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Fremantle coach Mark Harvey isnt banking on the return of Aaron Sandilands against Carlton on Saturday.
He says the unique nature of the AFL ruckmans toe injury makes it hard to predict when he will be ready to play again.
Sandilands first damaged the tendon in his left big toe in round nine before suffering a recurrence of the injury when he returned in round 14 – a setback that has sidelined him for the past six weeks.
After massive banking job drops, some segments on the rise
By Ryan Kelly
The banking industry in South Florida is seeing job demand grow in some areas but drop in others as a result of services demand and a slow-moving economy.
We have real choppy waters, said Dennis Nason, chairman and chief executive officer of Nason Nason, a banking and financial recruitment firm based in Coral Gables. When you have as much turmoil as we have in the market, everybody gets a little nervous . You have some pockets that are hiring, and you have some pockets that are shrinking very fast.
Financial jobs as a whole have declined in Miami-Dade County to 62,500 in June from the all-time high of 75,800 in December 2006, a drop of more than 17% in less than five years, according to figures from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. While that number includes more than bankers, banking makes up a large slice of the financial industry.
Among the areas shrinking is the need for international bankers, Mr. Nason said. Legislation that he said re-directs international banks away from South Florida has several of them closing or thinking about closing offices in the region.
The Internal Revenue Service proposed a regulation that would require American financial institutions to report interest paid to foreigners who hold accounts in the country.
This is a front-running concern of many banking industry leaders, especially in South Florida, who say the proposed regulation could pull $60 billion or more out of South Floridas economy.
Its a horrific idea, said Alex Sanchez, president and chief executive officer at Florida Bankers Association.
Before hiring can truly pace up in the industry, Mr. Sanchez said, banks and other financial institutions must weather the economic storm, but regulations that could lead foreign accountholders to pull their money from the regions banks will only set job prospects back.
Generally speaking, expansion is not in the cards for banks right now, Mr. Sanchez said, adding that most banks are focused on helping their clients get through the tough economic times.
Our main priority is helping customers get through this recession, he said.
The private sector is being hit most heavily with job loss.
People in the private sector are being laid off and those jobs are not going to be replaced, Mr. Nason said.
Not all is doom and gloom, as pockets of the banking industry enter the hiring mode.
Sectors adding jobs include commercial lending, residential real estate, trade finance and wealth management for private companies, Mr. Nason listed.
Regional banks and smaller banks are doing a lot of the hiring, he said, especially in the commercial sector.
Were seeing a little more movement on the commercial lending side, said Ross Paskow, a senior recruiter for Stephen James Associates, an executive recruiting firm for the banking and finance industry.
Mr. Nason agreed: They are hiring pretty deep.
Compliance jobs, or any jobs that imply control, are also in demand, he said.
If youre an expert in compliance, he added, youll find youll have job security
Money managers for private companies are also more important than ever, Mr. Nason noted.
As youre managing a lot of money for these big corporations, even in banks, you need to be able to use better measuring tools and invest down to the last dollar, he said How you invest in the market, its a very difficult thing.
Because of the market volatility, demand is high for professionals capable of protecting the wealth of a company.
Many financial institutions are making their decisions on one- to two-year trends, Mr. Nason said, showing that companies arent necessarily halting hiring plans because of the weaker economy.
If youre adding a division, he said, then youre going to just go ahead and add a division.
Even if certain banking sectors arent hiring publicly, Mr. Paskow said, institutions rarely shy away from hiring experienced bankers.
You have a lot of institutions that have weathered the storm over the past few years, he said. Theyre really looking to grow. Theyre beefing up their hiring efforts.
South Florida has long been a stronghold of the banking industry, Mr. Nason noted.
The domestic market in South Florida is very deep, he said, and its been that way for years.
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Heres where markets stand at mid-day:
-NYSE down 249.03 (-3.43%) to 7,009.01
-DJIA down 373.54 (-3.32%) to 10,866.23
-Samp;P 500 down 33.97 (-2.9%) to 1,138.92
-Nasdaq down 62.09 (-2.52%) to 2,420.54
GLOBAL SENTIMENT
Nikkei up 1%.
Hang Seng up 2%.
Shanghai Composite up 0.9%.
FTSE-100 up 0.5%.
MID-DAY NYSE INDEX WATCH
NYSE Energy down 2.7% at 11,369.94
NYSE Financial down 4.45% at 4,046.24
NYSE Health Care down 2.73% at 6,279.91
NYSE Arca Tech 100 down 2.42% at 1,002.38
UPSIDE MOVERS
(+) RL (+6.3%) easily beats Q1 earnings estimates.
(+) COF (+1.3%) is buying HSBCs domestic credit card business.
HBC (+0.4%)
(+) CREE (+15.7%) continues eventual sharp evening gain that
followed Q4 beat, mixed guidance.
(+) BCON (+6.9%) inks deal.
(+) ADLR (+0.01%) jumps on study results.
(+) FOSL (-3.7%) gives up early gain; upgraded today after
guidance miss on Tuesday.
DOWNSIDE MOVERS
(-) BAC (-6.9%) reportedly selling part of mortgage business:
WSJ
(-) M (-2.1%) beats with Q2 results and sees FY EPS beating
Street.
(-) WMT (-2.6%) brings its VUDU movie streaming to iPad.
(-) DIS (-9.2%) downgraded; gained in evening session after
earnings beat.
(-) MOTR (-53%) continues evening plunge that followed Q2 miss,
worrisome revenue view.
(-) SATC (-18.9%) misses Q2 estimates, guides for sales
miss.
MARKET DIRECTION
Stocks are backtracking sharply for the second time in three
sessions at mid-day, with concern over European banks spreading
gloom to US equities markets and overshadowing a rise in job ads.
With the economic calendar relatively light, investors are eying
corporate earnings, including Dow Jones Industrial component Walt
Disney Co. (
DIS
), and the US Federal Reserves policy statement yesterday.
Shares of Walt Disney Co. (
DIS
) are down sharply after the company said late yesterday that Q3
EPS was $0.78, excluding charges, compared to expectations of $0.73
per share. Revenue was $10.67 billion compared with the mean
analyst consensus for $10.45 billion on Thomson Reuters. Third
quarter profits were buoyed by deferred revenue moved from the
fourth quarter to the third quarter, noted Reuters. Excluding that
item, results missed most analysts expectations, the report
said.
On the economic front, US wholesaler inventories rose
less-than-expected at 0.6% in June, which signals a cautionary
stance from business.
In company news:
Abbott Laboratories (
ABT
) said that it has received US Food and Drug Administration
approval for its RX Herculink Elite Renal Stent System for the
treatment of renal artery stenosis, or the narrowing of the main
arteries supplying blood to the kidneys, in patients with
uncontrolled hypertension.
Apple (
AAPL
) shares are down after Reuters reported a court in Germany
temporarily halted Samsung Electronics from selling its Galaxy
tablet in most of the European Union, handing Apple a victory in
its intellectual property fight against the Korean firm. Last week,
Samsung was forced to delay the Galaxy launch in Australia.
Shares of Goldman Sachs (
GS
) are sharply lower after The Wall Street Journal reported that
US securities regulators are investigating the securities firm
under the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act related to its
dealings with Libyas sovereign-wealth fund. Banking stocks are
down across the board.
Wal-Mart (
WMT
) is down 2.86% at mid-day, after Digital Music News reports that
Walmart Music Downloads Store located at MP3.walmart.com will close
on August 28. All content in the Store will be disabled and no
longer available for download from the store. The service was
reportedly unable to compete with Apples (
AAPL
) iTunes online music store.
Shares of Johnson amp; Johnson (JNJ) are down after Bloomberg
reports that the health care products giant has reached an
agreement to settle a misdemeanor criminal charge related to
marketing of its antipsychotic drug Risperdal.
Commodities are higher as December gold contracts are up 3.04%
to $1,796 an ounce while September crude oil contacts are up 1.29%
to $80.36 a barrel.
In energy ETFs, the United States Oil Fund (USO) is down 0.66%
to $31.41 and the United States Natural Gas fund (UNG) is up 0.99%,
to $10.23.
In precious metal ETFs, the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) is up 3% at
$173.67. Market Vectors Gold Miners (GDX) is up 2.19% to $58.96.
iShares Silver Trust (SLV) is up 4.41% to $37.92.
Aug. 10 (Bloomberg) — Peter Solomon, founder of investment bank Peter J. Solomon Co. and a former vice chairman of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., talks about the state of the banking industry and the economy.
Solomon, speaking with Erik Schatzker on Bloomberg Televisions InsideTrack, also discusses small businesses access to credit and the outlook for mergers and acquisitions. (Source: Bloomberg)
Australian consumer confidence
deteriorated for a fourth straight month to the lowest level in
more than two years, and the head of the nation’s largest bank
said he doesn’t see a turnaround soon.
The sentiment index dropped 3.5 percent in August to 89.6
from a month earlier, the lowest since May 2009, according to a
Westpac Banking Corp. (WBC) and Melbourne Institute survey of 1,200
consumers taken Aug. 1-6 and released today in Sydney. It’s the
longest sustained decline since early 2008.
About three-quarters of respondents answered before Aug. 5,
“when confidence would have been severely jolted by turmoil in
global financial markets,” Bill Evans, Westpac’s chief
economist, said in an e-mailed statement. “This financial
turmoil has added another dimension of risk to consumers over
and above those issues associated with interest rates; house
prices; carbon tax; and potentially, jobs.”
Evans last month was the first economist at one of
Australia’s four biggest banks to forecast a Reserve Bank rate
cut this year, saying unemployment may rise to 5.75 percent in
2012 from 4.9 percent in June.
In a statement today announcing record second-half profit,
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) Chief Executive Officer Ralph Norris said it isn’t “clear what the catalyst will be for a
meaningful revival in consumer and corporate confidence which is
prerequisite to stronger demand for credit.”
Interbank cash-rate futures show investors are betting the
RBA’s key rate will fall to 3.70 percent by December from 4.75
percent.
Policy Response
Treasurer Wayne Swan said in an interview today that
Australian policy makers have scope to respond if needed to
turmoil global financial markets.
“Australia is not immune from what happens in markets but
the economic fundamentals here are rock solid,” he told
Bloomberg Television from Canberra. While declining to speculate
on central bank interest-rate moves, he said the nation has “a
capacity for a great deal of policy flexibility should it be
required.”
Australia’s currency yesterday dropped below parity with
the US dollar for the first time in five months as prices
tumbled for stocks and commodities amid concern fiscal crises in
the US and Europe will slow global growth.
The local dollar reached $1.1081 on July 27, the highest
level since it was freely floated in 1983. It bought $1.0318 at
2:05 pm today in Sydney, and local stocks rallied.
RBA’s Tightening
The RBA boosted borrowing costs seven times from October
2009 to November 2010 to the highest level in the developed
world. In the process, RBA Governor Glenn Stevens cooled
household appetite for debt, which more than doubled in the past
15 years to 155 percent of disposable income in the March
quarter, according to RBA figures. That’s higher than the 133
percent Americans accumulated at the height of the US subprime
mortgage boom.
Credit to home buyers in June increased at the slowest
annual pace since 1977, when central bank data began, while home
prices slid in the second quarter by 1.9 percent from a year
earlier, the biggest drop in more than two years.
“The 2011 financial year has been characterized by subdued
system credit growth and intense competition,” Norris said.
“At this stage, there is nothing to suggest that the 2012
financial year will see any material improvement.”
Retailers’ Pain
Harvey Norman Holdings Ltd., Australia’s biggest
electronics retailer, today said sales at stores open at least
a year decreased 3.6 percent in the year to June 30,
attributing challenges in electrical stores to the strength of
the local currency. It said deflation will keep dampening
revenue growth this year.
Today’s consumer sentiment report showed four of the five
index components fell this month. The sub-index tracking views
on the outlook for economic conditions over the next 12 months
declined by 13.5 percent, and a gauge of views on family
finances over the next year slid 5.1 percent.
US stocks jumped the most in more than two years
yesterday, rebounding from the worst drop since 2008, and 10-
year Treasury yields touched a record low as the Federal Reserve
vowed to keep interest rates near zero through mid-2013.
Swan called the Fed move “a welcome development for the
global economy.”
US Growth
“Any measure that can be taken in the US to restore
growth is very important,” he said. “They’ve still got a
painful process of adjustment ahead in terms of fiscal policy.
But everybody has got an interest in the US economy growing.”
The RBA last week forecast growth in 2011 will average 2
percent, down from its May 6 estimate of 3.25 percent, while in
2012, gross domestic product will accelerate 4.5 percent,
stronger than the prior estimate for a 4.25 percent expansion.
It said the estimates assumed the cash rate to be unchanged over
the forecast period, compared with “the technical assumption in
May of a 50 basis points rise by mid-2013.”
Stevens will maintain borrowing costs at 4.75 percent until
the first quarter of next year, according to the median of 22
estimates in a Bloomberg News survey this week.
Swan told Bloomberg Television that the turmoil in global
markets makes the government’s target of returning the budget to
surplus harder to achieve. Still, he reiterated that it intended
to meet the goal.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Michael Heath in Sydney at
mheath1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Stephanie Phang at
sphang@bloomberg.net
column
Nigerias Mr. Controversy, with immense talent for stirring the hornets nest –and Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)– Alhaji Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, has done it again: He announced, in rather combative manner, that his CBN would issue licensesfor Islamic banking. If he would just heed the counsel of Bishop Taiwo Adelakun of Victory International Church, and label the product non-interest banking he just might stop the storm in his Islamic banking tea cup.
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)–The Senate Banking Committee has begun collecting information about Standard & Poor’s decision to downgrade U.S. debt, an aide said, adding that “all options remain on the table,” including whether to hold a hearing.
Standard & Poor’s late Friday downgraded U.S. debt to double-A-plus, saying that …
Updated: 3:40 pm Bank stocks have not lately been the heroes of Wall Street. With the major bank stocks at year-lows and analysts pondering their market values, merger activity for regional banking continues. PNC Financial Services said Monday that it will buy the American retail banking business of Royal Bank of Canada today for $3.45 billion. The deal includes an additional $165 million for the sale credit card assets to PNC, bringing the full amount value to $3.62 billion. The companies say the deal is a $112 million discount to the tangible book value of the business, or 97% of the full book value.
The financial services provider said it will gain 424 branches in the American southeast, and RBCs presence will be reduced in the US, although is still has services including investment banking in the region. PNC CEO James E. Rohr called it an “outstanding growth opportunity.” Shares in PNC Financial fell 2.2% after the announcement, however, as investors considered the earnings impact that adding lending branches within an already struggling market will add to the company. RBC’s southeast banking unit currently holds about $25 billion of assets, and would make PNC a player in the largest number of bank branches offered in the US
Rohr continued, The success of our recent acquisitions demonstrates that when we bring our innovative products and services to new markets we have the proven ability to win clients and take out costs.
Todays deal follows news last week of Capital One’s acquisition of ING’s US online banking arm. With major bank stocks trading at below book value today, the deal offers some questions about the ability of lending institutions to find earnings value in the near term, with the federal funds interest rate still near zero. Bank of America is trading today at 50% to its book value, Citigroup at 65% and JP Morgan Chase is trading 94% below book value, according to a note from analyst Justin Hoogendoorn at BMO Capital Markets today.
Jefferies JEF
reported net earnings to common shareholders of $84.7 million, or $0.36 per diluted share, on $723 million of net revenues for the fiscal second quarter of 2011. Excluding a $4.6 million charitable contribution to Japan relief efforts and $4.8 million of costs related to the companys pending acquisition of Prudential Bache from Prudential Financial PRU
, net income would have been $87 million and diluted earnings per share would have been $0.39 per share. Net revenue was sequentially flat, with revenue lines moving as we had expected. Principal transactions (mainly fixed-income trading) decreased 40% from what we thought was abnormally high first-quarter levels. On the other hand, investment banking revenue increased 37%, due primarily to strong debt underwriting. This was the highest quarterly investment banking revenue that Jefferies has ever reported, and it offset the weakness in fixed-income trading results. We dont expect any material change to our fair value estimate for the company.
The Prudential Bache acquisition will build out Jefferies capabilities in commodities, financial futures, and foreign-exchange trading. Jefferies will be paying approximately $430 million, the units tangible book value. In the quarter, Jefferies issued $500 million of common stock and $800 million of long-term debt to finance the acquisition and to support future growth. We believe there is potential in the acquisition as Jefferies introduces Prudential Baches services to its current customer base, gains exposure to the fast growing commodities and foreign-exchange space, and gains capabilities in derivatives where opportunities could emerge following financial regulatory reform.
Holders of Washington Mutual Inc.’s (PINK: WAMUQ) trust-preferred securities, which include Black Horse Capital, are looking to join a probe of four hedge funds alleged of using confidential data to trade in the debt of the bankrupt company.
US Bankruptcy Judge Mary Walrath, who is overseeing Washington Mutual’s bankruptcy, has been asked by holders of the company’s trust preferred securities to force the four hedge funds accused of using confidential data to turn over their trading-related documents. The hedge funds include Centerbridge Partners LP, Appaloosa Management LP, Owl Creek Asset Management LP and Aurelius Capital Management. The four hedge funds also assisted in drafting the bankrupt company’s latest bankruptcy plan.
The latest plan has been opposed by Washington Mutual’s trust preferred holders, who along with the company’s common shareholders are the last group to object to the plan.
The settlement talks with shareholders to end their opposition to the company’s bankruptcy plan apparently failed last week, according to a report by Reuters, citing sources close to the matter.
Washington Mutual, which filed for bankruptcy back in September 2008, has been in discussions with its shareholders to end their opposition to a bankruptcy plan that will pay creditors, including the four hedge funds, in full. However, shareholders continue to argue that they will be left with little once creditors are paid.
Recently, Washington Mutual’s attorney said in a bankruptcy court hearing that if the company failed to reach an agreement with shareholders it will go ahead with its “Sixth Amended Plan.” The bankruptcy court will decide on July 13 on whether to allow Washington Mutual to go ahead with the latest plan.
Tagged as: active stocks, Bank stock, banking stocks, cheap stocks, finance stocks, hot stocks, top stocks, wamu bankruptcy, wamu stock, WAMUQ, washington mutual bankruptcy
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