Finance news

The Fitch ratings agency has upgraded Greece to B- from “restricted default” after the country carried out the biggest debt writedown in history in a bond swap with private creditors.

Fitch said Tuesday that it had upgraded its rating and assigned a “stable outlook.”

It gave a B minus rating _ still junk status _ to the new bonds the country issued under Greek law, while keeping a C rating on foreign-law bonds as their settlment date is not until April 11.

The move had been widely expected after the new bonds were issued Monday.

In last week’s agreement, 83.5 percent of private investors holding Greek debt agreed to the deal, which will see them face real losses of more than 70 percent on their holdings.

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Hiring remained strong in February, fueling optimism about the recovery.

Employers added 227,000 jobs in February, the Labor Department reported Friday. While that’s a pinch slower than in January, hiring was still better than economists had expected.

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Obama battles job crisis

Before Obama even took office, America had lost 4.4 million jobs. Track his progress since then.

Three straight months of job growth over 200,000 is considered a strong sign for the recovery going forward. Economists called the report "encouraging," "robust," and even claimed the job market "has turned a corner."

Good news also came from revisions to prior data, which show employers added 61,000 more jobs than the Labor Department had originally reported in January and December.

Check the unemployment rate in your state

The unemployment rate remained at 8.3%, as employers created just enough jobs to make up for new entrants to the labor force.

Private businesses continue to be the main driver of job growth, adding 233,000 jobs in February. The private sector has added jobs every month since March 2010.

In February, the strongest hiring came in professional and business services, which added 82,000 jobs. More than half of those positions were at temp agencies.

"What that tells us is, the demand for workers has increased to a significant degree, but the employers who want the additional workers are not yet confident in the sustainability of the recovery," said Patrick O’Keefe, director of economic research at J.H. Cohn.

Tig Gilliam, president of the North American unit of job placement firm Adecco, suspects many of those temp jobs will eventually turn into permanent full-time positions. Among his clients, much of the demand for temp workers is for professional positions in legal, accounting and health care — a trend that he says typically occurs as a recovery strengthens.

Behind the jobs recovery

His clients are also starting to beef up their human resources departments with new recruiters, a sign that more hiring could be in the pipeline, he said.

Meanwhile, the manufacturing sector also continued to be a strong job creator, adding 31,000 jobs. Restaurants and bars added 41,000 jobs — an encouraging sign that employers may be expecting greater consumer spending in the future. The health care and social assistance sector created 61,000 new jobs.

Government job cuts have been offsetting some of the private sector gains since mid 2010, but have recently started to slow. Last month, 6,000 jobs were lost in the public sector — a far cry from the much steeper cuts above 20,000 just three months earlier.

Despite all the improvement, the job market still has a long way to go to get back to pre-recession levels. The American economy lost 8.8 million jobs during the financial crisis, and has since added back 3.5 million jobs.

About 12.8 million people remain unemployed, and 42.6% of them have been out of work for six months or more.

In February, the so-called underemployment rate fell to 14.9%, its lowest level in three years. This figure includes people who are unemployed, as well as those who are working part-time because they can’t find full time jobs, and those that have looked for a job sometime in the last year. 

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U.S. local-government payrolls increased last month for the first time since August, easing the drag on the economy brought on by budget-cutting cities, counties and school districts.

The U.S. Labor Department reported today that local- government employment, adjusted for seasonal swings in hiring, expanded by 2,000 in February as school districts boosted hiring. State payrolls slipped by 1,000 after rising by 11,000 in January.

Jim Diffley, an economist with IHS Inc. who tracks regional growth, said it

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A stock market rally at the end of last year helped Americans rebuild more of the wealth they lost during the recession _ a trend that carried over into 2012.

The added wealth led households to borrow more for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis began, even as home values fell again. It’s a notable shift that shows many consumers are finally feeling more confident about spending after years of paring debt.

Household net worth increased 2.1 percent to $58.5 trillion in the October-December quarter, the Federal Reserve said Thursday. That’s the biggest increase in a year and it partially offsets a 4.2 percent drop in wealth over the summer.

Americans’ stock portfolios rose nearly 10 percent last quarter to drive the gains. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index has risen 20 percent from early October through the end of trading Wednesday. Over the summer, the S&P suffered its biggest quarterly loss since the financial crisis.

Household wealth, or net worth, is the value of assets like homes, bank accounts and stocks, minus debts like mortgages and credit cards. It bottomed out during the recession at $49 billion in the first quarter of 2009. Yet it would still have to rise an additional 13 percent to regain its pre-recession peak of $66 trillion.

Greater net worth can boost the economy. When people feel wealthier, they spend more. That speeds up growth and businesses respond by stepping up hiring and expansion plans.

Consumers are regaining wealth just as the job market is strengthening. The economy has added an average of 200,000 net jobs per month from November through January, lowering the unemployment rate to 8.3 percent.

The improved economic outlook has made people more willing to borrow. Household debt increased at an annual rate of 0.25 percent, the first increase since mid-2008.

A survey of economists by the Associated Press found that Americans will save gradually less and borrow more, reversing a shift toward frugality that followed the financial crisis and the start of the Great Recession.

Corporations are also wealthier. Their cash stockpiles rose to record levels once again. They held a record $2.2 trillion in cash at the end of the year.

Still, few Americans are seeing much return their biggest investment. Home values dropped 1.3 percent in the fourth quarter.

Roughly half of U.S. households own stocks or stock mutual funds. Stock portfolios make up about 15 percent of Americans’ wealth. That’s less than housing but ahead of bank deposits, according to the Fed’s report.

Most stock wealth is owned by the richest Americans, who also account for a disproportionate amount of consumer spending. Eighty percent of stocks belong to the richest 10 percent of Americans. And the richest 20 percent represent about 40 percent of consumer spending.

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A federal court jury in Houston found former financier R. Allen Stanford guilty Tuesday on 13 of 14 counts of running a Ponzi scheme.

Stanford, who was first charged with the fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission and federal prosecutors in 2009, was found guilty on 13 of 14 counts at the conclusion of a five-week trial. He could face up to 120 years in prison, according to his court-appointed attorney Robert Scardino.

Federal prosecutors brought criminal charges against Stanford in June 2009. The only count he was found not guilty of on Tuesday was one count of wire fraud.

Prosecutors have said that there are about 30,000 victims of the alleged fraud.

"This trial will decide not just whether Stanford is guilty of the criminal charges, but also whether hundreds of millions of dollars of investor funds currently frozen may be forfeited and returned to his alleged victims," U.S. District Judge David Hittner wrote in a December court order.

In February 2009 the SEC charged that Stanford and three of his companies orchestrated a $9.2 billion investment and sales fraud. But the SEC can only bring civil charges, not criminal charges.

Mets suffer Madoff setback in court

Prosecutors charged that Stanford sold billions of dollars in certificates of deposit administered by Stanford International Bank Ltd., an offshore bank in Antigua.

The billionaire misrepresented to investors the financial condition of that bank, its investment strategy and the extent of regulatory oversight, the prosecutors said. Stanford also was accused of misusing most of those investments.

Stanford maintained his innocence throughout the process. In a tearful 2009 interview, Stanford told ABC News: "I would die and go to hell if it’s a Ponzi scheme."

During the trial, Stanford did not testify in his own defense, even though his lawyers had suggested he would during opening statements. Margaret Finerty, a former New York criminal court judge who is now a partner at Getnick & Getnick in New York, said that likey hurt him.

"It’s always problematic when an attorney promises something that doesn’t happen," she said.

She said the prosecution’s case was helped significantly by the testimony of Stanford’s former chief financial officer James Davis.

"You had someone who participated in the fraud to explain to the jury the significance of the documentary evidence," she said. "It wasn’t only documents. He put it all together and brought it to life for the jurors."

Testimony about Stanford’s lavish lifestyle also helped to convince the jurors, she said.

The jury got the case last Wednesday and Monday night sent a note to the judge saying they could not reach a unanimous verdict. But U.S. District Judge David Hittner sent them back for further deliberations and they returned with a verdict that was read in court just before noon local time Tuesday.

"Last night when I heard there was a hung jury, I was spinning," said Stanford victim Cassie Wilkinson, speaking to reporters after the verdict. "I was so anxious, thinking what if this guy gets off? What if he actually walks after he took advantage of so many people?"

Wilkinson said she and her husband were Houston natives who had retired to Austin, Texas, before losing much of their savings in investments with Stanford. Her husband has had to return to work and Wilkinson said she might have to return to work as well.

After sitting through five weeks of the trial, she said she welled up in tears when the verdict was announced.

"There is a little bit of vindication knowing that there are 12 other people who thought the same thing, that we were just scammed," she said. "There’s a sense of relief we’re not just fools."

– The CNN Wire contributed to this report 

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Patrick Gideon, the chairman of Reliance Bancshares, has resigned from his positions as chairman and board member as a result of a dispute with the bank holding company’s board of directors.

Gideon joined Reliance’s board in 1999 and was named chairman less than a year ago, replacing longtime chairman and founder Jerry Von Rohr in April 2011. Gideon is the president and CEO of Silver Lake Bank in Topeka, Kan.

In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, Frontenac-based Reliance said Gideon submitted a resignation letter on Feb. 25. Reliance Bancshares requested his resignation, according to the SEC filing, over differences in the the strategic direction of the company.

In his resignation letter, Gideon said he opposed the hiring of Tom Brouster as a consultant to the bank. A majority of the board voted to hire Brouster over Gideon’s objection. Gideon could not be reached for comment.

Reliance Bancshares is the holding company for Reliance Bank, which has 20 local branches.

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The biggest six-month increase in U.S. worker pay in almost five years helps lay the ground for a pickup in consumer spending, the largest part of the economy.

Wages (GDPWWAGE) and salaries in the third and fourth quarters grew a combined $197.3 billion, the most since the six months ended March 2007, according to revised Commerce Department figures released Feb. 29. The report also showed the economy grew faster in the fourth quarter than previously estimated and Americans saved more.

Rising incomes show the improving labor market will provide households the wherewithal this year to increase their purchases, which account for about 70 percent of the economy. The wage gains may help Americans withstand higher gasoline prices that threaten discretionary spending.

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A month after stepping down as Wind Capital Group LLC chairman, Tom Carnahan has sold his remaining stake in the company.

Ireland-based NTR Plc issued a statement Friday saying it had increased its stake in Wind Capital Group to 97 percent from 62 percent. But the company didn’t disclose terms of the transaction, or from whom it purchased the additional interest.

Carnahan, 43, confirmed in an email Friday that he sold all of his remaining  shares in the company he founded and no longer has an affiliation with Wind Capital.

“I wish the company well in its future endeavors and will be turning my attention to new business opportunities as well as to my upcoming role as chairman of (American Wind Energy Association),” he said.

Beside taking over as the chairman of the nation’s wind energy trade group later this spring, Carnahan has also formed Wind Rose Partners LLC to provide advisory services in renewable energy. The firm will also develop and invest in renewable projects, he said.

Carnahan founded Wind Capital in 2005 and sold a majority stake to NTR in 2008 cheap payday advance.

The wind energy developer, which employs 60 people, including 20 in St. Louis, said last month that it planned to maintain its Washington Avenue headquarters. The company also has offices in Madison, Wis., and Chicago, where it’s chief executive and chief financial officers are based.

Wind Capital has developed more than 900 megawatts of wind energy across the upper Midwest and has projects in various stages of development across more than a dozen states. Those states include Kansas, where it closed on financing for a 201-megawatt wind farm last month.

NTR CEO Michael McNicholas said the increased stake in Wind Capital “consolidates our position in the company at a time in which a substantive amount of operating assets are coming on-stream.”

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Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, signaling the worst may be over for the euro region

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Flat sales at its materials division held down earnings at German pharmaceutical and chemicals firm Bayer AG as it recorded profit of euro397 million ($533 million) in the fourth quarter.

The earnings reported Tuesday compare to a loss of euro145 million a year ago, when the company had one-time losses of euro945 million including impairment charges on the Schering name, which the company dropped.

Fourth-quarter sales rose 2 percent to euro9.19 billion over the same period a year ago.

The company says its earnings picture was “mixed.” Its health care and agricultural businesses showed modest sales gains. But Bayer MaterialScience, its division that makes high-tech materials such as polycarbonates and polyurethanes, had only flat sales performance and lost euro4 million before interest and taxes.

“Overall business development in the fourth quarter showed a mixed picture,” said chief financial officer Werner Baumann. “While HealthCare and CropScience achieved modest sales gains on a currency- and portfolio-adjusted basis, business at MaterialScience was level with the corresponding period of 2010.”

The company gave a cautious outlook for 2012, saying earnings would increase slightly “despite an economic situation marked by uncertainty.”

For all of 2011, net income increased 90 percent to euro2.47 billion, up from euro1.301 billion in 2010. Sales increased 4.1 per cent to euro36.5 billion.

A large part of the increase in full-year profit occurred because the company had smaller charges of euro876 million for 2011, much of it for restructuring and litigation expenses, compared to euro1.72 billion in one-time expenses from 2010.

Bayer shares were off 0.4 percent at euro55.52 in midmorning trading in Germany.

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