U.S. stock futures are falling as uncertainty about a tentative deal to resolve Greece’s debt crisis weighs on investor sentiment ahead of a summit of European leaders.
Dow Jones industrial futures are down 65 points to 12,549. The broader S&P 500 futures are down 7 points to 1,305. The Nasdaq composite is 14 points lower at 2,443.
The leaders gathering in Brussels hope to focus on how to stimulate economic growth when huge government spending cuts threaten to push many countries back into recession short term personal loan.
The latest data showed Spain’s economy shrank in the last three months of 2011.
European markets also declined. In Asia, most indexes fell as investors reacted to Friday’s release of data showing the U.S. economy grew more slowly than expected in the fourth quarter.
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.
Greece’s finance minister believes his country will be able to reach a deal with private bondholders to cut its debt, despite tougher terms set by its eurozone partners.
Evangelos Venizelos said Tuesday “We have the green light from the Eurogroup to close the deal with the private sector in the next few days.”
Greece is in talks with private creditors to swap their existing bonds with news ones of a lower value and interest rates.
On Monday night, eurozone ministers decided to cap interest rates on the new bonds below 4 percent, less than the private creditors would like.
The bond swap will cut the face value of Greek bonds in half, thereby slicing some euro100 billion off its debt, and push repayments far into the future.
Claims for jobless benefits last week dropped to the lowest level in almost four years, pointing to an improvement in the U.S. job market that may help bolster spending in the new year.
Applications (INJCJC) for unemployment insurance payments plunged by 50,000 to 352,000 in the week ended Jan. 14, less than forecast and the fewest since April 2008, according to data from the Labor Department issued today in Washington. Other reports showed consumer prices were little changed in December for a second month and builders started work on the most single-family houses in more than a year.
Jobless claims, which tend to be volatile week to week around holidays, have trended down over the past month, a sign employment may pick up after payrolls grew by 200,000 in December. Gains in incomes, combined with less inflation, will probably underpin household spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of the world
An Italian coast guard official vehemently demanded that the captain go back to his crippled cruise ship to oversee its evacuation, but the captain repeatedly resisted, according to a shocking audiotape made public Tuesday.
Prosecutors have accused Capt. Francesco Schettino of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning his ship before all passengers were evacuated during the grounding of the Costa Concordia cruise ship off the Tuscan coast on Friday night.
The death toll nearly doubled to 11 on Tuesday when divers extracted five more bodies from the ship’s wreckage. All were adults wearing life jackets and were found in rear of the ship near an emergency evacuation point, according to Italian Coast Guard Cmdr. Cosimo Nicastro. He said they were thought to have been passengers.
Prior to that discovery, the coast guard had raised the number of missing to 25 passengers and four crew. Italian officials gave the breakdown as 14 Germans, six Italians, four French, two Americans, one Hungarian, one Indian and one Peruvian. But there was still confusion over the numbers, with the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin listing 12 Germans as confirmed missing.
The Costa Concordia was carrying more than 4,200 people when it hit a reef off the Tuscan island of Giglio after Schettino made an unauthorized deviation from the cruise ship’s programmed course, apparently as a favor to his chief waiter, who hailed from the island.
Schettino has insisted that he stayed aboard until the ship was evacuated. However, a recording of his conversation with Italian Coast Guard Capt. Gregorio De Falco indicates he fled before all passengers were off _ and then resisted De Falco’s repeated orders to return.
“You go on board and then you will tell me how many people there are. Is that clear?” De Falco shouted in the audio tape.
Schettino resisted, saying the ship was tipping and it was dark. At the time, he and his second-in-command were in a lifeboat and the captain said he was coordinating the rescue from there. He also said he was not going back on board the ship “because the other lifeboat is stopped.” Passengers have said many lifeboats on the exposed port side of the ship didn’t winch down after the ship had capsized.
De Falco shouted back: “And so what? You want to go home, Schettino? It is dark and you want to go home? Get on that prow of the boat using the pilot ladder and tell me what can be done, how many people there are and what their needs are. Now!”
“You go aboard. It is an order. Don’t make any more excuses. You have declared ‘Abandon ship,’ now I am in charge,” De Falco shouted.
At one point, De Falco vowed “I’m going to make sure you get in trouble. …I am going to make you pay for this. Go on board, (expletive)!”
Schettino was finally heard agreeing to reboard on the tape. But the coast guard has said he never went back, and had police arrest him on land.
The 52-year-old Schettino, described by the Italian media as a genial, tanned ship’s officer, has worked for 11 years for the ship’s owner and was made captain in 2006. He hails from Meta di Sorrento, in the Naples area, which produces many of Italy’s ferry and cruise boat captains. He attended the Nino Bixio merchant marine school near Sorrento.
Schettino recounted his version of events before prosecutors and a judge at a preliminary hearing Tuesday as to whether he should stay jailed, as requested by prosecutors. The judge deferred an immediate decision. The captain could face up to 12 years in prison on the abandoning ship charge alone free online credit report.
Schettino’s attorney, Bruno Leporatti, said in the hearing, the captain had insisted that after the initial crash into the reefs, he had maneuvered the ship close to shore in a way that “saved hundreds if not thousands of lives.”
Passengers, however, described the evacuation as chaotic.
Steve and Kathy Ledtke, who live in Fort Gratiot, Michigan, said they were sitting down to a late dinner Friday when they realized something had gone wrong. Kathy Ledtke told WDIV-TV that it seemed no one was in charge.
“It was complete chaos and it was every man for himself,” Kathy Ledtke said. “Nobody knew where to go.”
Earlier Tuesday, Italian naval divers exploded holes in the hull of the grounded cruise ship, trying to speed up the search for the missing while seas were still calm. Navy spokesman Alessandro Busonero told Sky TV 24 the holes would help divers enter the wreck more easily.
“We are rushing against time,” he said.
The divers set four microcharges above and below the surface of the water, Busonero said. Video showed one hole above the waterline less than two meters (6 feet) in diameter.
Mediterranean waters in the area were relatively calm Tuesday with waves of just 12 inches (30 centimeters) but they were expected to reach nearly 6 feet (1.8 meters) Wednesday, according to meteorological forecasts.
A Dutch shipwreck salvage firm, meanwhile, said it would take its engineers and divers two to four weeks to extract the 500,000 gallons of fuel aboard the ship. The safe removal of the fuel has become a priority second only to finding the missing, as the wreckage site lies in a maritime sanctuary for dolphins, porpoises and whales.
Preliminary phases of the fuel extraction could begin as early as Wednesday if approved by Italian officials, the company said.
Smit, a Rotterdam, Netherlands-based salvage company, said no fuel had leaked from any of the ship’s tanks and that the tanks appeared intact. While there is a risk the ship could shift in larger waves, to date it has been relatively stable perched on top of rocks near Giglio’s port.
Smit’s operations manager, Kees van Essen, said the company was confident the fuel could safely be extracted using pumps and valves to vacuum the oil out to waiting tanks.
“But there are always environmental risks in these types of operations,” he told reporters.
The company said any discussion about the fate of the ship _ whether it is removed in one piece or broken up _ would be decided by Italian ship operator Costa Crociere and its insurance companies.
The Miami-based Carnival Corp., which owns the Italian operator, estimated that preliminary losses from having the Concordia out of operation at least through 2012 would be between $85 million and $95 million, along with other costs. The company’s share price slumped more than 16 percent Monday.
It was not yet clear if the ship _ which was completed in 2006 _ would ever be able to return to service.
Carnival said its deductible on damage to the ship was approximately $30 million. In addition, the company faces a deductible of $10 million for third-party personal injury liability claims.
Carnival said other costs related to the grounding can’t yet be determined.
After weeks of handwringing about a possible loss of France
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Bakers Footwear Group sold its Wild Pair trademark to Steven Madden Ltd. for $4 million and will continue to offer the brand of footwear in its stores through a licensing agreement.
St. Louis-based Bakers signed the non-exclusive, royalty free license deal Wednesday. Bakers said it will use the proceeds from the deal to reduce its debt.
“The structure of this transaction allows for Bakers to benefit from the future expansion of Wild Pair,” Bakers’ CEO and Chairman Peter Edison said in a statement. Bakers has 233 stores in the U.S.
New York-based Madden, which operates 84 retail stores worldwide, owns 19.9 percent of Bakers’ common stock.
Kim Jong Un may relax state controls over North Korea
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