A new online store launched by the Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at ASU is giving enables students, alumni, family and fans of the J-school a way to wear their pride — literally.
CronkiteStore.com launched at the school this week, offering an array of branded apparel and gifts with the logo of the Cronkite School at Arizona State University. Among the site's offerings are T-shirts; drinkware and gifts; and bags for carrying golf clubs, laptops and books. The online store also is expected to carry items such as Cronkite-branded Nike Dri-FIT shirts.
"The Cronkite Store offers our alumni and students a way to show school pride when they're off campus and even in the workplace," said Kelli Solomkin, director of events and alumni relations payday loan. "For the first time, they can boast being part of the Cronkite School family with clothes and products."
More items, including a section for luxury and seasonal items will be added soon, said Linda Davis, Cronkite's design
director who spearheaded the Cronkite Store project and designed the products.
The Cronkite School has 1,300 students and nearly 8,000 alumni. To shop, go to http://cronkitestore.com.
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The dollar turned higher this week as jittery investors flocked to the greenback for its safe-haven appeal amid fears of a global economic slowdown.
For weeks, the dollar had been slipping as investors focused on weak U.S. economic news and improvements abroad. It is now making a comeback as disappointing news out of other regions join center stage.
Bleak outlooks from central banks in Europe, as well as signs of slower growth out of China, have rattled investors and boosted their demand for low-risk investments, including the dollar.
Softer risk appetite has pushed dollar up to a three-week high against the euro — below $1.28 — and the highest level this month against the pound. The dollar index, which tracks the buck against several major rivals, has climbed 3% this week.
Against the yen, also a low-risk currency, the dollar hit a 15-year low.
"It’s come to the market’s attention that the problems for recovery aren’t just in the United States," said Kathy Lien, director of currency research at Global Forex Trading. "Everything is congealing at the same time."
Following the Federal Reserve’s most bearish outlook for the U.S. economy in more than a year, the Bank of England and the European Central Bank also said recovery in the the United Kingdom and through Europe is also losing steam.
China reported industrial output slowed for the fifth consecutive month in July, signaling that growth in the world’s third largest economy is continuing to ease.
"The United States and China, two of the largest contributors of economic growth, are slowing at the same time, and that could sap the global recovery over the next quarter," Lien said.
Though the dollar will push higher in the near term, Lien said it will resume a decline as fears abate.
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Southwest, American and American Eagle rank in the bottom half of all U.S.-based airlines in the U.S. Department of Transportation's latest monthly report of on-time arrivals.
Southwest (NYSE: LUV) ranked 10th out of 18 carriers after posting an on-time arrival rate of 78.45 percent in June.
American (NYSE: AMR) ranked 14th, with an on-time arrival rate of 73.76 percent. American Eagle ranked 17th with an on-time arrival rate of 67.89 percent. American Eagle’s rate was followed only by Comair, which had an on-time arrival rate of 64.87 percent.
The top three airlines were Hawaiian, Alaska and US Airways, which reported on-time arrival rates of 93 one hour payday loan.62 percent, 88.94 percent and 83.37 percent, respectively.
For the first six months of the year, Southwest ranked seventh with an on-time arrival rate of 80.58 percent. Meanwhile, American and American Eagle ranked 14th and 17th, respectively, with on-time arrival rates of 77.18 and 74.53 percent, respectively.
These are the glory days of the residential real estate investor. Low prices, rock-bottom interest rates and stable rental markets have created huge buying opportunities.
"It’s awesome right now. I don’t think we’ll ever see another time like this," said Tanya Marchiol of Team Investments, which has operations in about 10 states but focuses mostly on the Phoenix market.
These investors are known to many as vultures because they swoop in and buy "distressed properties" — foreclosures and short sales — cheap. Places like Las Vegas, Phoenix and Miami are popular because home prices there have dropped as much as 70%.
But how they’re investing has changed. In the boom years, they would buy a property and flip it for a quick cash out. Today, they are holding and renting for hefty, steady incomes.
Once they analyzed their decisions based on home-price appreciation, which is very speculative. Now they consider potential rental profits, which is far more stable.
Back then, they flipped often and helped to bid up home prices into a froth. Now, the investors say, they can be a part of stabilizing neighborhoods.
"People are not in it to flip like back in the old economy," said Matt Martinez, an investor and author whose new book, "How to Make Money in Real Estate in the New Economy" comes out next February. "The new economy dictates that you have to have a long time horizon."
Marchiol, for example, does not even factor in home price appreciation for at least a year. After that, she calculates only a 3% annual increase — a return that won’t turn heads of investors who only want to buy low and sell high.
Marchiol just purchased four separate four-plexes in North Phoenix. Three years ago, each four-unit building sold for $310,000; she paid just $70,000 per building. She intends to spend about $64,000 rehabbing the properties, making her total investment $344,000.
In total, she currently owns about 17 rental units. Usually she buys the properties to keep herself, but she also works with a group of investors who are intent on holding them and renting them out. She can spot the deals and then sell to them.
For example, with her North Phoenix buildings, the investors will buy the buildings for $95,000 each. They’ll put 20% down and finance the rest, about $76,000 per building.
At today’s low interest rates, they’ll get a near 5% loan. That yields a payment of about $400 a month. Figure another 10% of the price for property management, 10% for maintenance, an 8% vacancy rate, taxes, insurance and other home ownership expenses, and you’re talking about a monthly nut of roughly $1,300.
Marchiol projects the apartments will rent for $600 a month each, for a total rent roll of $2,400. That gives the owners a profit of $1,100 per month and $13,200 per year — a nearly 70% annual return on investment.
Although conditions are very favorable, investors have to be adaptable because the market is evolving rapidly. In Phoenix it’s changed in just the past six months. Foreclosure auctions are no longer a fertile hunting ground for Marchiol.
"Amateurs have come in and run up the prices," she said. "In 2009 I bought 76 properties at foreclosure auctions, at an average of about 60 cents on the market dollar. This year, I’ve bought four."
Glenn Plantone faces a similar situation in Las Vegas. A veteran real estate broker and investor, he has switched from buying mostly foreclosures and repossessions to short sales almost exclusively. That’s because the inventory of distressed properties available in Vegas is way down, to about a two-week supply.
"The banks make better profits with short sales, so they’re not foreclosing," Plantone said. "They’ve switched staff to processing short sales and they’ve gotten faster at processing them."
He tries to purchase properties for at least 10% less than what he considers to be true market value, then he does some light rehabilitation and sells them to some of the 3,000 buyers he works with.
Since prices have fallen about 70% in some Vegas communities and rents have only declined by about 20%, it’s possible for his investors, who are cash buyers, to make money from the first month the homes are rented.
"We’re getting cash flow (net return on investment) of 12% to 14%," he said.
He doesn’t completely ignore potential profits from home price appreciation because he believes the town is bouncing around the bottom. (Homes already sell for below what it would cost to build new homes.) He does not, however, emphasize that aspect of the investment.
It’s the income from rentals that’s paramount right now.
The beauty of cash flow, of course, is that even if the prices decline another 10% or 20%, the investors should be able to live with that.
"I tell them to plan on holding for five years," he said. "With cash flow, there’s no need to worry about price drops."
Citigroup posted second-quarter earnings of $2.7 billion Friday, marking its second consecutive profit and beating Wall Street expectations, thanks to improving credit trends.
But the stock fell along with other banks as worries about the broader economy and financial reform continued to plague the markets.
Earnings for the banking giant came in at 9 cents per share. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to earn 5 cents for the quarter.
Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) shares slipped 4% Friday, however. Despite beating estimates, profits were 37% lower than the second quarter of 2009.
Revenue from the bank was weaker than expected, falling 33% to $22.1 billion. That was driven by a 26% decline in revenues from its securities and banking unit, which was widely expected as a result of increased market volatility.
During a conference call with analysts. Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit said he isn’t too concerned about the sweeping Wall Street reform, which is expected to be signed into law by President Obama next week.
"I’ve been an advocate since the start of regulatory reform and am quite pleased we’re moving forward," he said. "The ultimate impact won’t be clear until we know all of the details, but we have been managing the business and selling assets in line with the principles of reform."
He added that the bill, which calls for most derivatives to be bought and sold on clearinghouses and exchanges, won’t have a major impact on much of its derivatives business.
Beyond the Wall Street side of Citigroup’s operations, the bank’s consumer businesses delivered strong performances during the quarter. Credit losses decreased by $422 million, or 5%, to $8 billion as fewer loans failed.
In a statement, Pandit noted that "credit improved for the fourth consecutive quarter" and that the bank was also helped by international growth in Latin America and Asia.
"In terms of credit quality, everything is moving in the right direction," said Amanda Larsen, analyst at Raymond James, highlighting that reserves for credit losses fell to the lowest level since the third quarter of 2007 and delinquencies on Citi-branded cards also edged lower.
"The market has been freaking out about the health of the consumer as of late, and bank earnings are giving us solace that it’s not as bad as the market is making it out to be," Larsen added.
The bank also continued to pare back its Citi Holdings division, which was created to house the firm’s so-called "troubled assets" and businesses it is looking to get rid of. Citi Holdings reduced its assets by $38 billion during the quarter, and those assets now represents less than quarter of Citigroup’s total.
Larsen said that at this pace, the bank is on track to shed a majority of its Citi Holdings over the next three years.
The latest results from New York City-based bank are further evidence that the bank is bouncing back after being one of the hardest hit institutions during the financial crisis. Last quarter, Citigroup reported $4.4 billion in earnings.
The Treasury Department, which took a sizeable stake in the bank as part of the government’s bailout of Citigroup, is continuing to trim its stake. Earlier this month, the government said it sold 1.1 billion shares of the bank and plans to unwind the remainder of its 5.1 billion shares by the end of the year.
Based on the average price of $4.03 that Treasury has been able to sell shares at, U.S. tax payers could make a profit of $2.03 billion from the controversial bailout.
Citigroup’s report also matches results from rivals JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500), which raked in $4.8 billion last quarter, and Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), which earned $3.1 billion. Both banks beat forecasts and said that results were helped by improvement in consumer lending businesses.
But the report comes a day after the bank disclosed in an SEC filing how it made an accounting blunder that concealed billions of dollars in debt from investors by incorrectly identifying short-term trades as sales instead of borrowings.
"The impact of these transactions was never large enough to have a material impact on Citigroup’s financial statements or our published regulatory capital ratios, including our leverage ratios," Citigroup spokesman Jon Diat said.
The bank initially acknowledged the error in a filing in May.
With a new mandate looming that will require business owners to file millions more tax forms, the Internal Revenue Service has begun the daunting process of figuring out how to turn the law’s sweeping demands into actual rules for taxpayers.
The new regulations, which kick in at the start of 2012, require any taxpayer with business income to issue 1099 forms to all vendors from whom they purchased more than $600 of goods and services that year. That promises to launch a fusillade of new paperwork: An estimated 40 million taxpayers will be subject to the requirement, including 26 million who run sole proprietorships, according to a report released this week by National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson.
Olson’s office, which operates independently within the IRS, flagged the new reporting requirements as one of its priority issues for the next year. Like many who have delved into the details of the new rules, Olson is concerned about their far-reaching scope and potential unintended consequences.
"The new reporting burden, particularly as it falls on small businesses, may turn out to be disproportionate as compared with any resulting improvement in tax compliance," the Taxpayer Advocate Service wrote in a report released this week.
The new rules are aimed at reducing the "tax gap" between what individuals and businesses owe and what they actually pay. The federal government misses out on estimated $300 billion each year from tax underpayment. The expanded reporting requirements, which Congress slipped into the landmark health care reform bill passed in March, are an attempt to create a paper trail of 1099s exposing business-to-business payments that might otherwise stay off the radar.
But the cost of that paper trail could swamp the small companies, sole proprietors freelancers forced to generate it. Pennsylvania business networking organization SMC Business Councils surveyed its members and found that they currently average 10 filings a year of 1099 forms. The new rules would push that average to more than 200 filings per year for a typical small business, the industry group estimates.
The IRS will have broad leeway to interpret the rules — and it’s already showing signs that it will look for ways to staunch the paperwork flood.
In a late May speech before the two payroll industry trade group, IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman announced a major exception to the new rules: The IRS plans to exempt transactions made through credit and debit cards. A separate reporting requirement kicks in next year that will cover card transactions and help the IRS spot unreported payments made through those channels, "so there is no need for businesses to report them as well," Shulman said. "Whenever a business uses a credit or debit card, there will be no new burden under the new law."
How much of a sigh of relief you should breathe depends on what kind of purchases your business makes. Some big-ticket consumer items that are typically paid by card — airline tickets or hotel stays, for example — will be 1099-free. But SMC Business Councils President Tom Henschke, a vocal critic of the new law, estimates that exempting credit-card transactions would affect less than 10% of his members’ reporting requirements.
"Most of the small businesses out there that do small business [purchasing] don’t do it by credit card," he said. "One of the reasons is the transaction cost is very high — 2% to 3%."
Henschke thinks the main beneficiaries of the exemption are likely to be credit-card companies, which will gain an added hook to get small businesses to pay their fees pay day loans. Nolan Newman, a Seattle CPA who specializes in small-business needs, says it’s certainly possible that card usage will rise as a result: "If I’m a small business and I use my credit card moderately, would I try to increase my volume with which I pay vendors with it? Maybe."
Henschke foresees another unintended consequence of the new reporting provisions: that in order to cut down on tax forms to be filed, businesses will trim the number of vendors they do business with. "I’ve actually heard businesses talking about consolidating their purchases, going from 150, 200 vendors, down to less than 100," he said. "That will most certainly lead to some small businesses being swept under the door."
The taxpayer advocate’s office shares that concern. "Many large vendors already have computer systems that can track purchases by customer. They are likely to advertise that they will track each customer’s total purchases and send them a report at the end of the year that business customers can use to comply with the Form 1099 filing requirement," the office wrote in its report. "Small businesses that lack the capacity to track customer purchases may lose customers, leaving the economy with more large national vendors and less local competition."
That was just one of seven major pitfalls the Taxpayer Advocate Service foresees in the new rules. It also questions whether they will actually do much to close the tax gap. Because of product returns and other complications, the payments documented by the 1099 trail won’t match up cleanly against the revenue businesses report. "The IRS will face challenges making productive use of this new volume of information reports," Olson’s office concluded.
That could help explain one otherwise puzzling aspect of the new tax law, which is that despite the sweeping reporting requirements, the Joint Committee on Taxation — a nonpartisan Congressional committee that analyzes pending tax legislation — estimated that it would bring in only about $2 billion a year in new tax revenue. Committee staffers wouldn’t comment on the record.
"Judging from the estimate that the committee has made, they didn’t think it was that far-reaching," said Eric Toder of the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank. "Does it close a lot of the tax gap? No."
The IRS did not return repeated calls and e-mails asking for clarification on its timeline for drafting the new regulations.
In his talk to accountants in May, Shulman put off questions about the expanded 1099 reporting, saying that even the idea of exempting credit-card transactions was just "an example of where we are headed, not as a complete implementation plan." The agency is currently seeking public comment on how it should implement the new rules.
The IRS has some leeway in implementing the new law — but only some. "The regulations are supposed to implement the intent of Congress; they’re not supposed to be independent policy-making," Toder said. "But obviously, there’s some discretion there."
Shulman himself hinted that it may take new legislation — not just IRS regs — to fix what Congress has wrought. "We won’t hesitate to consider alternate approaches," he said in his speech, "including working with Congress to address any potential implementation issues that may arise during this process."
The state has approved plans by Erie County Medical Center for a new hyperbaric wound-care center.
State Health Department officials approved a plan in late May for an $850,000 centralized hyperbaric and wound care center in a 3,500-square-foot space on the hospital’s ground floor.
ECMC plans to partner with a Diversified Clinical Services Inc. of Jacksonville, Fla., the largest wound care company in the nation. The firm operates at more than 300 sites nationwide through collaborations with hospitals.
The therapy will complement services already offered in the hospital’s burn unit and rehab center.
The project includes the installation of two monoplace hyperbaric oxygen therapy chambers, which use pressurized oxygen to treat a variety of wounds, including burns, diabetes-related injuries and vascular wounds, where patients are slow to heal because of poor blood flow.
The new center is expected to start up this summer.
Matrix Packaging of Missouri Inc., a subsidiary of Sonoco Products Co., will receive $572,267 in state tax credits, the Missouri Department of Economic Development said Friday.
The Hazelwood business was approved for the credits under the Enhanced Enterprise Zone (EEZ) program to assist in the creation of new jobs and investment.
Matrix was approved for the tax credits, over a five-year period, for the creation of 90 jobs and investing $16.6 million for the expansion facility at 5801 N. Lindbergh Blvd. in Hazelwood.
The Hazelwood plant currently operates nine blow molding lines, producing plastic bottles for household, food, and health and beauty products.
The Enhanced Enterprise Zones are geographic areas designated by local governments and certified by the DED. Designation is based on certain demographic criteria, potential to create sustainable jobs in a targeted industry and demonstrated impact on local cluster development. The EEZ program began in 2004.
Hartsville, S.C.-based Sonoco Products Co. (NYSE: SON) is a $3.6 billion global manufacturer of consumer and industrial products, and provides packaging services. It has more than 300 operations in 35 countries.
Danny Ayala, head of global remittance at Wells Fargo & Co., has only to look at the numbers from Mother’s Day week to see improvement in the business of zipping money from country to country.
In a sign of an improving economy, the bank saw a 57 percent increase in volume during that week and an all-time daily high on May 10 — the day Mother’s Day is celebrated in Mexico.
"It shows that remitters have money to send," Ayala said in an interview Thursday. "Last year was a much different story."
Wells Fargo & Co. expects even bigger things from the remittance business, with the addition of eight new recipient countries at the end of last year and the gradual rollout of its "ExpressSend" service in Wachovia branches.
Wells started ramping up ExpressSend in 2003 and now offers service to 15 countries in Latin America and Asia. Customers can send money overseas from a branch, by phone or online. Wells is also looking to add mobile and ATM options.
In the first quarter, total transactions increased 36 percent to Mexico and 35 percent to all countries, compared with the same period a year earlier. The bank handles billions of dollars in remittance volume each year, but doesn’t provide specific volume or transaction figures.
With the business, Wells sees a way to help a growing immigrant population send money home — and an opportunity to sell them checking accounts and other banking products, Ayala said.
The remittance business is at the center of two hot issues lately: immigration and financial services. Many customers who use the product are in the U.S. legally, but Ayala acknowledges that some may not be. The company follows laws that require it to check customers’ identification, but not immigration status, he said.
"The immigration issue is an issue of public policy," he said. "We are here to provide financial services."
As part of financial reform legislation being debated in Congress, some lawmakers are pushing for more consumer protections for remittance customers. One proposal would require remittance providers to display fees in their storefronts and give the cost to customers upfront.
Ayala said the bank favored transparency but wasn’t comfortable with current proposals. The legislation could be difficult to implement because prices change frequently as exchange rates fluctuate, he said. According to World Bank figures, the remittance flow to developing countries fell 6 percent to $316 billion in 2009. As the world economy picks up, the World Bank expects remittances to increase by 6.2 percent in 2010.
Wells competes with money transfer giants such as Western Union Co. and MoneyGram International Inc., as well as other banks. Bank of America Corp. has a product that allows customers with checking accounts to send money to Mexico by phone. The bank also has an online wire transfer service.
Shares of Continental Airlines Inc. reached a new high Thursday after the New York Times reported that the Houston airline carrier has reopened merger talks with United Airlines.
The talks are in early stages and may rapidly fall apart, the New York Times’ sources warned.
Continental (NYSE: CAL), which held merger talks with United in 2008, was reportedly taken by surprise when NYT broke the news of the United-US Airways talks last week.
The company’s shares were already on the rise on April 12 after an analyst upgraded its stock to “buy”from “hold” amidst all the merger talk overnight pay day loans.
Analysts have said that a Continental-United merger would make more sense, giving United routes to South American and access in New York, noted the Times. Chicago-based UAL Corp. (NASDAQ: UAUA) is the parent company of United Airlines.
Continental’s shares were up 2.2 percent, to $23.77, Thursday after having climbed to a new high of $24.29 earlier in the day.
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