Independent Bank Corp., the parent of Rockland Trust Co., said net income in the fourth quarter increased 33 percent to $9.1 million from the previous three months as the bank saw a strong upswing in wealth-management revenue.
Net income was up more than 200 percent when compared with the year-ago quarter, or before the bank acquired Benjamin Franklin Bancorp Inc.
For the year ended Dec. 31, Rockland Trust’s (Nasdaq: INDB) net income was $23 million compared with $24 million in 2008.
Total assets increased by $48 million, or 1.1 percent, to $4 us fast cash.5 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with the previous quarter.
The company recorded non-interest income of $10 million during the fourth quarter, an increase of $5.6 million when compared with the quarter ended Sept. 30. The change in non-interest income included a wealth management revenue increase of $451,000, or 19.8 percent, because of general stock market appreciation and strong sales results. Assets under management in the wealth management division were $1.3 billion at the end of December.
Apply online today, its fast, easy and 100% secure. We are the trusted brand for online cash loans.
Midtown Manhattan office rents fell 33 percent in 2009 as New York’s financial industry cut staff and relinquished space, commercial property broker FirstService Williams said in a report.
Rents in the nation’s most expensive office district dropped to $59.31 a square foot in the fourth quarter and are down almost 50 percent when concessions including temporary free rent are included, the New York-based broker said today.
Financial companies occupy more New York office space than any other non-governmental employer. They cut 25,200 local jobs in the 12 months through November, helping push the city’s unemployment rate to 10 percent, according to the New York State Department of Labor.
“Employment is not going to trend up with any alacrity,” FirstService Williams Executive Chairman Robert Freedman said in an interview. “We’re going to see a very, very modest uptick in demand” for offices.
The percentage of available space in Midtown climbed to 14.9 percent from 11.9 percent a year ago, FirstService Williams said. The rate applies to office space between 34th Street and Central Park in Manhattan.
The decline in neighborhood rents showed signs of leveling off as more than 1 million square feet along Park Avenue, Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas were leased in the fourth quarter, FirstService said. Landlords stopped increasing incentives to lure tenants, the broker said.
Wall Street Area
Downtown rents declined 22 percent in 2009 to $38.60 a square foot and availability jumped to 13 percent from 10.5 percent at the end of 2008. Most of the available space downtown was added in the fourth quarter.
Between 8 percent and 10 percent of downtown leases signed in 2009 were for financial tenants, according to FirstService’s preliminary numbers. About 30 percent of the New York City office market is already occupied by the industry.
“With the financial sector still a major driving force in the downtown market, recovery in lower Manhattan may be slower than expected,” Freedman said.
In Manhattan’s Midtown South area, roughly located between 34th and Canal streets, office availability climb to 11.7 percent from 8.5 percent at the end of last year. Asking rents averaged $39.73 a square foot, down 28 percent from a year ago.
What could have been a heated battle between Toyota and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration in a game of "he said/she said" quickly cooled.
Last month, Toyota and NHTSA warned drivers to remove the mats in certain models or risk a forced-down accelerator pedal that could lead to a crash. Toyota plans a recall to fix the problem, and began sending notifications this week to Toyota and Lexus vehicle owners about the issue.
But the NHTSA took issue with how Toyota worded its warnings. The agency released a statement Wednesday accusing the world’s largest automaker of sending a letter to owners with "inaccurate and misleading information."
Toyota’s letter told owners that NHTSA said "no defect exists in vehicles in which the driver’s floor mat is compatible with the vehicle and properly secured." The agency took those as fighting words: In its view, the vehicles have an underlying defect that means floor mats can’t be properly secured.
NHTSA recommends that consumers remove the floor mats from affected cars to eliminate the risk that a mat will become stuck and trap the accelerator online payday advance. But that is "simply an interim measure," the agency said. It won’t consider the problem solved until Toyota comes up with "a suitable vehicle-based solution."
The standoff could have turned ugly, but when called out on the issue, Toyota backed down fast.
"Toyota agrees with NHTSA’s position that the removal of floor mats is an interim measure and that further vehicle-based action is required," the company said in a statement released late Wednesday. "We are in the process of developing vehicle-based remedies."
Toyota has not yet launched an official recall campaign, but it plans to for the following models: 2007-2010 Camry, 2005-2010 Avalon, 2004-2009 Prius, 2005-2010 Tacoma and 2007-2010 Tundra.
The Lexus models facing the safety recall are the 2007-2010 ES 350, and the 2006-2010 IS 250 and IS 350.
The United States welcomes the rise in the yuan’s exchange rate in recent years but wants the currency to climb further, visiting Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said on Tuesday.
“We think more progress needs to be made in that area,” Locke told a news conference in Guangzhou, the capital of southern Guangdong province, which accounts for nearly a third of China’s exports.
China has in effect re-pegged the yuan to the dollar since mid-2008 to help its exporters, who were hit hard by a slump in orders as the global financial crisis intensified.
Beijing revalued the yuan by 2.1 percent against the dollar in July 2005 and, over the following three years, gradually let it climb by another 19 percent before calling a halt to its rise.
“We’re pleased with the movement so far, but of course more needs to be done,” Locke said.
The commerce chief will participate on Wednesday and Thursday in high-level trade talks in Hangzhou, along with U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Chinese Vice-Premier Wang Qishan.
Locke said he expected the meetings to pave the way for “significant improvements and progress in the trade relationship between the two countries” when President Barack Obama visits China next month for talks with President Hu Jintao.
Locke did not delve into detail but said that energy co-operation would be a “big topic” between the two presidents, with U.S. firms seeking easier access to the potentially lucrative China market for clean energy, alternative fuels and energy-efficient products.
The yuan’s exchange rate has dropped down the U.S. diplomatic agenda in the past year as Washington has looked to China for help in hauling the world economy out of recession.
The Obama administration said on October 15 that it continued to believe the yuan is undervalued but declined to declare that China was manipulating its currency.
But the Treasury Department, in a semi-annual report to Congress on currency practices of key trade partners, said China was piling up foreign exchange reserves at a rate that threatens progress in reducing global economic imbalances.
It warned that lack of flexibility in the exchange rate for the yuan might be damaging as stimulus is withdrawn and overseas demand for Chinese-made goods returns.
Currency traders in the non-deliverable forwards market were anticipating on Tuesday that the yuan would be worth 2.4 percent more against the dollar in a year’s time.
PATENT PROBLEMS
Locke said a recent spat over Washington’s decision to slap tariffs on imports of cheap Chinese tires would be discussed in Hangzhou, but he played down the issue.
WASHINGTON — Regulators on Thursday proposed rules designed to stem conflicts of interest and provide more transparency for credit rating companies. They also proposed banning "flash orders," which give some traders a split-second edge in buying or selling stocks.
The credit rating industry was widely faulted for its role in the subprime mortgage debacle and the financial crisis. The five members of the Securities and Exchange Commission voted at a public meeting to propose rules that could reshape an industry dominated by three firms: Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings. Their practices would be opened wider to public view and subject to some restraints.
One SEC proposal discussed Thursday is intended to bar companies from "shopping" for favorable ratings of their securities. In addition, the agencies would have to publicly disclose every entity that paid for a credit rating. They also would have to provide more information about income earned from companies they rate.
The credit rating agencies have been criticized for failing to identify risks in securities backed by subprime mortgages. They had to downgrade thousands of the securities last year as home-loan delinquencies soared and the value of those investments plummeted. The downgrades contributed to hundreds of billions in losses and writedowns at big banks and investment firms.
A more recent controversy has grown around flash orders amid questions about transparency and fairness on Wall Street.
In a flash order, a firm wishing to buy or sell stock can elect to freeze the order on an exchange for as long as half a second. Critics say flash orders give a select group of high-speed traders a window into the direction of the market, giving them the ability to trade at lightning speeds ahead of less fleet-footed investors.
Nasdaq OMX Group Inc., which operates the Nasdaq Stock Market, and the BATS exchange have voluntarily stopped using flash orders, which made up an estimated 3 percent of stock trading. The New York Stock Exchange has never used them.
It’s an $8 billion proposal by O’Fallon, Mo.-based McEagle Properties to redevelop about 1,500 acres across three neighborhoods in north St. Louis. McEagle says the project will build 10,000 new homes and generate 22,000 new jobs over two decades, and is asking city officials for redevelopment rights and $410 million in tax financing — by far the biggest such request ever made in St fast cash without a hassle. Louis.
The U.S. economy isn’t contracting as fast as it was six months ago, but there are still only a few signs of actual growth, according to the latest data.
Thus far, the expectation that gross domestic product will increase in the third quarter is just that: an expectation. Economists are pretty sure the economy will begin to grow, based on well-established leading indicators that point to a recovery beginning soon.
Another top forecaster signaled the end of the recession Monday. "The longest and deepest recession of the postwar era has ended," said IHS Global Insight. In the last week, the Conference Board and the International Monetary Fund have said the recession is waning.
"Massive inventory liquidations in the first half of 2009 have set the stage for rebounds in global production and trade," said Global Insight chief economist Nariman Behravesh. "Financial markets have stabilized and investors’ appetite for risk is returning, although credit will remain relatively tight as banks rebuild their capital positions."
The recovery could lose steam in a few quarters, Behravesh continued. "A sustained, robust global recovery depends on renewed growth in consumer spending and capital investment. The coming expansion will be restrained by cautious consumers."
The median forecast of economists surveyed by MarketWatch looks for annualized growth of 3 percent in the third quarter and 2.5 percent in the fourth quarter. The GDP data for the third quarter will be released in late October.
Growth will likely be propelled, in part, by a slower pace of inventory reduction and by higher exports. Domestic demand may not be very strong, with still-weak business investment offsetting a temporary jump in consumer spending from the Cash for Clunkers deal, they say.
Home is where the heart is, but it hasn’t been much of a profit center lately.
Recession and declining property values have hit homeowners hard, which is bad news for investments tied to homes and property. House builders, home improvement centers and real estate investment trusts are left to pin their hopes on an economic revival.
House builder stocks, bounced around on the conflicting signals of foreclosures and rising mortgage rates versus declining inventories and pockets of recovery, are up modestly as a group this year.
"We like the house builder stocks because there’s an upside between now and the end of the year, as losses start to mediate and we see more signs that housing has stabilized," said Megan McGrath, house builder analyst with Barclays Capital, New York. "The time to invest in these stocks is early in the cycle."
For now, easing in the rate of sales decline and fewer reductions in home prices are reasonable expectations, McGrath said, but it may take a quarter or two before the outlook can be described as truly positive.
"The new-home market, with sales at historic lows, is only 10 percent of the total housing market but plummeted faster than existing home sales due to the supply of foreclosed and distressed property," McGrath said. "However, new-home sales have reached a significant low point, and we’ve started seeing stable numbers since the beginning of the year."
Bottoming of the new-home market represents a buying opportunity in house builder stocks, she said.
DR Horton Inc. and Toll Brothers Inc. are stocks recommended by McGrath. DR Horton’s long-time focus on low costs will give it a boost in an economic upturn, while luxury house builder Toll Brothers has always maintained higher profit margins than competitors, she said.
"I’m cautious on the house builders because, while sales over the next few months are going to be good since there is still some momentum, price pressure will continue to squeeze profit margins," warned David Urani, house builder analyst with the Wall Street Strategies independent research firm, New York. "Some of the big impairment charges these firms are taking will likely continue."
Urani doesn’t expect house builders to actually revive until 2010.
Nonetheless, he likes the stock of Lennar Corp., which has boosted its capital position, had some sales improvement and turned in a second-quarter loss smaller than analysts expected.
Ryland Group Inc. is recommended by both McGrath and Urani based on improved sales and a strong cash position that assures it of exiting recession in fine shape.
The two analysts also have definite dislikes. Both are steering clear of Hovnanian Enterprises Inc. because the firm’s uncertain profitability and high debt will make it difficult for it to benefit from an economic recovery no fax payday loan. Urani would avoid Beazer Homes USA Inc. because of a financial position that "isn’t resilient" due to significant exposure to California and other problem real estate regions.
As the housing market goes, so go home improvement centers. Their stocks have managed to rally somewhat from their lows set earlier in the year.
"A major factor that benefits these retailers is that they operate in a duopoly — Home Depot and Lowe’s — and that really helps profit margins," said Michael Souers, home improvement retailer analyst with Standard & Poor’s Equity Research, New York. "They’ve kept rational pricing and strong gross margins throughout the economic decline, though they’ve had negative same-store sales growth."
Souers has a "buy" on stock of Lowe’s Inc., down 11 percent this year, because it is trading at a lower price-earnings ratio than Home Depot and is more of a growth story. He has a "hold" on Home Depot Inc. stock, which has been flat for the year, though it is a "safer story" with higher dividend.
It could be several years before home improvement centers see a significant pickup in remodeling and overall demand, Soeurs said. In the meantime, he finds it commendable that both chains own so much of their own real estate — Home Depot 89 percent and Lowe’s 88 percent.
Real estate investment trusts, dividend-producing investments that use the pooled capital of investors to purchase properties, have been volatile and are down about 20 percent as a group this year.
"REITs are going to be in a trading range for the rest of this year, and their eventual catalyst will be their ability to acquire assets from distressed sellers," said Chris Lucas, senior real estate analyst with Robert W. Baird & Co., McLean, Va.
"The good news for public companies in real estate is that they’ve been able to raise equity and a number of refinances have been done."
Corporate Office Properties Trust Inc. is an REIT recommended by Lucas because 55 percent of earnings are derived from government and government contractors in defense and intelligence that should experience growth.
He likes Federal Realty Investment Trust, a shopping-center REIT with locations in high-density, high-income areas in the Northeast and on the West Coast.
Its high-quality properties are the places retailers find especially attractive, he said.
"REITs are often used as a defensive investment because of the dividends they pay," Lucas said.
"So it wouldn’t surprise me if at some point investors started to look to well-capitalized REITs as a safety play."
The World Bank has cut its 2009 global growth forecast, saying the world economy will shrink by 2.9 percent and warning that a drop in investment in developing countries will increase poverty.
"The global recession has deepened," the Washington-based lender said in a report.
Global trade is expected to plunge by 9.7 percent this year, while total gross domestic product for high-income countries will contract by 4.2 percent, the bank said. It said economic growth in developing countries should slow to 1.2 percent — but excluding China and India, developing economies will contract by 1.6 percent.
The bank’s latest forecast is a sharp reduction from its March prediction of a 1 fast cash advance.7 percent global contraction, which it said then would be the worst on record.
Economic damage to developing countries "has been much deeper and broader than previous crises," warned the report.
The global economy should start to grow again late this year, but "the expected recovery is projected to be much less vigorous than normal," the report said.
OTTAWA–The federal government’s projected budget deficit this year ballooned because of the unexpectedly fierce economic storm that hit Canada in early 2009, says Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.
"The recession in the first half of this year has been deeper and broader than was anticipated by the private sector economists and (than) was anticipated by us," Flaherty told the House of Commons finance committee today during a discussion of the Conservatives’ economic strategy.
Between January and June, Flaherty’s predicted budget shortfall for this year rose to $50.2 billion from $33.7 billion. But he told the committee that the larger budget deficit was the result of necessary pro-growth spending during the economic downturn.
Flaherty noted that the government is supplying $9 billion in loans to bail out the auto sector and an additional $2.8 billion for benefits to the unemployed in 2009-10.
Liberal MP John McKay told Flaherty the issue is not whether the spending was worthwhile but "the enormity of your error" in projecting Ottawa’s fiscal position creditscores. McKay said the size of the deficit overrun "completely erodes" the finance minister’s credibility.
Flaherty defended the government by pointing out that the Liberals have been demanding additional spending, which would make the deficit even larger. "So the hypocrisy is breathtaking," he said in reference to McKay’s point.
Flaherty also insisted that, because a lot of this year’s spending is a one-time payment, the government will still be able to end its deficit-financing in 2013 as planned. But the Liberals said that, given the size of the current $50.2 billion deficit, it’s unrealistic to think Ottawa can return to budget surpluses in only four years.
Powered by WordPress -- XHTML 1.0