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OnBlass.com Complaints Information in this catagory are posted complaints from OnBlass.com.
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Thursday, 20 May 2010 |
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New worries about the health of the global economy flared Thursday, driving U.S. stocks to their first official correction since the bull market began last March, roiling credit markets and causing big swings in currencies. Large investors, such as hedge funds, pared back riskier investments that tend to do better in a global economic rebound but get hammered harder in a slowdown. Many shed investments in emerging-market or commodity-producing countries like Brazil or Australia. Such investments had been a popular way to bet that the global economies were recovering from the steep recession that grew out of the financial crisis. Investors, meantime, snapped up U.S. Treasurys and the Japanese yen, assets viewed as relatively safe in times of turmoil. There was no one particular piece of news that drove Thursday's market swoon. Instead, investors said it was an accumulation of worrisome developments, primarily out of Europe, where officials are struggling to convince the market they have the Greece crisis under control. Worries mounted that the troubles may spread beyond Europe to stymie growth elsewhere. And China's effort to tighten monetary policy has made investors increasingly nervous about growth slowing in that country. Concerns are building that the progress made in pulling the global economy out of recession is slipping away. That contrasts with the sentiment this time last year when central banks and governments seemed to be working effectively together to stabilize the markets and economy. "Before, there was a sense that things were heading in the right direction," said Scott MacDonald, head of research at brokerage and money-manager Aladdin Capital. "The issue that people are really wrestling with is now we don't know where things are going." The retreat from riskier investments hit the U.S. stock market from the opening bell and gathered steam until the close of trading. By session's end the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 376.36 points, or 3.6%, to close at 10068.01. That marked its third consecutive day of losses and leaves the Dow down 10.15% from its 2010 closing high hit on April 26. With a decline of more than 10% from its high, the Dow's selloff has reached what traders refer to as a "correction" of the rally that began on March 10, 2009. Many analysts said such a pullback was long overdue, especially given the questions about Europe's future. 8:32 The Dow closes down more than 360 points. Barron's Bob O'Brien and WSJ's Grainne McCarthy joins the News Hub with more. Plus, the financial overhaul heads to the finish line; and a historic look at all the stars that passed through the doors of "Law & Order." Despite the size of the decline Thursday, there were no signs of the kind of trading problems that accompanied the stock market's "flash crash" back on May 6, in which the Dow dropped more than 700 points in the span of a few minutes and some individual stocks briefly lost all their value. Still, traders described conditions in the financial markets as unsettled and volatile. The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, or VIX, often called the "fear gauge," jumped nearly 30% to its highest level since March 2009. Another sign of growing nervousness: a rise in the London interbank offered rate, at which banks lend money to each other overnight. It rose on Thursday to 0.48%, its highest level since last July. In the U.S., corporate bonds, which posted huge gains in 2009 on the back of expectations for an economic recovery, fell for the fifth straight day. Prices of oil, copper and gasoline dropped. Even gold, often seen as a safe-haven asset, declined. Gold also acts as a hedge against inflation, and its decline indicates that investors may be less worried about growth fuelling a rise in prices. Reuters Traders in the oil options pit at the New York Mercantile Exchange Thursday. Oil fell below $68 a barrel, the lowest in nearly eight months. If there's a silver lining, it's that the market's moves—including lower oil prices and lower yields on government bonds, which push down mortgage rates—could end up helping the U.S. economy. The average rate on a conforming 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropped to 4.88% on Thursday, according to HSH Associates in Pompton Plains, N.J. That's the lowest rate since early December. In addition, the uncertainty rippling out from Europe is pushing back expectations for an interest-rate increase from the Federal Reserve. With the exception of an unexpected big rise in initial jobless claims reported Thursday morning, economic data has been pointing to a continued rebound in the U.S. economy. That, in turn, had boosted expectations that the Fed would raise interest rates by year-end. Now analysts say the Fed may keep interest rates close to zero until well into next year. "The worse things get in the markets, the more it takes interest-rate hikes off the table," said Eric Stein, a portfolio manager at Eaton Vance. The deterioration in market sentiment this week comes despite the massive European bailout package unveiled earlier this month. While that plan soothed short-term fears about the Greek debt crisis spreading, it didn't convince investors that longer-term fiscal problems would be addressed. Adding fuel to the fire was Germany's unilateral move earlier this week to ban certain types of bearish bets on stocks and bonds. For investors, that highlighted a lack of unity among European governments in dealing with the crisis. "That feeds into the financial markets' worst enemy—a lack of confidence," said Aladdin's Mr. MacDonald. —Mark Gongloff, Alex Frangos, Neil Shah and Ruth Simon contributed to this article. |
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Thursday, 29 April 2010 |
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Saturday, 13 March 2010 |
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(Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Friday delayed an overseas trip to focus on the final drive for healthcare reform as the House of Representatives prepared to vote on the sweeping overhaul next week. Obama pushed back a scheduled March 18 departure on his first overseas trip of the year to March 21 to help rally support in the days before the House vote. The House Budget Committee will meet on Monday to take the first steps toward passage of the healthcare overhaul, Obama's top legislative priority, with final votes planned in the full House by the end of the week. "I'm delighted that the president will be here for the passage of the bill," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. "It's going to be historic." Obama has been pushing hard for a quick final vote on the healthcare overhaul, which has ignited a long-running political brawl with Republican opponents and consumed the Congress for the last nine months. Democrats hope to finish the legislation to expand coverage to more than 30 million of the estimated 46 million uninsured Americans and regulate insurance industry practices before leaving for a two-week recess on March 26. Health insurer shares dropped on Friday even though the broader market was little changed. The Morgan Stanley Healthcare Payor index ended 1.4 percent lower and the S&P Managed Health Care index dropped 1.8 percent. House Democrats said on Friday they have largely worked out the final changes to the healthcare overhaul and are awaiting final cost estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. They hope to keep the total cost in the same neighborhood as the Senate bill's $875 billion price tag over 10 years and deficit reduction of about $118 billion over the same period. NO PUBLIC OPTION The final package will include Obama's proposed revamp of the federal student loan program that would boost aid for needy students, Pelosi said, but will not include a government-run public insurance option. She said the public option does not have the votes to get through the Senate. "I'm quite sad that a public option isn't in there," Pelosi said. The provision, designed to create more competition for insurers and choice for consumers, was included in a House bill passed in November but rejected by moderate Senate Democrats. Pelosi faces a huge challenge in lining up 216 House votes for final passage among Democrats unhappy with key provisions -- particularly language on the ban on federal funding for abortion -- and nervous about November's elections in which Republicans could challenge their control of Congress. But House Democrats, who passed their overhaul in November with only three votes to spare, said they were confident they could muster the votes for passage next week even if they lose support by a handful of anti-abortion Democrats. "There has been a tidal change in the last 72 hours or so," Democratic Representative Anthony Weiner said. "The very idea that we are talking about the endgame tactical stuff is a sign there is increasing confidence we're going to get this done." Under a two-step process, House Democrats plan to approve the Senate's version of the bill and make changes sought by Obama and House Democrats through a separate measure. That second bill would be passed under budget reconciliation rules requiring only a simple majority in the 100-member Senate, bypassing the need for 60 votes to overcome Republican procedural hurdles. Republicans have condemned the use of reconciliation to pass healthcare, although they often used the process themselves when they controlled Congress. "The reason all this arm-twisting and deal-making and parliamentary maneuvering is going on is because the people hate this bill," Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said. The changes in the reconciliation bill include expanding subsidies to make insurance more affordable and extending more state aid for the Medicaid program for the poor. They also would eliminate a controversial Senate deal exempting Nebraska from paying for Medicaid expansion costs, close a "doughnut hole" in prescription drug coverage and modify a January deal on a tax on high-cost insurance plans. The House and Senate approved separate healthcare reform bills last year, but efforts to merge them into a final product collapsed in January when Democrats lost their crucial 60th vote in a special Senate election in Massachusetts.
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Wednesday, 24 June 2009 |
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Gov Sanford, 49, who had sparked fevered speculation about his whereabouts when he went missing at the end of last week and failed to answer his phone, made a dramatric reappearance on Wednesday to reveal he had been in Argentina. Choking back tears on the steps of the State House in Columbia, the two-term Republican governor admitted to an affair with a "dear friend" in Argentina with whom he had "developed a relationship". She was named by local media as "Maria", who was separated with two children and lives in Buenos Aires. Gov Sanford, who had been seen as a potential opponent for President Barack Obama in 2012, apologised profusely to his family and staff and announced that he was stepping down as head of the Republican Governors' Association. His eyes welling with emotion, he said: "I've spent the last five days of my life crying in Argentina. I am committed to trying to get my heart right. "The bottom line is this: I have been unfaithful to my wife. Let me apologise to my wife Jenny and my four boys ... for letting them down. "It began very innocently, as I suspect many of these things do, in just a casual email back and forth," he said. "But here recently over this last year it developed into something much more than that. And as a consequence, I hurt her. I hurt you all. I hurt my wife. I hurt my boys. I hurt friends ... I hurt a lot of different folks. "What I did was wrong. Period. End of story." Asked if he was alone during the Argentina trip, he replied: "Obviously not". The relationship had become romantic about a year ago, he said, while his wife had known about it for the past five months. The website of The State, a newspaper in South Carolina, published excerpts of emails it reported were sent between Gov Sanford and "Maria". In one, sent on July 10, 2008, he praises her "particular grace and calm that I adore"; her "sophistication"; "erotic beauty" and "magnificent gentle kisses". Gov Sanford's press conference was his first public appearance since disappearing at the end of last week. His staff had said he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail to "clear his head" after a tough legislative session. He apologised for misleading them. During his absence, some South Carolina politicians accused him of abdicating responsibility. His admission will provoke glee among many Democrats as Gov Sanford has been a fierce critic of Mr Obama. Gov Sanford, a staunchly conservative southern governor, was widely considered a plausible candidate for the 2012 race. His admission will prove a further setback for the Republican party after losing so heavily to Mr Obama last November. |
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Sunday, 14 June 2009 |
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By Gina Macris
Journal Staff Writer PORTSMOUTH — One day last August, the Secret Service paid a visit to the new owners of Custom House Coffee off West Main Road. The news they brought was bad: Computer hackers, whereabouts unknown, had used sophisticated spy software to break into the store’s wireless network and steal the credit and debit card numbers of customers. In all, about 50 customers of Custom House Coffee had been victimized, as early as May 2008, according to Police Chief Lance Hebert. But it wasn’t until the victims got their bank or credit card statements and saw charges they didn’t recognize that they realized they had been robbed. As the police reports started to filter in, detectives began connecting the dots. So far, the thieves have run up nearly $50,000 in unauthorized charges on the victims’ cards in eight states, said Herbert, whose department just recently confirmed that the crimes occurred. The victims, however, have all been made whole by their card companies. Identity theft is nothing new, says Assistant U.S. Attorney Lee Vilker, but it has traditionally involved thieves stealing people’s mail or going through their trash. Robbery via wireless remote access is something relatively new, Vilker said. He said he has seen it only twice in Rhode Island and declined to discuss the Portsmouth case or identify the other case. In general in these types of cases, he said, cyber-thieves remotely install a “keylogging” program on a target computer. The keylogging programs travel on e-mail attachments and can hide themselves on a computer system, becoming virtually undetectable. These “trojan” programs record each keystroke made by the unwitting target and transmit the data to thieves. In Portsmouth, the police sifted through reports of identity theft until they discovered two or three victims who had used their cards at Custom House Coffee. Then they called in the FBI and the Secret Service. Former Custom House Coffee owner Robert Mastin said there were security measures on the computer system, “but they weren’t enough for some very sophisticated hackers.” The security breach has been “totally fixed,” said Mastin. “The chances of it happening again are less than zero.” The police concur with that assessment. Thomas Powers, resident in charge of the Secret Service office in Providence, confirmed that his office provided forensic assistance in the Custom House Coffee case. But he declined to detail what he said is a continuing investigation. Hebert said his detectives have received training in cyber crime-fighting to the extent that they know “what to look for.” Then they alert state and federal law-enforcement experts “who understand exactly how to track these people down,” Hebert said. The FBI and a federally financed civilian partner, the National White Collar Crime Center, encourage anyone who has been victimized by cyber theft to both report to local police and to file a complaint on their jointly sponsored Web site, the Internet Crime Complaint Center, at www.ic3.gov. “All that information helps investigators develop a pattern” that will help them better track criminal behavior, said Craig Butterworth, spokesman for the center. In 2008, IC3 received a total of 275,284 complaints, a third more than in 2007, according to the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center. Credit and debit card fraud accounted for 9 percent of the complaints. The most frequent type was nonpayment or non-delivery of goods, followed by Internet auction fraud. In all, the complaints represented a dollar loss of $265 million, a $25-million increase from the previous year. Butterworth said officials believe that only 15 to 20 percent of online fraud gets reported to the Web site. To protect their customers, Internet service providers generally include virus detection and firewall protection with their broadband services to ward off hackers. But there are still ways that Internet users can be vulnerable, said Mark Matteo of Cox Communications, who works as a liaison with law enforcement. “When you download files, when you open e-mail, or when you use an unsecured wireless network,” you can give thieves access to your computer, Matteo said. When Cox installs a wireless network connecting two or more home computers, it arranges to scramble the Internet transmission, Quinn said. But any time there is a power outage, or the network router in the home is reset, the homeowner may need to encrypt the network again. Manufacturers of routers provide directions on their Web sites.
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