the foreclosure inventory being artificially restricted over the past year and a half,” he said.

The National Association of Realtors reported last month that existing-home sales rose 3.4 percent from March to April and were up 10 percent from a year earlier.

Median home prices also were up about 10 percent in April from a year earlier. May data is due out next week.

Record-low mortgage rates also could be providing a boost for the housing market. Freddie Mac said last week that the average rate on a 30-year loan dropped to 3.67 percent.

Of course, with real estate it’s always all about location, and the foreclosure report showed that while some pockets of the country have seen some improvement others are still struggling. Georgia posted the highest foreclosure rate for the month, overtaking traditionally foreclosure-plagued states such as Florida, California, Nevada and Arizona.

Blomquist said while some cities seem to have broken the housing-bust cycle and at least stabilized, the data from Georgia illustrates the uneven nature of the market.

“Georgia is still caught in the downward spiral of decreasing home prices, and that in turn is helping to fuel more foreclosures,” he said.

Read More

Nervous traders look ahead to key weekend in Europe

12:30 AM ahead, Europe, Nervous, traders, weekend No Comments

Brendan Mcdermid / Reuters

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Thursday.

It’s rare for an election in a country as small as Greece to have global implications.

Yet investors here and around the world will be on the edge of their seats this weekend when Greeks go to the polls for what many see as a referendum on remaining in the eurozone.

As if that wasn’t enough to make markets nervous, Spain’s rising borrowing costs are setting off alarm bells, and Italy may not be far behind. Storm clouds gathering in Europe could result in a perfect storm for U.S. investors, analysts say.

“Greece is a small country, far away, but a financial crisis in a small country gets propagated to other parts of the world; it’s not good news for the U.S. It will get translated over here,” said Hugh Johnson, chief investment officer of Hugh Johnson Advisors in Albany, N.Y.

The Greek election matters to investors because it could help determine whether the two-year-old financial crisis in Europe is being contained or about to get much worse.

Observers see the election as a referendum on the decade-old euro currency. In elections last month Greek voters turned away from traditional political parties seeking to restructure the economy and toward more radical parties that promised to pull the country out of bailout and austerity agreements with other eurozone countries.

If Greece abandons its bailout terms, international creditors could stop providing the rescue funds, leaving the country to default on its debt and abandon the euro -- a jolt that could mark the beginning of the end for the unified currency.

U.S. firms already are feeling the impact of the downturn in Europe, our largest trading partner. U.S. companies have seen European revenues plunge from 29 percent of the total in 2010 to 14 percent last year, according to Richard Peterson, director at market research company S&P Capital IQ.

The crisis in Europe was at first confined to Greece, and then Portugal and Ireland. But the sovereign debt crisis now threatens to engulf larger members of the Eurozone -- Italy and Spain.

Spanish 10-year bond yields hit 7 percent Thursday -- a level that has triggered rescue efforts for other eurozone members. Italian borrowing costs also rose sharply. The rising borrowing costs suggest investors don’t believe the nations will be able to pay back their debts.

Yet stocks rose sharply Thursday, at least partly on news that central bankers are standing by, prepared to provide liquidity in a coordinated move in case the Greek election triggers market turmoil. Cantral bankers also are closely watching elections in France and developments in Egypt, where the Supreme Constitutional Court's dissolved the Islamist-dominated parliament ahead of a weekend presidential runoff.

Britain's government and the Bank of England, meanwhile, also went on the offensive, saying it will flood its banking system with cash in a move to get credit flowing through its economy.

A senior U.S. official cautioned that the Greek election will not provide "the definitive signal on what happens next" in the eurozone debt crisis, according to Reuters.

Johnson pointed to the 1997 Asian financial crisis, which started with the collapse of the Thai currency and eventually spread to much of Southeast Asia and Japan, raising fears of a global economic collapse.

“The risks are getting higher,” Johnson said. “You’re seeing that in the U.S. markets, and you’re seeing that in the European markets. Both are telling me you need to take a more defensive position with your investments.”

“We have certainly done that,” Johnson added. “We are bolstering our defenses by overweighting healthcare stocks, utilities, telecom stocks and consumer staples.”

U.S. investors have shown a steady aversion to taking on market risk. The broad U.S. stock market, measured by the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, has lost 7 percent of its value since hitting a recent high on April 2.

Dan Greenhaus, chief global strategist at BTIG, sees Europe-driven market uncertainty continuing for the remainder of the year.

“From a U.S. investment standpoint, you’re still left in a bubble of uncertainty that has plagued the market for not just the last couple of weeks, but the last couple of quarters,” Greenhaus told CNBC. “The unfortunate reality is we are likely to face that over the next couple of quarters.”

Rebecca Patterson, chief markets strategist for the global institutional arm of J.P. Morgan Asset Management, is more sanguine. While she thinks the market uncertainty will last, she also thinks any movements in the market will be limited.

The risk of markets moving to the downside is mitigated by the fact that central banks are ready to step in to prop up economies, Patterson told CNBC. European leaders don’t want the euro to completely fail, and so will do whatever is required to keep the eurozone from breaking up.

If Greece stays in the euro, “you could get a bit of a relief rally,” Patterson said. “But that doesn’t take away the bigger structural issues that Europe faces in countries like Spain.”

Martin Wolf, Financial Times, discusses whether the EU will stay intact; the outcome of the Greek elections, and its impact on global markets.

Read More

Jobless claims jump as job market struggles

8:00 AM claims, jobless, market, struggles No Comments

New claims for unemployment aid rose unexpectedly in the latest week, signaling that the labor market remained on the defensive and the recovery was stumbling along.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that claims rose a seasonally-adjusted 6,000 to 386,000 in the week ended June 9. Even the four-week moving average, considered a more accurate gauge of the labor market, jumped, gaining 3,500 to 382,000. It was the measure's third straight week of gains.

Economists had been expecting new claims to drop to 375,000.

"We've been on the higher side for the past two months on average. You cannot explain this away with normal random volatility. It has not been a marked deterioration, but there has been some slippage in the strength in the labor market," Michael Moran, chief economist for Daiwa Securities, told Reuters.

The report was another in a series of setbacks for those seeking an improvement in the job market. Among them: President Barack Obama who is running for reelection and needs the economy's cooperation in his battle against his GOP rival Mitt Romney.

The rise in jobless claims over the past few weeks suggests that hiring has slowed and the pace of layoffs has quickened as U.S. businesses react warily to a sluggish recovery at home and the financial crisis in Europe.

CNBC's Rick Santelli breaks down the latest numbers on jobless claims & Consumer Price Index, and a look at the impact on the market, with CNBC's Steve Liesman.

Read More

Consumer prices drop by most in 3 years

12:00 PM consumer, prices, years No Comments

By msnbc.com staff and news wires
U.S. consumer prices fell in May by the most in over three years as households paid less for gasoline, possibly giving the U.S. Federal Reserve more room to help an economy that is showing signs of weakening.

The Labor Department said on Thursday its Consumer Price Index dropped 0.3 percent last month after being flat in April. May's decline was the sharpest since December 2008 although analysts polled by Reuters expected a bigger decline.

Outside the volatile food and energy category, inflation pressure appeared to be modest. Core CPI climbed 0.2 percent higher as expected, matching the increase posted in April.

Mild price increases leave consumers with more money to spend, which boosts economic growth. Lower inflation also gives the Fed more leeway to keep interest rates low.

Steady increases in rents for homes and apartments are pushing up core prices, though at a modest pace. Rents are increasing as more people forgo homeownership and rent instead.

Gas prices have tumbled 40 cents after peaking April 6. Prices at the pump averaged $3.54 on Wednesday, according to AAA. That's down 19 cents from a month earlier.

Still, American workers are seeing little growth in pay. Workers' average hourly earnings have risen just 1.7 percent in the past 12 months, less than the pace of inflation over that same period.

Without more jobs or higher pay, consumers could be forced to cut back on spending later this year. Consumer spending is critical because it accounts for 70 percent of economic activity

A small amount of inflation can be good for the economy. It encourages businesses and consumers to spend and invest money sooner rather than later, before inflation erodes its value.

The economy is growing but at a sluggish pace. That is keeping a lid on price increases. Slow growth makes it harder for consumers and businesses to pay higher costs. The economy expanded at just a 1.9 percent annual rate in the January-March quarter.

Lower prices also could make Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke more willing to take action to boost growth. If inflation was threatening to accelerate, Fed policymakers could feel compelled to raise interest rates or take other steps to fight rising prices. But with inflation tame, the Fed can focus on stimulating growth.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Read More

Senate treats JPMorgan CEO Dimon with kid gloves

1:30 PM Dimon, gloves, JPMorgan, Senate, treats No Comments

Reuters

J.P. Morgan Chase's CEO Jamie Dimon was treated cordially by most of the senators, who peppered him with questions about regulation and risky practices at the bank, but did not press him to give an update on an estimated $3 billion in trading losses.

It was billed as a tough grilling but ended up more like a light saute.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon lived up to his reputation for steadfastness and tough dealing Wednesday in a forthright, and sometimes combative, performance before the Senate Banking Committee.

Dimon was expected to receive a frosty reception in his first congressional appearance since he announced the bank sustained a trading loss some analysts now estimate is at least $3 billion. It was a massive loss for the nation's biggest financial institution.

Instead, Dimon, who has won praise for bringing JPMorgan (JPM) through the financial crisis relatively unscathed, was treated cordially by most of members of the Senate Banking Committee. They peppered him with questions about regulation and risky practices at the bank, but did not press him to give an update on the losses resulting from the trade. JPMorgan is expected to give an update to shareholders when it reports its second-quarter earnings July 13.

“I think it was a pretty favorable day,” David Konrad, a Keefe, Bruyette & Woods banking analyst, told CNBC. Konrad said he was surprised that the questioning of Dimon by lawmakers was so “professional.”

“I thought it would be much more harsh,” he said.

Perhaps the most visible endorsement of Dimon’s performance could be seen in the bank’s stock price, which bucked the broader market downturn and was up about 1 percent in late trading Wednesday.

Briefly heckled by protesters as he entered the hearing room, Dimon read his prepared testimony and then squared up to lawmakers’ questions, which didn’t probe too deeply into the mechanics of the disastrous trading undertaken by JPMorgan's Bruno Iksil, the so-called "London Whale” at the center of the failed hedging strategy.

Dimon told lawmakers he could not defend the strategy conceived in the company's London-based chief investment office. He explained that what began as a hedge mutated into a multibillion-dollar trading loss.

He insisted the bank’s botched trades were designed to hedge its overall risk rather than simply a speculative bet that was hidden from shareholders and regulators.

“This particular synthetic credit portfolio was intended to earn a lot of revenue if there was a crisis. I consider that a hedge,” Dimon said. “What it morphed into, I will not try to defend.”

Dimon, known for his skills as a risk manager, has been an outspoken opponent of the Volcker Rule, which was intended to reduce risky trading by banks. Dimon used his platform in the nationally broadcast hearing to criticize proposed rules to change bank regulations -- rules he said do not make sense.

When asked by Sen. David Vitter, R-La., if he thought there could be a “true version” of the Volcker Rule, which is mandated by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law, Dimon said, “I think we’re going to really struggle to get it right.”

When Vitter asked if it would be worth lawmakers starting with a blank page to rewrite it, Dimon said: “I think it’s unnecessary … it’s just too confusing,” adding that risk could be controlled with proper capital and risk controls.

Dimon said the Dodd-Frank law has not solved problems facing Wall Street but instead has created a confusing new regulatory system for banks.

“What we set up is a system with more and more regulators. We don’t actually know who has jurisdiction over many of the issues we are dealing with anymore,” he said. “I would prefer a simple, clean, strong regulatory system, with real intelligent design, but that's not what we did.”

The hearing -- which included questions about bank risk, the crisis in Europe, and penalties for JPMorgan employees involved in the bank’s trading debacle -- did produce a few flashpoints.

When Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., told Dimon that his bank would have failed if not for the injection of billions of dollars in federal bailout money at the height of the 2008 financial crisis, Dimon reacted angrily.

“I think you were misinformed,” he snapped, saying that his bank did not need so-called TARP funding but was asked to accept it “by the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States of America.”

Earlier, after Dimon said JPMorgan’s “fortress balance sheet” is intact and that the bank will be solidly profitable this quarter despite the trading losses, Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., responded that the bank’s balance sheet has a “moat dug by taxpayers,” noting that taxpayer money has played a part in keeping his Dimon’s bank healthy.

Menendez also blasted Dimon for calling bank capital rules "anti-American."

Dimon, demonstrating some annoyance, denied the charge.

Committee Chairman Tim Johnson opened the questioning by asking about Dimon’s “tempest in a teapot” comment -- the phrase he used to brush off early media reports of multibillion-dollar losses at the bank.

“When I made that statement, I was dead wrong,” Dimon told Johnson, explaining that at the time he had been assured by his lieutenants the the bad trades were an isolated incident.

Johnson, D-S.D., also asked whether the bank’s compensation structure incentivized risk-taking and whether the trading debacle will lead to “clawbacks” -- efforts to recover compensation paid to employees whose performance was later found to have harmed the company and shareholders.

Dimon said it’s “likely, though subject to board [approval], that there will be clawbacks.”

Asked the same question by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Dimon said there could be several layers to the clawbacks. For senior staff, there could be clawbacks “for bad judgment,” he said

“It’s pretty extensive,” Dimon added. He said the board will review every single person involved. He added that the firm’s new clawback policies have not been used yet.

Read More

Lawmakers to grill Jamie Dimon on massive loss

6:30 AM Dimon, grill, Jamie, lawmakers, massive No Comments

Mario Tama / Getty Images

JPMorgan Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon.

Updated at 7:30 a.m. ET: When JPMorgan Chase’s Chairman and Chief Executive Jamie Dimon appears on Capitol Hill later Wednesday he will reportedly talk down the risky trading practices that have led to massive derivatives trading losses at the bank.

Dimon will apologize for the bank’s mistakes, and he will say JPMorgan’s recent multibillion-dollar trading loss happened because poorly managed traders in January started an unwise hedging strategy they did not fully understand, according to reports of his prepared testimony for a Senate hearing into the trading disaster. He will also argue that risk is inevitable in the banking business.

“We will not make light of these losses, but they should be put into perspective,” Dimon is expected to tell lawmakers, according to a copy of his testimony published by The Wall Street Journal. “We will lose some of our shareholders’ money -- and for that, we feel terrible -- but no client, customer or taxpayer money was impacted by this incident.”

“We have let a lot of people down, and we are sorry for it,” Dimon is also expected to say.

In early May, Dimon revealed that a London-based section of the bank had lost $2 billion in a trading portfolio designed to hedge against risks the company takes with its own money.

That figure has since grown to $3 billion -- a massive loss for a single bank that has shocked Washington, Main Street and even Wall Street, and represents a big embarrassment for the bank, which unlike many of its rival institutions managed to come through the 2008 financial crisis relatively intact.

The losses are especially embarrassing for Dimon, who is known for his skills in the field of risk management, and also because he has been an outspoken opponent of the so-called Volcker Rule, which is supposed to prohibit banks from making speculative bets with their own money on a scale that could endanger both the institution and the financial system.

Dimon has insisted the bank’s botched trades were designed to hedge its overall risk, rather than simply to make profits. Lawmakers are likely to question that view when Dimon appears before them on Wednesday. They also could ask if the nation’s other big banks are still engaged in the risky trading activities that can lead to catastrophic losses.

They are also likely to mention the findings of a story in The Wall Street Journal Tuesday that showed some JPMorgan executives and directors were warned about risky practices by a team of London-based traders two years before botched trading cost the bank billions.

Mike Mayo, "Exile on Wall Street" author, weighs in on JPMorgan's huge trading losses.

“The question is will Jamie Dimon tell us the whole truth [tomorrow], because he hasn’t done so yet,” said Christopher Whalen, a senior managing director of Tangent Capital Partners in New York.

Whalen told CNBC lawmakers are likely to want to know when Dimon first became aware of the risks taken by Bruno Iksil, the man at the center of the trading disaster, who was nicknamed the “London Whale” for his risky trades.

When Iskil’s trading initially came to light, Dimon dismissed the press coverage as a “tempest in a teapot,” but now lawmakers are likely to want to drill down into the details of the trading activities at JPMorgan, and in particular those of the London-based team at the center of the controversy, and to understand the risks they took, Whalen said.

The big trading loss has sparked investigations from the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission, and it has also prompted shareholder lawsuits. Dimon has apologized for the losses, and he even warned that they are likely to grow, but he has also told shareholders that the bank is not in danger because the size of the losses are relatively small compared to JPMorgan’s operations.

In April, JPMorgan reported first-quarter 2012 net income of $5.4 billion, down from a net income of $5.6 billion in the first quarter one year before.

Whalen said another issue for lawmakers will be why regulators didn’t detect the extreme risks that JPMorgan traders apparently were taking.

Several representatives of the Office of Comptroller of the Currency, which is charged with supervising the international activities of U.S. banks, were detailed to JPMorgan in London.

“The examiners are supposed to follow the audit trail, in part; they have to go and check all of the significant operations of the bank,” Whalen said. “This as a very significant part of the bank, and it was growing. The exposures were growing.”

“What’s the point in regulation if they’re not going to be diligent?” Whalen continued. “That’s what we pay them for.”

For Dimon himself, there’s the matter of his position on the board of the New York Federal Reserve, which lawmakers say is a conflict of interest.

The New York Times has reported that, even though scores of federal regulators are stationed inside JPMorgan’s Manhattan headquarters, the Federal Reserve did not assign any regulators to the London office that generated the big trading loss.

Below, CNBC's Sue Herera reviews Dimon's prepared remarks for today's event.

Read More

Judge is not Steve Jobs offers from trial bar

7:30 AM Judge, offers, Steve, trial No Comments

SAN FRANCISCO - Steve Jobs gave unity quotes much juicier, before he died, and Apple Inc has failed, some of them of an upcoming patent lawsuit against Google's Motorola mobility, to keep after a court decision.

Apple and Motorola are planned for a high profile patent test in a Federal Court in Chicago this month. It is one of the several intellectual property between tech giants on smart phones and tablets running Google's Android operating system.

Apple's iconic and often outspoken Chief Executive resigned, jobs until shortly before his death last year. But Walter Isaacson had discussed with biographer jobs Apple's patent litigation.

"Our complaint says ' Google, you fucking iPhone, wholesale RIP us to crack ',", jobs Isaacson said. "Grand Theft."

He added: "I am ready, go on this thermonuclear war."

In a court Apple submit last month, acknowledged, that jobs was "very angry" about Google's behavior.

"Possible prejudice to Apple to avoid, if Motorola tried to use the book to appeal to the jury passion" says the submission, "Apple requires that all references to the book of jobs prevent the Court during the trial."

In a brief order filed Thursday Chicago Federal Judge Richard Posner Apple's request is rejected without explanation.

Representative for Apple and Motorola has not immediately responded to requests for comment.

Apple has also said that it federal judge of Isaacsons of its upcoming patent against Samsung Electronics, for July to hold planned study book ask a California.

In a separate order on Thursday, Posner prohibit Apple from argues that the judges, to prefer Apple to Motorola if they like Apple products, or admire you should be predisposed jobs.

"I forbid to the jury to insinuate that this case is a popularity contest, Apple," Posner wrote.

Apple Inc. is the case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois And next Software Inc. V. Motorola, Inc. and Motorola mobility, Inc., 11-cv-8540.

(C) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012.

Read More

Jury awards $ 181 million injured in blast 3

12:00 PM awards, blast, injured, million No Comments

EAST ST. LOUIS, ill. - A federal jury on one side against ConAgra Foods Inc. and subcontractors Friday award about $181 million damages to three workers seriously injured in a 2010 explosion in a Southern Illinois grain elevator.

Omaha, Neb.-based ConAgra, one of the largest food companies in the country, vowed to appeal, the result of the Monthlong study, calling the accident tragically but pointed "we believe not, that our actions caused the injuries."

ConAgra "While we have insurance cover the full amount of the present judgment, we believe further defend our actions and practices, such as in this case," said in a statement.

Judges, judged after 10 hours of deliberation, a total $100 million in punitive damages, which among victims of John Jentz of St. Peter, Minnesota, Robert Schmidt, Hutchinson, Minn, and Justin Becker is divided from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Damages Jentz are 41.5 million, approximately $ 34 million to Becker and Schmidt $ 2.9 million. Jentz was awarded $1 million in additional punitive damages Westside salvage Inc., ConAgra of co-defendants.

Any such payments would could take over the result of the ConAgra of planned appeal, hinges that cause months and probably years. An attorney for Becker-counting the jury as "very deliberative", appeared undaunted by the prospect of a lasting appeal.

"We are ready willing and able to fight as high as we need to take it, and we are confident that this decision will be confirmed," Attorney Marc taxman said.

He called also ConAgra of the statement Friday "for the first time she regret have shown in the two years that this matter has been pending."

Following the complaint of which were subject to a specific grain location in the Mississippi River City Chester removed equipment am ConAgra of grain milling, about 60 km southeast exploded out of St. Louis, on April 27, 2010, when the am in flames.

The men's lawyers argued that am had not properly for nearly two decades cleaned and despite an unusual smell, smoke, and unusually high temperatures, ConAgra not properly instruct workers of precautions which may have averted the explosion.

"I would say, a variety of errors were of individual companies," said Kevin Durkin, a lawyer for Jentz and Schmidt. "ConAgra had enough information to do this occur in the days and weeks before to prevent."

Jentz Burns different surgeries and skin grafts more than three quarters of his body needed. Becker sustained Burns of face, hand and eye and reduce heat-related damage to his lungs his lung function is up to the point that he banished largely sedentary jobs, Treasury said.

ConAgra of brands include banquet, Marie Callender, healthy choice, Chef Boyardee, Peter Pan and Slim Jim.

ConAgra shares fell 57 cents, or 2.3 per cent, and closed on Friday at $24,58.

Copyright 2012 of the associated press. All rights reserved. This material cannot be published, sent, rewritten or redistributed.

Read More

Where is Starbucks? Ranking our favorite coffee

4:00 PM coffee, favorite, Ranking, Starbucks, where No Comments

In the most recently reported quarter, revenue at Green Mountain's parent company rose 37 percent to $885 million.By Douglas A. McIntyre, 24/7 Wall St.
Americans love their coffee. Three-quarters of adults drink coffee and 58 percent say they drink coffee daily, according to the National Coffee Association. Like other large consumer products in the U.S., a substantial number of brands vie for market share -- and for profit. And like other food and beverage products, each brand tries to distinguish itself for consumers based on taste, price, and in some cases, snob appeal.

Based on 2012 Harris Poll EquiTrend Rankings, 24/7 Wall St. identified the most popular coffee brands that people make themselves. The seven coffee companies with scores above the coffee product average measured by Harris did well based on familiarity, quality, purchase consideration and the ability to generate buzz.

Green Mountain coffee brand topped the list. Its parent company, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, is often viewed as a competitor to Starbucks, which did not make the list. In fact, the brands that are rated below average are probably better known than those rated above average. The losers include Chock Full O'Nuts, Nescafe, Newman's Own, Seattle's Best, and Starbucks.

Because Harris is not the only research firm that polls people on coffee preferences, we looked at other opinion studies, including one by Consumer Reports. Oddly enough, its preference ratings put Starbucks’ house blend as the highest rated brand. The differences in the results show how unpredictable research is when consumer preferences are considered.

Because of this, 24/7 also looked beyond subjective measures of preference. We looked at price, based on the assumption that many coffee drinkers consider value. We also examined annual revenue of each brand, as well as the number of bags sold last year. We discovered that the most favored brands are not inexpensive. Folgers Ground Coffee and Green Mountain, two of the most preferred brands, cost well over $7 per bag. Millstone and Eight O’Clock, while still popular, are less preferred, and each of these costs little more than $5 per bag

The relationship of price to quality perception should not come as a surprise. Starbucks has made a fortune selling expensive coffee at trendy stores. Its customers are not complaining that their $3 cup of coffee costs twice as much as it does at the neighborhood deli.

24/7 Wall St. reviewed the 2012 Harris Poll EquiTrend Rankings of coffee brands, which quantifies brand strength among consumers, to identify the most popular coffees. We included dollar sales, change in dollar sales from one year ago and unit sales of bagged ground coffee over the latest 52-week period in the United States provided by SymphonyIRI Group, a Chicago-based market research firm. The group’s data reflects sales at supermarkets, drugstores, gas/convenience stores and mass market retailers, but excludes Walmart club stores, and liquor stores.

These are America’s favorite coffees:

7. Caribou

Parent company: Caribou Coffee Company 1-year bags sold: 2,134,128 1-year sales: $16,793,690 Price per bag: $7.87
Owned by the publicly traded Minneapolis-based Caribou Coffee Company, the brand comes in at seventh in the Harris poll. Founded in 1992, Caribou is the second most expensive coffee on this list at $7.87 a bag. The brand also has the second-lowest annual dollar sales of any coffee brand on the list at less than $17 million. In its most recently reported quarter, Caribou’s parent company sales were $80.5 million for all its brands, up 11 percent from the same quarter in the prior year. In its coffee blend reviews, Consumer Reports gave Caribou’s “daybreak morning” blend especially poor reviews.

6. Maxwell House

Parent company: Kraft Foods, Inc. 1-year bags sold: 73,285,570 1-year sales: $467,080,600 Price per bag: $6.37
A Kraft Foods product, Maxwell House’s 52-week sales through April 15 was in excess of $467 million, making it the second best-selling ground coffee in the U.S. Despite strong sales, Maxwell House has performed poorly in coffee blend ratings issued by Consumer Reports, as none of the four blends (decaffeinated, breakfast, original roast medium, and master blend mild) was given a “good” rating. However, at $6.37 a bag, Maxwell House’s brand value is likely bolstered by a middling price in conjunction with customer familiarity with both the brand and its parent company.

5. Eight O’Clock

Parent company: Tata Global Beverages 1-year bags sold: 13,519,080 1-year sales: $74,800,170 Price per bag: $5.53
First sold in 1859 by the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (now A&P), the Eight O’Clock brand’s longevity is unmatched by any other ground coffee on this list. The brand has been sold under the present trademark since 1919. In the 1920s through the 1950s, the company claims it was the most popular ground coffee brand in the U.S. Since then, however, its popularity has declined. Since 2006, the brand has been owned by Tata Global Beverages and, as of 2010, was still the best-selling whole bean coffee, according to the company.

4. Millstone

Parent company: J.M. Smucker Company 1-year bags sold: 3,469,959 1-year sales: $18,187,170 Price per bag: $5.24
Millstone was started in 1981 by Phil Johnson, who sold arabica coffee beans to shops in the Seattle area. The brand offers a large variety of roasts, from espressos to French roasts and appeals to customers through organic and fair trade offerings. The brand has performed poorly in the last year, with dollar sales down 10.94 percent and bag sales down 19.69 percent. The brand’s average price per bag has risen 52 cents in this same time span.

3. Dunkin’ Donuts

Parent company: J.M. Smucker Company 1-year bags sold: 21,499,550 1-year sales: $190,710,400 Price per bag: $8.87
Well known for its restaurants, which offer breakfast, baked goods and coffee, the Dunkin’ Donuts brand is owned by the Dunkin’ Brands Group. Dunkin’ Donuts, which has 6,772 franchised restaurants in 35 states, has licensed J.M. Smucker to sell its ground coffee throughout the U.S. Dunkin’ is the most expensive coffee on this list. Its offerings have been given mixed reviews by Consumer Reports -- its dark roast is well reviewed and its decaffeinated blend is poorly reviewed. In the last year, dollar sales have increased 11.03 percent as the average price per bag has risen by 83 cents.

2. Folgers

Parent company: J.M. Smucker Company 1-year bags sold: 114,784,800 1-year sales: $852,350,800 Price per bag: $7.43
The best-selling ground coffee brand, Folgers sold over 114 million bags of coffee in the past year. The sales don’t include the “Gourmet Selections” and “Coffee Singles” products, which account for an additional $18.6 million and $19 million in sales, respectively. The brand’s offerings received mixed reviews from Consumer Reports, with its house blend receiving a “good” rating and its breakfast, classic and decaf blends receiving “fair” ratings. Though the brand was founded in 1850, it has been part of the J.M. Smucker Company only since November, 2008.

1. Green Mountain

Parent company: Green Mountain Coffee Roasters 1-year bags sold: 1,844,802 1-year sales: $14,422,080 Price per bag: $7.82
Founded in Waitsfield, Vermont in 1981, Green Mountain has been manufactured in Waterbury, Vermont, since shortly thereafter. Its parent company, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters is better-known for its Keurig brands, which account for much of the revenue at the parent company. In the most recently reported quarter, revenue at Green Mountain’s parent company rose 37 percent to $885 million. Despite a relatively high price per bag of $7.82, Green Mountain’s 52 week sales are less than $15 million. This makes Green Mountain the smallest brand by sales of all brands studied by Harris. The single Green Mountain blend reviewed by Consumer Reports, its signature Nantucket blend medium roast, received the third-highest rating.

Read More

Authors win class status through Google Books

10:30 AM Authors, Books, class, Google, status, through No Comments

(Reuters) - thousands of authors about his plan, which will create the world's largest digital book library, can sue Google Inc in a class action lawsuit a federal judge ruled on Thursday.

U.S. circuit judge Denny Chin in Manhattan also Google's bid to dismiss the authors Guild and several groups, photographers and graphic designers, which individually would have forced their members complaints claims rejected.

Plaintiff in the seven-year-old case have complained that Google's plan for the library, the millions of out-of-print works would include, "massive copyright infringement."

The case originated digital copy from Google's 2004 agreements with several large research libraries books and other writings for their Google Books website, with the aim of help Explorer and locate the public materials.

Google has since more than 12 million scanned books, but planned only excerpts online to say that this activity constituted "fair use" under U.S. copyright law.

Chin said it would be for authors to sue, as a group, rather than different results and the "exponentially" increased costs of individual processes more efficient.

He also said, it unjust, would be the authors Guild, photographers and other groups of the American Society of media Sue persons individually "return due to the nature and indiscriminately Google's unauthorized copying."

The litigation combines complaints against Google mountain view, California-based 2005 on behalf of the authors, and in 2010 for photographers and graphic designers.

A Google spokesperson said in a statement via e-Mail: "as we have said all along that we are confident that Google Books is fully compliant with copyright law."

Lawyers for the plaintiffs not immediately responded to requests for comment.

In March 2011 Chin cited antitrust and copyright concerns at the comprehensive rejection a proposed 125 million scheme, say that went "too far" in Google effectively let it perform "wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission."

Chin was supervised the Federal Appeals Court in New York, but held jurisdiction over the Google case, which he had started in 2010 as a judge.

The cases are the authors Guild et al. v. Google Inc., U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, no. 05-08136; and American Society of media photographers, et al. v. Google Inc. in the same court, no. 10-02977.

(C) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012.

Read More

Kids, sports and the family budget broken

1:00 AM broken, budget, family, sports No Comments

Jodi Furman like to joke that she should be yellow paint their minivan. This is because she basically in a taxi driver in the afternoons and weekends, transformed, as her three children to various sport practices in Palm Beach, Florida offers. But the Bill for all of these sports is not to laugh.

"There are costs for participation in teams, for the purchase of equipment, for the provision of private lessons, for travel," says Furman, a 38 personal finance bloggers on www.livefabuLESS.com. "It can add really;" I know families who are more than $10,000 a year spend sport for their children. "Parents need to go into open with their eyes and wallets."

The family Furman tab is slightly less, but still scary: approximately $1,200 per year for 7-year-old son hockey, approximately the same for each of her daughters 4 and 9-year-old play football, figure, skating, and an another few hundred dollars apiece for all three. And because children have a nasty habit of growing, it means more costs every time, when they sprout a few inches and you need it fit for new equipment. But how can looking eyes in their brief and say no?

"Parents are extremely vulnerable because we all want the best for our children," says Mark Hyman, author of "the most expensive game in town: the rising cost of youth sports and the toll on the families of today." "We can help you at any time, automatically, we reach for the credit card." And the people in the business of selling all of this stuff that understand very well.

Lauren Spierer parents: it is unlikely that she is alive the mother from the Indiana University student after a night with friends disappeared said Friday that they always ha...

Eats Hoda scary much fruit? Take a deep breath, ladies! The belt is back, that Natalie gets romantic star Chris Hemsworth try plantain crusted Mahi Mahi with pineapple salsa
This has therefore the costs relating to children sport seem to higher and higher are ticked. It is now expected to be an annual $5 billion-industry, which proposes Hyman is very conservative.

Parents are not completely powerless, though, when it comes to children sport. There are really quite a few ways to shave costs without too little Jimmy tell he can forget lacing for the local ice hockey team. You must plan in advance only everything, be smart about your issues and pull not sports related out the card for every mood.

A few tips:

1. Lower your expectations.

The parents have to assess what it is that they their children from the want to get team-sport experience. Perhaps your child probably is, but not a budding superstar like baseball Alex Rodriguez. So, instead of a $300 aluminum bats buy and they go sign up for an elite club team and all these expensive road trips, for $40 wooden bat and the local REC League. Not make it bad parents. "You need have a high-quality experience not to too expensive things for them to buy," says Hyman. "they have fun with their friends, but at a fraction of the cost."

2. Carefully select your sport.

Not all sports are equal when it comes the costs you're going to face. A "Soccer Mom", is more than the cost of tunnels and a couple of Shin, that, even if that alone could cost add guards until after year not for example sometimes much. But then a sport there like golf, "definitely the most expensive sport that have ever played our young," says Ohio mother-two and Professional Organizer Andrea Sharb.

Just one example: a new line of $1,100 iron. "" What we buy: Golf memberships, so that they can exercise, private lessons, equipment, balls, clothes and shoes, and finally tournament tickets, as well as travel expenses, "says Sharb.""The push-to-excel at a high level is so important in these days, that there is a lot of pressure for your child to play in a League of travel or take private lessons, or purchase the best equipment".

A reasonable solution: If you have room in your schedule for a team sport, and your child is OK with several options, then it makes sense, report it or them not going for that to XXL photos of your monthly credit card statement.

3. Creative.

With so many families in the same boat, it is a natural way, volume to negotiate with other parents and volume discounts. Alternatively, for families who are particularly difficult, many sports leagues have special programs to refrain from or reduce the registration fees. "It could also be payment plans, you can pay monthly, in advance, rather than all," said Furman. "Some private trainer and instructor may agree to negotiate their fees, or Exchange be prepared for goods or services instead of payment."

4. Forget the shiny new equipment.

There is no shame in looking for used sports equipment, because it is usually just as good and saves as children grow serious cash WINS. Some stores offer also specifically to, such as the national chain play sport again.

There is also local basis efforts to bear the costs; the baseball leagues by Mark Hyman, two sons presented annual equipment they no longer need Exchange, where families managed to get what and pick up what they were doing. If not, you should sell the things have your children on websites such as eBay, outgrown, to bear the costs for additional purchases. That's what Andrea Sharb, partially on the Bill for the get new golf iron $200 for the old set. At least it's something. Sharb sighs: "it seems that there is no low-cost sport for children more."

(C) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012.

Read More

Apple CEO wants more products in the United States

5:30 AM Apple, products, States, United, wants No Comments

Handout / Reuters

Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks on the all things digital Conference in Los Angeles Tuesday.

By Alexei Oreskovic and Poornima Gupta, Reuters
Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said that he likes at home mounted more about the company's products than China and contain more U.S. components such as semiconductors.

Apple has put together its products relying on low-cost Asian manufacturers and U.S. have been criticized for your contribution to the decline of the manufacturing sector.

Cook, who took the helm of the most valuable technology company said the world in August shortly before died founder of Steve jobs, manufacturing in the United States was difficult because of the declining tool and mould construction know-how, among others, but which he was working.

"There are things in the United States, made not only for the American market can be, but can for the world, which are exported," said Cook this year's all things digital Conference, an annual gathering of A-list technology and executives in the upscale California coastal resort city of Rancho Palos Verdes.

"On the piece of Assembly could which, happened in the United States?" I hope one day again, "he added."

All Apple Final Assembly is done by Asian contract manufacturers, especially Taiwan's Foxconn technology and its Chinese factories. Cook noted that Apple has some component manufacturing in the United States, including the most important microchips, which runs the iPhone and iPad.

Apple makes the A5 processor in a 1.6 million square-foot factory in Austin, Texas, owned by Korean consumer electronics giant, Samsung Electronics. Cook said even some which is the glass for the iPhone and iPad at a plant in Kentucky.

The CEO also spoken as was iPad only in the "first innings", refused to say, but what a friend in store for them.

It reaffirms its conviction that many consumers will more than computer use the iPad as he does it.

"I love my Mac, but I find myself more spend and more time on my iPad," he said.

Dennis Berman, Wall Street Journal and Brian Cooley, editor-at-large, CNET discuss reports that the Chinese manufacturer Foxconn, orders for trial version received production from an AppleTV.

Apple released IOS in 2010 and it was defined fast computer market, selling more than 67 million units so far the tablet.

Read More

RIM expects loss, "significantly" plans job cuts

11:00 AM expects, plans, significantly No Comments

David manning / REUTERS

RIM CEO Thorsten Heins is trail in Orlando in early May during a BlackBerry.

At 5 pm ET updated: Research in the movement, which once revolutionized the mobile industry with the ubiquitous BlackBerry, is the time, how it tries to start a new line of smartphones while fight against race to stay afloat.

Amid reports that the company plans to eliminate at least 2,000 jobs, said RIM CEO Thorsten Heins late Tuesday are the next few quarters, "difficult" and that the company to check two investment banks had suspended their activities.

Heins also said in a statement that the company expected ends an operating loss for the current quarter, next week. RIM shares fell heavily in Nachborslicher trade after the news.

Heins, said that headcount reductions in seeking $1 billion in the annual expenditure, save the company with plans for "significant" progress is even though he confirm not the recent reports that the company plans to eliminate at least 2,000 jobs worldwide. RIM has approximately 16,500 employees worldwide.

Analysts are doubtful that the maker of the BlackBerry, a one-time darling of the technology industry Canada, can enough, or zoom out enough that repel it stiff competitive faces of Apple's iPhone and Google's Android software challenge.

"We say that is the only way for RIM partner with someone to be purchased or engage in a software company, and I, that the path at the end of the year, the management team became very clear think", Jefferies & company said analyst Peter Misek that includes wireless companies.

RIM has faced declining market share and turnover devices such as iPhones in recent years as a Smartphone and Android have increased before the BlackBerrys.

The Canadian company is its recovery hopes on the launch of the BlackBerry 10-the mobile platform of the next generation that will power a number of new smartphones that is expected later in the year on the market freeze,.

Analysts like Jim Moorman of S & P Capital IQ are wondering whether the introduction of the new operating system is coming too late, market share lost to industry to take back heavyweights like Apple, Google and Samsung.

Moorman notes that the long-awaited - and verzogerte--BlackBerry comes 10 start updated shortly after takeoff Smartphones from Samsung and HTC and Apple is expected to be in the fall to unveil new iPhone.

"This is not a good moment for [RIM] on the introduction of a new product," he said. "This concerns for me." "It is an already-delayed start and it is in the middle of some other important product launches coming out."

RIM faces headwinds on the other hand Moorman notes, including a declining customer base. RIM has added new subscribers to their services at a healthy clip of about 4.5 million users per quarter for the last seven quarters, but the pace slid to 2.9 million in the last quarter, he said.

At the same time, sales of BlackBerry devices, down 6.5 percent in the last fiscal year decline are ended in March from the previous year said Moorman. And soon make a third large write-off on the unsold smartphones and PlayBook tablets which is expected to companies, analysts say.

The strengths of RIM BlackBerry are his long batter life and security, benefits for business, Moorman notes, both but he adds, that other manufacturer device beg are to chip away at RIM "special sauce," improvement of batter life of their devices. And global network outages for BlackBerry may be some business customers have disabled a number of high-profile.

RIM also perennial problems is on the C-suite level, analysts say. Joined after RIM co CEO Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie from its leading role in this year a new CEO, Thorsten Heins, Senior Executive at the company, stepped forward was relatively unknown.

Despite the new leadership, analysts say that the company is the same old problems, including competition, chronic delays in the introduction of new technology and a brand that has lost its position among consumers.

"It seems that the new management team on the reconstruction of the company brand with the BlackBerry-10 platform is set," said Moorman. "I think it will be a struggle for them." "I think we'll see continue to muddle through RIM, but it will be a tough battle."

"I think RIM will continue for a while, bleeding, if the share price gets so cheap, be it an acquisition target, but that's not what wants the company," he added. "they are probably just waiting to see how the introduction of BlackBerry 10 goes."

Anindya Ghose, Associate Professor of management at New York University, Stern School of business, expects that RIM the company must pull out a new helping visionary leader by his company Tailspin.

"To it clearly say they need someone like Steve jobs," he said.

Ghose points as Steve Jobs Apple in the late 1990s again after ten years earlier years have thrown away. He was confronted with a company with low morale, stagnant sales and little sense of direction, and radical changes, the company turn around initiated.

"You need a visionary like him," Ghose said.

Misek of Jefferies says that RIM would do well, turn their hardware store into a niche company and other cell phone manufacturers to offer its Smartphone software like Apple. At this point the probability of RIM is another company acquired by lean looks, he added.

"It's value that can be found in these plants?" he asked.

"With a market capitalization of about $6 billion and net cash of over $2 billion, the value of his company's $4 billion," said Misek.

"If that not tempting enough for someone who buy this company I know not what." Basically, if you pay a 25% bonus, you can now buy research in motion for $5 billion, and that's a very reasonable price. It is already cheap and it is not one attract buyers, "he added."

Scott Sutherland, Wedbush securities and James Moorman, S & P Capital IQ, discuss why they have lowered their 12-month price target on research in motion and whether they see a turnaround for the company in the coming months.

Read More

Shares go analysts wondering how deep Facebook

2:00 PM analysts, Facebook, Shares, wondering No Comments

Karen Bleier / AFP - AFP

An Apple iPhone shows the Facebook app splash screen on a PC screen.

Starting with its share price hit new lows daily, professional investors and market experts voice concern about the prospects for Facebook shares.

The number 1 social network share sank even lower Wednesday as nervous investors worried about the long term prospects of the company.

Facebook share decreased by 2.3 percent to a new closing low $28.19 after dropping nearly 10 percent Tuesday. The stock price, which has fallen in five of the eight days of public trade liked 26 percent now because public went to $38 per share may 17.

Facebook has seen fall the value of his stake in the company over $5 billion from the value of the IPO to $14.2 billion in current founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg sold value of shares more than $1 billion to the IPO also according to documents filed by the companies.

The decline of Zuckerberg knocked off a short held place on Bloomberg running index 40 richest person in the world.

The offer, which was clouded by the trade in breakdowns and caused several lawsuits, already has one of the worst complete a large company, according to data Tracker Dealogic.

Anant Sundaram, a valuation expert at the Dartmouth Tuck School of business, said that he has Facebook review is concerned, because he thinks that the company difficulties his new users derive revenue, overseas and will be suspended from his growing presence on mobile devices.

About 20 percent is the current user of the company in the United States and Canada, and half of the users access the site with mobile devices, which directs Facebook of much less advertising revenue than through a desktop PC, he said. The mobile arena currently dominated Facebook rivals Google and Apple.

What's more, where Facebook at schnellsten--in Europe and Asia wachst-- markets companies less revenue. Facebook in $3 per user in the United States and Canada, but only $1.50 in Europe and Asia only 50 cent brings established Sundaram.

"You have a situation where U.S.-based PC users are for many of your revenue, but if you where the fastest, which is growing are where you make money with your user base problems accounting" Sundaram said.

Facebook's initial public offering of the company $ 100 billion geschatzt-- a number that says Sundaram 'problematic' sales by 30 to 35% annually for the next 10 years is because it would grow the company implies. Sundaram estimate that is a rating of 66 billion dollar rational for Facebook.

"This evaluation for the company that we would consider a share price, which 20 closer to the low to mid $s $40 per share," said Sundaram, which emphasises that he does not make to buy stock recommendations.

"The logic for this is I think the growth rate from 901 million users will be flat out," he said.

A course in the middle of $20 is a region where buyers and sellers of Facebook options, which began trading Tuesday for this summer are predictions.

According to the Wall Street Journal, some traders would use "put" options to set that Facebook share to $25 per share fall in mid-July.

Analysts have a wide range of price targets for Facebook's consisted of $30 to point to as high as $65, according to the newspaper.

Walter price, Portfolio Manager with RCM capital management, said CNBC Wednesday, that he thinks that the fair value for Facebook shares is about $30, added that he would buy it at this level.

He however notes that in addition to the challenge of money from mobile devices to Facebook-advertising for the majority of the revenue is dependent - it difficult can to attract and maintain large advertisers.

"Facebook is a transition in their business model," price told Reuters Insider. "It was easy to get the first 5 to 10 percent to try an advertising budget on Facebook and some brand advertising, but you have TV displace always the next 5 to 10 percent, and that is very difficult to do much."

He added "Facebook still not the metrics to prove to prove profitability and growth and awareness of their platform".

Days before Facebook's debut, General Motors announced it attracted unproven track record and concern about the lack of paid advertising on the social Web, relying on Facebook prove that advertising on Facebook is strongly back.

Facebook the next steps in the growing mobile arena can give some investors pause.

S & P Capital IQ equity analyst Scott Kessler said on Tuesday, that he has a price target of $30 for Facebook in the next 12 months relying on Facebook to acquire still emerging strategy to income in the mobile space.

S & P pointed to reports this week that searches Facebook, to both Opera buy software browser company and build a Smartphone, pointing out that a hard time making money have the company without proprietary mobile software and hardware.

"We think is not proactively at an interesting time [Facebook] more on mobile phones before their competitive positioning may affect but also aggressive affect their profitability can", Kessler said.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Read More

RIM to cut thousands in restructuring — reports

8:30 PM reports, restructuring, thousands No Comments

ADEK BERRY / AFP - Getty Images

A woman uses a BlackBerry phone.

Research in Motion, the company that makes the BlackBerry smartphone, is planning a global restructuring that could result in thousands of job cuts, reports say.

Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper, which originally reported the layoffs on Saturday, said the expected round of layoffs will touch around 2,000 employees, or 12 percent of the company’s workforce.

The newspaper also said the cuts are due to begin on June 1 -- one day before Research in Motion’s first quarter ends. But some expect the announcement even earlier.

A RIM spokeswoman declined to comment on the reports of layoffs. Research in Motion had about 16,500 employees worldwide as of March 2012.

A source close to the company told Reuters the number of impending layoffs could be higher and hit as many as 6,000 employees, affecting Research in Motion’s legal, marketing, sales, operations, and human resources divisions.

“The strategic question is: are you accelerating into a better future or shrinking to a niche operation,” said the source, who declined to be identified due to the sensitive nature of the job cuts.

The job cuts would be the second downsizing in a year for the Blackberry maker as it races to shrink its operations to compete with fierce rivals.

Once a smartphone sector heavyweight, Research in Motion has seen sales fall significantly as it has lost market share to Apple’s iPhone and smartphone makers who use Google’s Android software.

A string of high-profile departures has hit RIM in recent months. On Monday, the company said Chief Legal Officer Karima Bawa has resigned and will soon leave the company.

New chief executive officer Thorsten Heins, who took over from longtime co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie in January, is reorganizing the company and plans to streamline operations and save $1 billion in the fiscal year.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Read More

Storied law firm folds after partners flee

3:00 PM after, folds, partners, Storied No Comments

The crippled law firm Dewey & Leboeuf LLP filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday night and will seek approval to liquidate its business after failing to find a merger partner, marking the biggest collapse of a law firm in U.S. history.

Once one of the largest law firms in the U.S., Dewey has been hit by the loss of the vast majority of its roughly 300 partners to other firms amid concerns about compensation and a heavy debt load.

Dewey had warned employees earlier this month of the possibility the firm may shut down, and a person familiar with the matter had told Reuters that the firm was considering a bankruptcy filing.

"Dewey's failure is rocking the industry in the sense that most firms are saying to themselves, if Dewey could go down, could we?" Kent Zimmermann, a legal consultant at the Zeughauser Group, said in an email Monday night.

Dewey said in a filing it had decided to wind down its business following unsuccessful negotiations with other law firms to strike a deal. It said it would ask about 90 employees to remain on staff to assist in the liquidation, which it expects to be completed in the next few months.

Negative economic conditions, along with the firm's partnership compensation arrangements, created a situation where its cash flow was insufficient to cover capital expenses and full compensation expectations, Dewey said.

"During the first quarter of 2012, the firm was confronted with liquidity constraints that led to the precipitous resignation of over 160 of the firm's 300 partners by May 11," the New-York based firm said.

Dewey listed liabilities in the range of $100 million to $500 million, according to the filing. It had already terminated 433 of its 533 New York employees earlier this month, according to the state's labor department.

Turbulence
The firm's collapse is expected to be the subject of years of court proceedings, and a number of former partners have already retained lawyers to represent them.

Monday's filing follows months of turbulence, as wave after wave of partner defections shattered the high-profile firm from within. In April, the Manhattan District Attorney's office launched a criminal probe of former firm chairman Steven Davis. He has denied any wrongdoing.

The result of a 2007 merger between Dewey Ballantine and LeBoeuf, Lamb, Green & MacRae, Dewey & LeBoeuf had about 1,450 attorneys at its peak, according to The National Law Journal.

But the firm was eventually undone by a combination of the economic downturn, excessive compensation and governance problems, according to former partners and others in the industry. In particular, Dewey's management promised millions in packages to about 100 partners, according to the court filing, leaving it strapped for cash when revenues fell during the recession.

Dewey has retained Joff Mitchell of Zolfo Cooper LLC as Chief Restructuring Officer and Albert Togut of Togut Segal & Segal LLP as bankruptcy counsel.

"The full extent of the partner compensation arrangements is subject of continuing investigation," Mitchell said in the filing.

Dewey is one of a handful of major law firms to declare bankruptcy since the recession that began in 2007. They include Coudert Brothers, Heller Ehrman and Howrey.

Pensions plans
As of the petition date, Dewey's assets consisted of about $13 million in cash, accounts receivable of about $255 million, various pieces of artwork, and about $11 million invested in an insurance consortium, among other potential claims, according to the filing.

In the interim, Dewey said the firm will be operating on a budget to be determined by the court. The firm has petitioned the court for permission to continue to pay salaries, benefits and paid time-off for current employees.

Dewey said that the 401(k) plans and qualified pension plans of its current and former employees and partners are held in trust and cannot be accessed by the firm's creditors.

The U.S. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation filed suit this month to take control of three of the firm's pension plans, which the agency said were underfunded by $80 million.

The London and Paris offices of the firm are operated through a separately incorporated UK entity, which was placed into administration on Monday.

Administration is a UK legal process under court supervision, broadly similar to Chapter 11. The UK partnership is following broadly the same approach as that of Dewey in the United States, the firm said.

The firm had two dozen offices worldwide, including in Washington, Los Angeles and London. Some of the firm's biggest clients included General Motors Corp, eBay, Novartis, Ambac and Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance Division.

The case is Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP, Case No. 12-12321, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012.

Read More

Facebook has its eyes on Face.com, reports say

6:30 AM Facebook, Facecom, reports No Comments

There's nothing like an acquisition to distract investors from your falling stock price.

Reports in the tech press Tuesday said that Facebook, whose stock is still reeling from the aftershocks of a bungled IPO, is looking to acquire Israel-based face recognition technology company Face.com for around $80 million to $100 million.

The Los Angeles Times reported that rumors of the deal for the startup surfaced in the Israeli press and then were quickly picked up by tech reporters. Several of the reports said that when they contacted Face.com CEO Gil Hirsch, he responded by saying he had no news to share.

Shares of Facebook (FB) were down about 7 percent on Tuesday to just below $30 on a day when most market indices were higher. It was the first time since Facebook's debut on May 18 that its shares dipped below $30, putting the shares about 21 percent below the IPO price of $38 a share. It was also the first time that Facebook options began trading.

Facebook options began trading today on a bearish note. What does this indicate about the stock's future? The FMHR traders weigh in with the play.

Read More

NYT: Check in married and then check out single

2:23 AM Check, married, single No Comments

The American marriage, it seems, is on the rocks. The common line — true or not — is that half of all marriages in this country end in divorce.

So here comes a plucky entrepreneur from, of all places, the Netherlands, with a wild, you’ve-got-to-be-joking plan to profit from the sorry state of so many American unions.

It’s called Divorce Hotel, and the idea is this: Check in on Friday, married. Then, with the help of mediators and independent lawyers, check out on Sunday, divorce papers in hand, all for a flat fee.

And — why not? — toss in some reality TV for good measure.

Unusual as it sounds, the Divorce Hotel concept is up and running in the Netherlands, where its mastermind, Jim Halfens, is helping unhappy marrieds divorce en suite. Seventeen couples have tried it so far. All but one left divorce-ready.

Now Mr. Halfens, 33, wants to take the idea to the United States. He is negotiating with hotels in several cities, including New York and Los Angeles, as well as with law firms and, yes, two television production companies — for a reality show.

American divorce lawyers roll their eyes. Sure, “Divorce Hotel” sounds catchy. But most breakups are too complicated — or, frankly, too acrimonious — to be worked out in a cozy hotel room somewhere.

Robert S. Cohen, the lawyer who helped guide Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Christie Brinkley, Ivana Trump and other A-listers to splitsville, says he wishes he’d thought of the idea. It’s a great gimmick, he says — but as a practical matter, he adds, it probably wouldn’t work for most couples, let alone for the well-heeled types he advises.

It might if a couple were still friends and their financial arrangements were straightforward, he says. But in his view, it’s unlikely to work for complicated cases involving, say, significant property or business holdings, complex stock options or offshore accounts that must be traced or assessed.

“The notion of being able to — at the beginning of a split-up — spend a weekend putting these various pieces together and coming to a solution to them would be virtually impossible,” Mr. Cohen says. “I don’t see how one would do it and come up with a fair result.”

He notes that divorce proceedings are often a highly emotional time for couples. “And the notion they’re now going to spend two days with each other at some fancy hotel seems to me not to be a very likely scenario,” he says. “Most people getting divorced don’t want to see each other again except when they have to.”

Mr. Cohen would be the first to tell you that divorce is big business these days. In the United States alone, estimates of what might be called the divorce industry range from $50 billion to $175 billion a year, depending on what costs are included. (Lawyers, after all, are only the beginning.) More than 1.2 million people in the United States filed for divorce in 2009, the most recent year for which data are available, according to the National Center for State Courts.

Mr. Halfens came up with the idea for Divorce Hotel after watching a college friend go through a painful divorce.

“He was losing weight, he was unable to have fun in life anymore and they were fighting every time you saw them — it was horrible,” Mr. Halfens says of his friend. The divorce negotiations dragged on for five months, he says — not all that long, by American standards.

“I was convinced there has to be another way,” Mr. Halfens says.

So, drawing on a background in marketing, as well as a stint at a law firm, he opened Divorce Hotel. And, by the way, it isn’t just a single hotel. Mr. Halfens has struck agreements with six high-end hotels in the Netherlands, most of which are reluctant to be seen as the Divorce Hotel, or even to divulge that they participate in the program.

Couples stay in separate rooms. A suite is used for mediation talks. Hotel staff members receive special instructions — and are told that these are no ordinary guests. “You don’t want the hotel crew wishing you a very nice weekend and hoping you have lots of fun here,” says Mr. Halfens, who evaluates couples first, to enhance the odds of success.

Divorce Hotel charges a flat fee of $3,500 to $10,000, depending on the complexity of a couple’s financial arrangements. Divorces in the United States tend to cost $5,000 to $20,000, though the cost can soar depending on the assets involved, the case’s complexity and, perhaps most crucially, whether child custody is an issue, according to Randall M. Kessler, chairman of the American Bar Association’s family law section.

Child custody battles and cases involving complex financial arrangements, such as self-owned businesses and stock options, tend to be the costliest, he says, with fees often exceeding $100,000 from each party.

Once the couple check out, they need only show the papers to a judge to have their divorce made final. Of course, marriage laws vary from state to state, which is why Mr. Halfens is in talks with law firms and hotels in different states.

Last September, a 44-year-old computer consultant in the Netherlands checked into a Divorce Hotel with his wife. He spoke on the condition that his full name not be used, to protect their privacy.

Both had been through divorces before. The first time, he says, he lost the equivalent of $30,000 just on lawyer and court costs. The process took a year.

“There was a lot of fighting — not by us, but our lawyers,” he recalls. “Every letter her attorney wrote had to be answered by mine. That financially ruined me.”

He and his second wife wanted to end their seven-year marriage on friendly terms. “We were both divorced before and we both experienced a lot of pain and misery,” he says.

So they opted for the Divorce Hotel — and were thrilled with the results. On his divorce weekend, he says, they went out on the town for dinner and wine. “It wasn’t weird or wrong,” he says, “We felt great — like friends.”

Mr. Halfens tells the story of one couple who got along so well during the weekend talks that the mediator wondered whether they would reconcile. “They were so positive that they went to the beach together,” he says. Ultimately, though, they pressed on with the divorce. Another time, a couple shared their final night together in the hotel’s honeymoon suite.

“We were a bit flabbergasted,” Mr. Halfens says. That couple, too, ended up divorcing.

Mr. Halfens has big plans for Divorce Hotel. He’s written a book, due out next year, and says that in addition to the hotels in the United States, he has talked to hotels in Britain, Italy and Germany about hosting his program.

Under his agreements with the two American production companies, Base Productions and A. Smith & Company, some couples would be followed and filmed as they go through Divorce Hotel.

Mickey Stern, co-chief executive of Base Productions, says he jumped at the chance to produce a show around Divorce Hotel. “These are real people getting real divorces — or at least attempting to get real divorces — and it has all of the human drama of this significant process all condensed down into a very short period of time,” Mr. Stern says. Given the number of people who get divorces in the United States — and the possibility for some TV fireworks — the audience could be huge, he says.

“Divorce Hotel is as real as it gets,” he says. “If there’s a conflict, it’s real because the stakes are real.” He says he expects the show to have its debut this fall, although he declined to name the network.

Television aside, could Divorce Hotel really work here? Mr. Cohen, the divorce lawyer, says the courts are so backed up with cases that people are moving toward mediation and arbitration to end marriages, at least when huge sums of money or child custody are not at stake.

But, like Mr. Cohen, Jason Marks, a divorce lawyer in Miami, says complex cases cannot be resolved in a weekend. And some people may do all sorts of things when a marriage runs into trouble: hide money, undervalue assets, perpetrate fraud.

“That happens all the time,” Mr. Marks says. It takes time — and expensive lawyers — to sort it all out.

Mr. Halfens concedes that only one of every three couples that apply for his program is accepted. His team tries to ensure that both parties want to divorce and are willing to work with a mediator. If the couple is bickering or barely speaking to each other, or if greed or vengeance seems to be a motivation, the couple is rejected.

Mr. Halfens, who is not married, has already invited Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher to Divorce Hotel, he says. They’re a perfect fit, in his view, since they’ve indicated they want to end their six-year marriage on friendly terms.

He hasn’t heard back.

This story, "Quick Getaways, at the Divorce Hotel," originally appeared in The New York Times.

Copyright © 2012 The New York Times

Read More

'Men in Black III' tops 'Avengers' at box office

11:30 AM Avengers, Black, office No Comments

Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones in "Men in Black 3."

The third "Men in Black" alien action comedy bumped the mighty "Avengers" from the top of movie box office charts through Sunday and was likely to dominate theaters over the rest of the U.S. Memorial Day weekend.

"MIB 3", starring Will Smith, racked up $55 million in the United States and Canada from Friday through Sunday, according to studio estimates. The movie also topped box offices in 104 countries around the world, and is expected to haul in a global $202 million over the four-day holiday weekend, distributor Sony Pictures said.

It is the first "Men in Black" film to reach theaters in 10 years, and the best performing film since the franchise began in 1997.

In "MIB 3", Smith returns to his role as Agent J, half of a secret-agent duo that keeps order among aliens disguised as humans and living on Earth. Tommy Lee Jones plays his partner, Agent K.

The new installment finds J traveling back to the 1960s to save a younger version of K, portrayed by Josh Brolin.

"MIB 3" knocked superhero team "The Avengers" to second place after three weeks at No. 1.

The global, billion-dollar blockbuster collected $37 million in North American theaters from Friday through Sunday. It also became the fastest film to cross the $500 million domestic threshold, getting there in 23 days and shattering the 32 day record set by the 2009 film "Avatar", which went on to become the world's highest-grossing movie of all time.

In third place, board game-inspired action movie "Battleship" brought in $10.7 million during its second weekend in theaters.

Sacha Baron Cohen's spoof "The Dictator" took the fourth spot with $9.6 million through Sunday, pushing new low-budget horror film "Chernobyl Diaries" into fifth place with $8 million.

Total figures for the U.S. Memorial Day long weekend will be released on Monday.

Sony Corp's movie studio released "Men in Black 3." "The Avengers" was distributed by Walt Disney Co's Marvel Studios. Time Warner Inc's Warner Bros. studios distributed "Chernobyl Diaries." "Battleship" was released by Universal Studios, a unit of Comcast Corp. Viacom Inc's Paramount Studios distributed "The Dictator."

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters.

Read More

Black workers file charges over noose in locker room

2:20 AM Black, charges, locker, noose, workers No Comments

Three African-American workers at a Siemens Energy facility in New Jersey have filed charges of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the New Jersey Division of Civil Rights after they said years of racial harassment recently culminated in their finding a noose hanging in front of their lockers.

"The complainants ... are pursuing these charges and will be filing a federal lawsuit in the hopes of bringing to light and changing the current climate of open racial discrimination at this facility," Brian K. Wiley, the lawyer representing the employees, said via email.

In January, four-year Siemens employee David Solomon said he entered the workers' changing area and found a noose hanging "right next to my locker." He photographed the noose and alerted his co-workers, Eddie Clarke and Barry Murphy. In an April 4 affidavit, all three testified that they had seen the noose and detailed numerous other instances of racial discrimination.

"I felt (as) though a clear message was being sent to the black employees at Siemens to shut up, do what your [sic] told and stop complaining about being treated unfairly or we would be lynched," Solomon wrote. "Every person in power at my job is white. There are no black supervisors, and no African­-Americans to report this too [sic]."

Clarke wrote in his statement that he had been physically threatened by his supervisor after voicing complaints about a discriminatory work environment in which African-Americans were denied the opportunity for advancement. "My supervisor had previously warned me a few years back that if I complained of racial bias in the workplace any further I would get caught in 'friendly fire,' " he wrote. "The supervisor approached me shortly after and expressed surprise that I was 'still alive.”"

Siemens responded with a statement calling hanging a noose in the workplace a "deplorable, aggressive act" and said the company "promptly notified law enforcement." Company spokeswoman Camille Johnston said via email, "We have been in contact with federal, state and local authorities," without providing details of which agencies.

In its statement, Siemens said it initiated an internal investigation, which it concluded after the company's "corporate security team that included members with 30+ years of experience with the Federal Bureau of Investigation ... could not find any evidence of how the noose got there."

Wiley countered the assertion that Siemens proactively contacted police.

"To be clear, it was the complainants who contacted law enforcement to report what has happened to them," he said. "While we do not have the ability to know whether Siemens contacted law enforcement as they claim, we can say with certainty that none of the three victims was contacted by any law enforcement agency."

Between 2006 and 2010, the EEOC ordered eight companies to pay a total of nearly $5.2 million stemming from cases of racial discrimination or harassment that involved nooses. The agency's site says it is illegal for race or skin color to impact "hiring, firing, pay, job assignments, promotions, layoff, training, fringe benefits, and any other term or condition of employment." It also says the display "racially offensive symbols" constitutes illegal racial harrassment.

"The company is responding to the EEOC charges as appropriate," Johnston said. An EEOC spokesman declined to comment.

Wiley said no specific amount of damages had been determined for the federal lawsuit he plans to file on behalf of the three men. "There's no real way to quantify" the impact that years — decades in the case of Murphy, a Siemens employee since 1966 — worth of denied advancement opportunities and hostile working conditions had on his clients. "[Siemens] conceivably could be responsible for a large amount," he said.

Read More

CEO average pay jumps to almost $10 million

4:00 PM almost, average, jumps, million No Comments

NEW YORK — Profits at big U.S. companies broke records last year, and so did pay for CEOs.

The head of a typical public company made $9.6 million in 2011, according to an analysis by The Associated Press using data from Equilar, an executive pay research firm.

That was up more than 6 percent from the previous year, and is the second year in a row of increases. The figure is also the highest since the AP began tracking executive compensation in 2006.

Companies trimmed cash bonuses but handed out more in stock awards. For shareholder activists who have long decried CEO pay as exorbitant, that was a victory of sorts.

That's because the stock awards are being tied more often to company performance. In those instances, CEOs can't cash in the shares right away: They have to meet goals first, like boosting profit to a certain level.

The idea is to motivate CEOs to make sure a company does well and to tie their fortunes to the company's for the long term. For too long, activists say, CEOs have been richly rewarded no matter how a company has fared — "pay for pulse," as some critics call it.

To be sure, the companies' motives are pragmatic. The corporate world is under a brighter, more uncomfortable spotlight than it was a few years ago, before the financial crisis struck in the fall of 2008.

Last year, a law gave shareholders the right to vote on whether they approve of the CEO's pay. The vote is nonbinding, but companies are keen to avoid an embarrassing "no."

"I think the boards were more easily shamed than we thought they were," says Stephen Davis, a shareholder expert at Yale University, referring to boards of directors, which set executive pay.

In the past year, he says, "Shareholders found their voice."

The typical CEO got stock awards worth $3.6 million in 2011, up 11 percent from the year before. Cash bonuses fell about 7 percent, to $2 million.

The value of stock options, as determined by the company, climbed 6 percent to a median $1.7 million. Options usually give the CEO the right to buy shares in the future at the price they're trading at when the options are granted, so they're worth something only if the shares go up.

Profit at companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index rose 16 percent last year, remarkable in an economy that grew more slowly than expected.

More sales, more profit
CEOs managed to sell more, and squeeze more profit from each sale, despite problems ranging from a downgrade of the U.S. credit rating to an economic slowdown in China and Europe's neverending debt crisis.

Still, there wasn't much immediate benefit for the shareholders. The S&P 500 ended the year unchanged from where it started. Including dividends, the index returned a slender 2 percent.

Shareholder activists, while glad that companies are moving a bigger portion of CEO pay into stock awards, caution that the rearranging isn't a cure-all.

For one thing, companies don't have to tie stock awards to performance. Instead, they can make the awards automatically payable on a certain date — meaning all the CEO has to do is stick around.

Other companies do tie stock awards to performance but set easy goals. Sometimes, "they set the bar so low, it would be difficult for an executive not to trip over it," says Patrick McGurn, special counsel at Institutional Shareholder Services, which advises pension funds and other big investors on how to vote.

And for many shareholders, their main concern — that pay is just too much, no matter what the form — has yet to be addressed.

"It's just that total (compensation) is going up, and that's where the problem lies," says Charles Elson, director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware.

The typical American worker would have to labor for 244 years to make what the typical boss of a big public company makes in one. The median pay for U.S. workers was about $39,300 last year. That was up 1 percent from the year before, not enough to keep pace with inflation.

Since the AP began tracking CEO pay five years ago, the numbers have seesawed. Pay climbed in 2007, fell during the recession in 2008 and 2009 and then jumped again in 2010.

To determine 2011 pay packages, the AP used Equilar data to look at the 322 companies in the S&P 500 that had filed statements with federal regulators through April 30. To make comparisons fair, the sample includes only CEOs in place for at least two years.

Simon is on top
Among the AP's other findings:

David Simon, CEO of Simon Property, which operates malls around the country, is on track to be the highest-paid in the AP survey, at $137 million. That was almost entirely in stock awards that could eventually be worth $132 million. The company said it wanted to make sure Simon wasn't lured to another company. He has been CEO since 1995; his father and uncle are Simon Property's co-founders.
This month, Simon Property's shareholders rejected Simon's pay package by a large margin: 73 percent of the votes cast for or against were against.

But the company doesn't appear likely to change the 2011 package. After the shareholder vote, it released a statement saying that "we value our stockholders' input" and would "take their views into consideration as (the board) reviews compensation plans for our management team." But it also said that Simon's performance had been stellar and it needed to pay him enough to keep him in the job.

Simon's paycheck looks paltry compared with that of Apple CEO Tim Cook, whose pay package was valued at $378 million when he became CEO in August. That was almost entirely in stock awards, some of which won't be redeemable until 2021, so the value could change dramatically. Cook wasn't included in the AP study because he is new to the job.

Of the five highest-paid CEOs, three were also in the top five the year before. All three are in the TV business: Leslie Moonves of CBS ($68 million); David Zaslav of Discovery Communications, parent of Animal Planet, TLC and other channels ($52 million); and Philippe Dauman of Viacom, which owns MTV and other channels ($43 million).About two in three CEOs got raises. For 16 CEOs in the sample, pay more than doubled from a year earlier, including Bank of America's Brian Moynihan (from $1.3 million to $7.5 million), Marathon Oil's Clarence Cazalot Jr. (from $8.8 million to $29.9 million) and Motorola Mobility's Sanjay Jha (from $13 million to $47.2 million).CEOs running health-care companies made the most ($10.8 million). Those running utilities made the least ($7 million).Perks and other personal benefits, such as hired drivers or personal use of company airplanes, rose only slightly, and some companies cut back, saying they wanted to align their pay structure with "best practices."
Military contractor General Dynamics stopped paying for country club memberships for top executives, though it gave them payments equivalent to three years of club fees to ease "transition issues" caused by the change.

The typical pay of $9.6 million that Equilar calculated is the median value, or the midpoint, of the companies used in the AP analysis. In other words, half the CEOs made more and half less.

To value stock awards and stock options, the AP used numbers supplied by the companies. Those figures are based on formulas the companies use to estimate what the stock and options will eventually be worth when a CEO receives the stock or cashes in the options.

Stock awards are generally valued based on the stock's current price. Stock options are valued using company estimates that take into account the stock's current price, how long until the CEO can cash the options in, how the stock price is expected to move before then, and expected dividends. Estimates don't generally take inflation into account.

The shift to stock awards is at least partly rooted in what is known as the Dodd-Frank law, passed in the wake of the financial crisis, which overhauled how banks and other public companies are regulated.

Beginning last year, Dodd-Frank required public companies to let shareholders vote on whether they approve of the top executives' pay packages. The votes are advisory, so companies don't have to take back even a penny if shareholders give them the thumbs-down. But shame has proved a powerful motivator.

It got Hewlett-Packard to change its ways. After an embarrassing "no" vote last year on the 2010 pay packages, including nearly $24 million for ousted CEO Mark Hurd, the company huddled with more than 200 investment firms and major shareholders, then threw out its old pay formula. New CEO Meg Whitman is getting $1 a year in salary and no guaranteed bonus for 2011. Nearly all her pay is in stock options that could be worth $16 million, but only if the share price goes up.

Other companies took notice, too. Last year, shareholders rejected the CEO pay packages at Janus Capital, homebuilder Beazer Homes and construction company Jacobs Engineering Group. All won approval this year after the companies made the packages more palatable to shareholders.

To be sure, shareholders aren't voting en masse against executive pay. Instead, they seem to be saving "no" votes for the executives they deem most egregious.

Of more than 3,000 U.S. companies that held votes in 2011, only 43 got rejections, according to ISS. But the mere presence of the "say on pay" vote is triggering change, shareholder activists say.

"Companies that have gone through that trial by fire don't want to go through it again," says McGurn, the ISS special counsel.

Even Chesapeake Energy, a company perennially in the cross-hairs of corporate-governance activists, is bowing to pressure. The company has drawn fire for showering CEO Aubrey McClendon with assorted goodies. In addition to handing him big pay packages — $17.9 million for 2011 — Chesapeake in recent years has spent millions sponsoring the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder, which he partially owns, paying him for his collection of antique maps and letting him buy stakes in company wells.

Last year, shareholders of the natural gas producer passed the proposed 2010 pay package but by a low margin, 58 percent. This year, with shareholder pressure mounting, the board has ended some of McClendon's perks and stripped him of his title as chairman. A lawsuit settlement is forcing him to buy back his $12 million worth of maps.

After losing the chairman job, McClendon issued a statement saying the demotion "reflects our determination to uphold strong corporate governance standards." Chesapeake will seek shareholder approval for McClendon's 2011 pay at its annual meeting in June.

So far, Citigroup is the highest-profile company to have its pay package rejected this year. The bank planned to pay CEO Vikram Pandit about $15 million for his work last year, noting that he had returned the company to profitability in 2010 and worked for $1 that year. Shareholders, who watched the stock price plunge 44 percent in 2011 (after adjusting for a reverse stock split) weren't so forgiving.

It's usually around January that boards decide how much to pay a CEO for the previous year. Then they inform shareholders and ask for their vote in the spring — usually after the cash portion has already been handed out. For Pandit, that meant he had already received $7 million in salary and cash bonus by the time shareholders voted against his pay.

In a statement, Citi said it took the vote seriously and planned to "carefully consider" the input of major shareholders. It hasn't given more specifics. Richard Parsons, who retired as Citi's chairman after the April annual meeting, as previously planned, said after the vote that the board should have done a better job explaining to shareholders how it determined CEO pay.

Clawbacks
Another big change is that more companies are giving themselves the right to take back a top executive's pay from previous years if they determine that the executive acted inappropriately to inflate the company's financial results.

The Dodd-Frank overhaul will eventually require public companies to include such broad "claw back" provisions, which will expand on narrowly written rules from a decade ago. But companies aren't waiting. In a separate study, Equilar found that 84 percent of Fortune 100 companies now include claw backs in their executive pay packages, up from 18 percent in 2006.

Last year, the former CEO of Beazer Homes agreed with regulators, who cited the older claw back rules, to turn over $6.5 million he had earned when profits were inflated. In February, UBS took back half of the previous year's bonuses awarded to many investment bankers because of subsequent losses in the unit.

Picking the right mix of incentives is partly just guesswork, and sometimes the results are simply a force of serendipity. Stocks can get swept up in rising or falling markets, so the fortunes of CEOs with well-designed pay packages can reflect luck — good or bad — not just managerial skills.

In February 2009, James Rohr, the head of PNC Financial Services, was granted options that allowed him to buy shares in the future at the then-current price, which had fallen 62 percent in five months on its way to a 17-year low the next month.

The stock has since doubled, and the options, mostly based on hitting certain profit and cost-cutting goals, are worth more than $20 million in paper profit, according to research by GMI Rating, a corporate governance watchdog. If investors had bought PNC stock just before the financial crisis in 2008, they would still be down more than a fifth.

Luck, of course, can cut both ways. Rohr is still waiting to cash in options granted in 2007, valued then at $2.5 million, when the stock was 18 percent higher than it is today.

Some shareholder groups doubt that ever-higher CEO pay, ingrained as it is in the corporate psyche, will ever be refashioned dramatically enough to satisfy shareholders and consumer groups who see the paychecks as too big, too disconnected from performance, and set by wealthy directors who are oblivious to the way that most of their shareholders live.

"I hope we have seen the last of this," says Rosanna Weaver of the CtW Investment Group, which works on shareholder issues with union-sponsored pension funds and has lobbied against CEO pay packages at a number of companies. "But I would be very surprised, just given what I know of human nature, let alone what I know of the financial markets."

Still, she's encouraged by the change that has already been stirred.

"It's a very big task," Weaver says. "I still believe it is worth trying."

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Read More