The Ibex 35 index was off more than 2 points shortly after trading began Friday. Banks were among the biggest losers.

Moody’s acted late Thursday, citing banks’ load of non-performing loans amid a recession-plagued economy, their creditworthiness and the government’s sovereign debt problems, among other woes.

Those punished included Banco Santander, SA, the eurozone’s largest bank by market capitalization.

Shares in Bankia SA, a recently nationalized bank, took a roller coaster ride Thursday, ending up sharply lower on reports depositors pulled out a (EURO)1 billion in a week.

On the bond market the interest rate on 10-year bonds was unchanged at 6.25 percent.

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Coty Inc., a privately held rival, had raised its original offer last week by about 6.5 percent, but set a deadline of Monday for the company to accept the bid.

Avon asked for more time to consider the bid over the weekend, but it appears that Coty would have not of it. It slammed that door shut on the troubled company Monday and investors are following suite even before the markets open Tuesday in some heavy trading.

If the current prices hold, Avon shares will be worth less than when Coty made its original offer back in April. Shares fell $3.06 to $17.90.

The big question now is what comes next for Avon?

The company is embroiled in a bribery scandal that led to the ouster of its vice chairman in January personal business card. The investigation, which initially involved executives in Asia, has spread and late last year federal regulators began looking into the New York company’s dealings with financial analysts.

Earlier this month, under the leadership of recently arrived CEO, Sherilyn McCoy, Avon reported that its first-quarter profit tumbled 82 percent, even worse that Wall Street had feared.

That has become the norm. Profits have been shrinking for three years and Avon is suffering even in places it had seen as strongholds.

Avon Products Inc. holds its shareholders meeting in two weeks.

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JPMorgan (, Fortune 500) led the bank stock declines, with its stock dropping nearly 9%.

The bank revealed Thursday, after the close of markets, that it suffered trading losses of $2 billion since the start of April.

The problems affected other major bank stocks. Morgan Stanley (, Fortune 500), Citigroup (, Fortune 500) and Goldman Sachs (, Fortune 500) fell about 4%. Bank of America (, Fortune 500) declined less than 2% and Wells Fargo (, Fortune 500) managed to eke out modest gains, recovering from earlier losses.

JPMorgan suffers massive trading loss

"The problem is that there’s going to be a massive backlash," said Christopher Wheeler, bank analyst for Mediobanca in London.

Wheeler mentioned that the debacle was unfolding amid an ongoing debate over the Volcker Rule, which limits banks on investing with their money.

"The regulators are going to have a field day," he said guaranteed online personal loans.

Bank stocks were already under siege. The KBW () index of bank stocks has fallen 1.7% over the last five trading sessions, without even showing the impact of JPMorgan’s bad trade. On Friday, the index was down about 1%.

Who is the White Whale?

The trade prompted an unusual impromptu teleconference with Chief Executive Jamie Dimon and analysts, at which he divulged that net losses could exceed $800 million by the end of the second quarter for the company’s corporate unit. Before that announcement, a net gain of $200 million was forecast for the unit.

Dimon told analysts that the losing trades were the result of "sloppiness" and "bad judgment," but he shrugged off a question about whether other banks were affected.

"Just because we’re stupid doesn’t mean everyone else was," said Dimon on the call. 

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Norway

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 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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St. Louis-based Ralcorp said today that a previously disclosed $364.8 million non-cash goodwill impairment charge related to the Post spin-off was understated by about $54 million that should have been reflected in its fourth quarter 2011 earnings report. The Post cereal business was spun off as a separate company effective Feb. 3.

Ralcorp said it is delaying the release of its second quarter 2012 earnings, which was set for May 8 payday loans in one hour. The company’s second quarter results will be released instead on May 15, and the company will hold a conference call on May 16 to discuss the results.

Ralcorp’s private label foods include cereal, pasta, crackers, cookies, frozen biscuits and other frozen bread products.

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Companies that once paid for their leaders’ cars and club memberships – and sometimes handed them extra cash to pay the taxes on those goodies – are now taking a principled stand against perquisites.

Among St. Louis firms, Olin and Spartech eliminated their executive perks at the beginning of last year. Express Scripts, Reinsurance Group of America, MEMC Electronic Materials and a few others already had no-perks policies.

Express Scripts makes its egalitarian attitude clear: Bosses don’t get any special benefits, not even reserved parking spaces. Their offices are the same size as others in the headquarters building near the University of Missouri St. Louis. They even pay higher health-insurance premiums than other employees.

One of the longest lists of perks went to payday loan.stltoday.com/business/columns/david-nicklaus/smaller-bonus-shrinks-pay-total-for-viasystems-ceo/article_84c7c0e0-7384-11e1-b7ba-0019bb30f31a.html” target=”_blank”>Viasystems Chief Executive David Sindelar: a $33,994 car allowance, $15,337 worth of financial consulting, $31,296 in club dues, $61,603 for entertainment, $6,110 worth of continuing education and $1,000 in charitable contributions. Some of those amounts were grossed up to cover taxes.

The biggest single perk, though, belonged to David Farr, chief executive of Emerson. Farr took $304,007 worth of personal flights on company aircraft, a practice that Emerson justifies on security grounds.

Other frequent fliers included Energizer CEO Ward Klein, who took $176,478 worth of free flights; Brown Shoe Chairman Ronald Fromm ($165,365) and Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant ($124,665).

As the Corporate Library, a governance-research firm that’s now part of GMI Ratings, said in a 2010 study, “If the board cannot set appropriate limits for the CEO in this regard, will it be able to do so in matters of greater strategic consequence?”

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But in mid-April, four months after a service station and convenience store hired him as an overnight clerk, Hegwood learned his hair style had suddenly became a problem.

Hegwood, 24, hasn’t been fired. But he hasn’t collected a paycheck since.

His supervisors at a St. Louis Petro Mart have told Hegwood that he’s welcome to return to work — if he shears the dreadlocks that run about halfway down his neck.

Hegwood doesn’t understand the fuss.

“It’s a gas station,” he said. “People aren’t going to not buy gas just because the clerk has dreads.”

Policies on the personal grooming habits of employees land on the edge of state and federal employment discrimination laws.

Companies doing business in Missourihave the right to terminate or suspend any employee that doesn’t meet established guidelines addressing hair, tattoos or dress.

“An employer may condition a job on an employee’s compliance with the employer’s hair styling preferences, unless the employee’s alternative hair styling preference is connected with the employee’s inclusion in a protected category,” Missouri Department of Labor spokeswoman Amy Susan explained in an e-mail. “For example, a particular hair style may be a tenet of the employee’s religion, or the employer may decline to hire a prospective employee because the employee is considered to be disabled because of his or her hair style (such as believing someone without hair to be suffering from cancer).”

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is a bit more exacting. It looks at how various groups of people wearing various hairstyles are treated in comparison to other groups.

“The baseline for evaluating grooming policies is to look at their overall burden on different groups of employees,” EEOC spokeswoman Justine Lisser wrote in a general overview of the Petro Mart matter.

“…If an employer prohibits a range of hair styles, such as both corn rows and mohawks, and the no cornrows/dreadlocks policy affects 30% of its African-American employees while the no mohawks affects only 3% of its white employees, we could say that the policy had a disparate impact on African-Americans, even if it applies to all employees.”

Hegwood has sported dreads on and off for years. The dreadlocks were in place when he applied for and was offered the $8.50-an-hour position at Petro Mart late last year.

“They didn’t say anything about it then,” he said.

Nor, Hegwood added, was there any mention of the dreads posing a threat to safety or the health of co-workers.

Owned and operated by Western Oil Co. in Earth City, Petro Mart does have a written policy stipulating that hair should be “kept neat and clean…immoderate styles… such as corn rows, braids etc. must be approved by a supervisor…dreadlocks and mohawks are unacceptable.”

Western Oil did not respond to requests for a response.

A father of three, Hegwood doesn’t know how long he can take a principled stand against Petro Mart and its grooming policy.

He needs a salary to support his children and pay for the remainder of his education at St. Louis Community College-Forest Park, where Hegwood hopes to earn a degree in business.

The worst of the job crisis may be over — unemployment in the St. Louis region dropped to 8.1 percent in March.

But back in the hunt four months after starting a job “I really liked,” Hegwood fears landing employment remains a challenge.

“Maybe I’ll start my own business,” he said, looking ahead. “That way I can wear my hair anyway I want.”

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“We’re all technology companies at heart. Whether you’re a law firm or a bank, the core of your company is technology. And that is kind of shaking the core of the office today.” — Thomas Vecchione, head of Workplace Design at Gensler, the global architectural firm, on the work space evolution that includes “free range” offices in which employees take a seat each day at whatever desk is available.

Source: The Point, WBUR/Boston

BY THE NUMBERS

3.9 million - The population of Oregon — and the number of Americans who continue to suffer the effects of unemployment lasting more than a year. The long-term unemployed represent 29.5 of the nation’s jobless.

Source: The Pew Charitable Trusts

FINAL WORD

“You know, how could you not look?” - Cardinals President Bill DeWitt III on whether he tracks the struggles of a former employee, Albert Pujols, in the box scores each day.

Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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