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The U.S. trade deficit rose in March at the fastest rate in 10 months. A rise in consumer goods lifted imports to a record level, outpacing a solid gain in U.S. exports.
The Commerce Department says the trade deficit widened to $51.8 billion in March, up from $45.4 billion in February. Imports rose 5.2 percent to a record $238.6 billion, reflecting more foreign oil, autos, cell phones and clothes.
Exports increased 2.9 percent to $186 instant payday loan.8 billion. Sales to Europe reached an all-time high despite the region’s debt crisis.
Economists caution that export growth, a bright spot for the U.S. economy, could slow in coming months if more European countries fall into recession.
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The Wendy’s Co. returned to a first-quarter profit as it recorded a large gain on the sale of an investment.
The casual dining chain reported net income of $12.4 million, or 3 cents per share for the period ended April 1. That compares with a loss of $1.4 million, or breakeven results, a year ago.
Excluding items, earnings were 1 cent per share. Analysts expected earnings of 3 cents per share.
Revenue rose 2 percent to $593.2 million. That missed Wall Street’s estimate of $608.1 million.
Its shares fell 22 cents, or 4.5 percent, to $4.65 in premarket trading.
Company-run restaurant margin fell due to increased commodity costs, particularly for fresh beef.
The Dublin, Ohio company cut its 2012 earnings forecast mostly because of weaker-than-expected sales and the company-run restaurant margin.
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The Philippine central bank may pause after reducing the benchmark interest rate at both of its meetings so far this year as elevated oil prices threaten to spur inflation, Governor Amando Tetangco said.
U.K. retail sales fell for a second month in February as a drop in purchases of clothing countered gains at food stores, the British Retail Consortium said.
Sales at stores open at least 12 months, measured by value, fell 0.3 percent from a year earlier, the London-based trade group said in an e-mailed report today. That followed a 0.3 percent decline in January, the second worst for that month since the survey began in 1995.
The Bank of England is counting on slowing inflation to ease the squeeze on consumers and help generate a pickup in consumer spending later this year. Any recovery in demand may be curbed by rising unemployment and an increase in oil prices that is increasing the cost of gasoline.
Gas prices are on the rise, and so like clockwork, politicians are now selling the promise of lower prices at the pump.
Newt Gingrich, struggling to regain momentum in the Republican presidential primary, is leading the way, promising to get prices down to $2.50 per gallon.
"I’ve developed a program for American energy so no future president will ever bow to a Saudi king again and so every American can look forward to $2.50 a gallon gasoline," Gingrich said during his self-introduction at Wednesday’s CNN debate.
The promise might garner attention on the campaign trail, but there’s little politicians can do to influence the price of gasoline in the short-term, and long-run efforts are likely to be complicated by the global nature of the crude oil market.
"Political rhetoric is all it is," said Guy Caruso, an economist who led the Energy Information Administration and worked as an analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency.
"Short of price controls, which were a disaster during the Nixon administration, politicians can’t do much to change the price of gasoline," he said.
See what you’re paying for gas
Other industry experts CNNMoney surveyed echoed those sentiments.
"This is absurd," said Paul Bledsoe, a Bipartisan Policy Center scholar who spent more than 20 years working on energy policy in Washington. "Obviously the price of oil is set on a global market. In the immediate term there is almost nothing you can do."
Gingrich’s plan for lowering prices revolves around increasing domestic energy production to levels that would make geopolitical concerns an afterthought. The way to do that, according to Gingrich, is by eliminating the EPA, building the Keystone pipeline and allowing more drilling.
"And at that point, if, in fact, the Iranians want to do something with the Strait of Hormuz, maybe the Chinese have a problem or the Indians have a problem or the Europeans have a problem," Gingrich said in a 28-minute video his campaign has produced on the subject. "But I am not sure at that point that the Americans will have a problem."
But unless the way crude oil is bought and sold in the global market is drastically changed, the United States would still have a very real problem.
Oil is a global commodity — it can be shipped anywhere around the world. Its price is determined largely by global supply and demand.
The United States would have to remove itself from the global trade in oil and gasoline to set its own prices, a move that could set the country up for a supply shortage and that most economists would not support.
Caruso said it’s just not a practical idea. "This is a global market with fungible supplies," he said. "We can’t isolate ourselves."
There’s also the question of whether Gingrich’s targeted production level is possible.
According to a 2009 study from the government’s Energy Information Administration, opening up to drilling areas off the East Coast, West Coast and Florida’s Gulf Coast would yield just 500,000 extra barrels a day by 2030 — not enough to replace U.S. imports or bring global prices down.
The world currently consumes 89 million barrels a day, and by then would likely be using over 100 million barrels. By the time OPEC finished cutting production to adjust for the increased supply, Americans might save 3 cents per gallon.
"The notion that somehow we can produce so much domestically that we will move the global price is incorrect," Bledsoe said.
Meanwhile, the oil industry says that by expanding beyond offshore areas and drilling everywhere that isn’t national park, an additional 10 million barrels of oil a day could come online by 2030 — more than enough for the U.S. alone.
Fear of Iran is inflating gas prices
All of this is not to say that oil production or prices are impenetrable to policy changes. Increasing domestic production is feasible, and even desirable — but the impact on price will hit around the margins.
"We need to be doing more energy, across the board," said Peter Beutel, an oil analyst at Cameron Hanover.
"There are ways forward here that would be very positive," he said, while acknowledging that even with a massive production increase, it is difficult to predict a certain price point, as Gingrich has. "Who’s to say whether it will be $1.75 or $2.75?"
The Gingrich campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on how the predicted $2.50 price point was reached.
Of course, it’s not only Republicans who have proposed tinkering with government policy in an effort to combat high gas prices.
During the Bush administration, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged the president to release crude oil from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve to combat high prices.
The White House rejected her call, saying that using the reserve to manipulate prices was "ineffective."
But catch a politician in a rare moment of candor and you might hear an acknowledgement that gas prices are largely out of their control. Here’s what President Obama had to say last year about high gas prices during the 2008 campaign:
"We were at the height of political season. You had all kinds of slogans and gimmicks and outraged politicians — they were waving their three-point plans for $2 a gallon gas," Obama said.
"And none of it was really going to do anything to solve the problem," he continued. "The truth is, none of these gimmicks, none of these slogans made a bit of difference."
Heather Mills, the former model who was once married to Paul McCartney, testified forcefully Thursday that there was no doubt her phone had been hacked by a U.K. journalist.
Speaking before a judge-led inquiry into British media ethics, Mills said dozens of messages between her and the former Beatle were intercepted by a journalist working for British newspaper group Trinity Mirror. She said the incident happened after a fight she and McCartney had had in January 2001, when McCartney, then her boyfriend, bombarded her with phone calls.
“There were about 25 messages, all asking for forgiveness, (asking:) ‘Would I come back?’” Mills said. “One of them said: ‘Please forgive me,’ and he sang a little ditty of one of his songs into the voicemail.”
She said she found it strange that the messages were listed as having been listened to even before she had accessed them, but said she didn’t realize what had happened until the Mirror journalist _ unnamed for legal reasons _ called her up and confronted her with details of the battle.
“I said: ‘There’s no way that you could know that unless you have been listening to my messages,’” she told the inquiry. “And he laughed.”
The messages left for Mills by McCartney are at the center of the allegations against CNN star interviewer Piers Morgan, who was editor of the Daily Mirror tabloid at the time. Morgan wrote in 2006 that he had once been played an apologetic message left by McCartney for Mills, describing it in detail and noting that McCartney “even sang ‘We Can Work It Out’ into the answer phone.”
Called before the U.K. inquiry last year, Morgan denied ordering anyone to hack a phone or writing stories based on hacked messages. He acknowledged listening to Mill’s voicemail message but stubbornly refused to say anything about how he had gotten it.
Morgan even left open the possibility that the voicemail had been played to him with Mills’ approval, but Mills said Thursday that was impossible.
“Never,” she said. “Never ever.”
Mills married the popular McCartney in 2002 and had a daughter with him before they divorced in 2008. She sought and got a substantial divorce settlement, becoming a tabloid hate figure after they separated. She is a fierce critic of tabloid journalists in general and Morgan in particular.
Morgan, who has become a media celebrity in the United States since taking over from Larry King, has returned the favor, casting aspersions on her credibility and calling her a “monster.”
Chevron Corp. said Friday that net income slipped 3.2 percent in the fourth quarter as its refineries struggled to pass on the higher cost of crude oil.
The San Ramon, Calif. oil giant on Friday reported net income of $5.12 billion, or $2.58 per share, in the final three months of 2011. That compares with $5.3 billion, or $2.64 per share, in the same part of 2010. Revenue increased 11.9 percent to $60 billion.
The net income fell short of Wall Street forecasts of $2.86 per share, according to FactSet. Shares dropped $2.04, or 1.9 percent, to $104.55 in premarket trading.
Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil company behind Exxon Mobil Corp., said that oil and natural gas production declined in the quarter. Profits from its exploration and production business increased anyway, as the company sold oil at higher prices. International natural gas prices also rose in the quarter.
The refining business struggled, however, as falling prices for retail gasoline and other fuels made it harder to pass along higher oil costs to customers. Chevron’s U.S. refining operations lost $204 million from October to December, compared with a profit a year-earlier, while international refining profits fell by 46.4 percent.
For the full year, Chevron earned $26.9 billion, or $13.44 per share, compared with $19 billion, or $9.48 per share in 2010. Annual revenue increased 23.3 percent to $253.7 billion.
Exxon will release its fourth-quarter financial results on Tuesday.
Earlier in the week, ConocoPhillips reported a 66 percent increase in quarterly earnings, though much of that came from the sale of a pipeline and other assets. Occidental Petroleum Corp. reported a 35 percent jump in quarterly profits as it increased production and sold crude oil for higher prices.
Four new types of American shoppers have emerged this holiday season.
There’s the bargain hunter who times deals. The midnight buyer who stays up late for discounts. The returner who gets buyer’s remorse. And the “me” shopper who self-gifts.
It’s the latest shift by consumers in the fourth year of a weak U.S. economy. Shoppers are expected to spend $469.1 billion during the holiday shopping season that runs from November through December. While it won’t be known just how much Americans spent until the season ends on Saturday, it’s already clear they are shopping differently than they have in years past.
“We’re seeing different types of buying behavior in a new economic reality,” says C. Britt Beemer, chairman of America’s Research Group.
THE BARGAIN TIMER
Cost-conscious shoppers haven’t just been looking for bargains this season. They’ve also been more deliberate about when to find those deals. Many believe the biggest bargains come at the beginning and end of the season, which has created a kind of “dumbbell effect” in sales.
For the week ended on Nov. 26, which included the traditional start of the holiday shopping season on the day after Thanksgiving, stores had the biggest sales surge compared with the prior week since 1993, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers-Goldman Sachs Weekly Chain Stores Sales Index. The cumulative two-week-sales drop-off that followed marked the biggest percentage decline since 2000. Then, stores had another surge in the final days, as retailers stepped up their promotions again.
“Shoppers are budgeting their money and time,” says Paco Underhill, whose company, Envirosell, studies how consumers behave in stores. “They’re focused on being opportunistic bargain shopping vultures.”
Kalilah Middleton, 30, of Queens, is one of them. Starting late on Thanksgiving night, she spent five hours and $400 at Wal-Mart and Target. She bought a TV and clothing at 50 percent off. Then, she waited until Christmas Eve to shop again because she believed she’d get better deals later in the season.
“This is when you get the best deals,” says Middleton, an office manager, about her holiday shopping.
Going forward, shoppers are expecting even bigger discounts. According to America’s Research Group research firm, 34 percent of shoppers say they want to see post-Christmas discounts of about 70 to 80 percent, up from 20 percent last year.
THE MIDNIGHT BUYER
Used to be, bargain shoppers would wake up at the crack of dawn to take advantage of big discounts on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. This year, some shoppers instead stayed up late on Thanksgiving night to get deals.
This behavior was in large part due to retailers’ efforts to outdo each other during the traditional start to the holiday shopping season. Stores like Macy’s, Best Buy and Target for the first time opened at midnight on Thanksgiving night, offering deals that once were reserved for the next day.
Twenty-four percent of Black Friday shoppers were at stores at midnight, according to a poll by the National Retail Federation, the industry’s biggest trade group. That’s up from 9.5 percent the year before when only a few stores were open during that time.
Of those shopping at midnight on Black Friday, 37 percent were ages 18 to 34. That percentage was higher than among 35- to 54-year-olds, of whom 23.5 percent were in stores by midnight.
Macy’s, for one, drew 10,000 people to its midnight opening. Terry Lundgren, Macy’s CEO, says many of them were young people who turned out for the Justin Bieber $65 gift sets and discounted fashions.
Anika Ruud, 15, of Boca Raton, Fla., went out with her four cousins to Macy’s at midnight and then shopped at Target until 2:30 a.m. She picked up two bras at Macy’s for $10. Then, she and her cousins went home to bed.
“It’s always been inconvenient,” Ruud says of the traditional 4 a.m. Black Friday openings of years past. “No one likes to wake up early.”
THE RETURNER
Shoppers who were lured into stores by bargains gleefully loaded up on everything from discounted tablet computers to clothing early in the holiday season. But soon after, many of them were rushing back to return the items they bought.
For instance, Elizabeth Yamada, 55, of Fort Lee, N.J., says she got caught up with the shopping frenzy over the Thanksgiving weekend and picked up a $350 coat that was marked down more than 50 percent off at Macy’s. She ended up returning the item one week later.
“It was nice, but I didn’t need it,” says Yamada, who works part-time as a waitress and a hospital aide. “It was impulsive shopping. But I am doing more reflecting.”
It’s all about buyer’s remorse.
For every dollar stores take in this holiday season, it’s expected they will have to give back 9.9 cents in returns, up from 9.8 last year, according to the a survey of 110 retailers the NRF. It would be the highest return rate since the recession. In better economic times, it’s about 7 cents.
Stores have themselves to blame for the higher returns. They lured shoppers in with deals of up to 60 percent off as early as October. Because of the deals, shoppers spent more than they normally would. And retailers’ return policies have been more lax since 2008, with some sweetening their policies even more this year.
THE “ME” SHOPPER
One for you; one for me.
After scrimping on themselves during the recession, Americans turned to shopping for themselves. It’s a trend that started last year but became more prevalent this season.
According to the NRF, spending for non-gift items will increase by 16 percent this holiday season to $130.43 per person. That’s the highest number recorded since it started tracking it in 2004.
“This season, the consumer put herself ahead of the giving,” says Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst with market research firm The NPD Group.
Betty Thomas, a health care coordinator at a hospital in Raleigh, N.C., says she spent $1,700 on a ring and bracelet for herself and a rug for her home during the holiday season. That’s up dramatically from the $200 she spent last year.
“I have been putting other people first,” Thomas says. “I definitely felt I earned it.”
Stores have been encouraging such self-gifting.
AnnTaylor’s campaign “Perfect Presents: One for you. One for her” highlighted merchandise like brightly colored sweaters. Brookstone’s print ads urged shoppers to get accessories for their iPads and other electronics with the words: “gifts for your gadgets.” And Shopittome.com, an online site that alerts consumers to clothing sales they’re interested in, launched “Treat Yourself Tuesday” after Thanksgiving weekend.
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Anne D’Innocenzio reported from New York.
Christina Rexrode in Raleigh, N.C. contributed to this report.
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