November 15, 2024

Shares Soar on Talk of a Europe Deal

The surge in equities ended a seven-day losing streak for the Standard Poor’s 500-stock index, pushing it nearly 3 percent higher. It was a welcome change of direction from last week, when Wall Street lost more than 4 percent as markets reacted to rising borrowing costs for European governments and the failure by a Congressional committee in Washington to reach an accord on ways to cut the budget deficit.

On Monday, traders reacted to the news that Germany and France have been discussing a deal to hasten European budget and financial coordination. Analysts said a deal that did not require renegotiating European Union treaties could reassure markets and bring skeptics on board to support the euro.

 “We are seeing slightly better news out of Europe,” said Kate Warne, an investment strategist for Edward Jones. With last week’s oversold conditions, she added, “not surprisingly, there are a lot of attractive opportunities.”

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 2.59 percent, or 291.23 points, to 11,523.01. The S. P. 500 jumped 2.92 percent, or 33.88 points, to 1,192.55, and the Nasdaq composite index was up 3.52 percent, or 85.83 points, to 2,527.34.

There were reasons to be guarded about the significance of one day of gains, however. Monday’s surge had not pushed any of the major indexes into positive territory for the month or year.

It could also be another sign of rising market volatility. The S. P. 500, for example, has closed up at least 4 percent in one day eight times since the beginning of 2009, as the financial crisis set in, while it has fallen by 4 percent or more 10 times in that period.

Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst for Standard Poor’s, said a high proportion of the index’s big swings had, in fact, occurred just since 2009: of 164 times the index had moved by at least 4 percent since 1962, 26 had been in the last three years.

In Europe, the Euro Stoxx 50 index, a barometer of euro zone blue chips, rose 5.73 percent. The CAC 40 in Paris was up 5.46 percent, and the DAX, the German index, rose 4.6 percent. The FTSE 100 index in London gained 2.87 percent. The euro rose to $1.3308, from $1.3239 late Friday in New York.

In the bond market, the 10-year note fell 1/32, to 100 9/32, and the yield remained at 1.97. The comparable German bond rose 4 basis points, to yield 2.29 percent.

Bonds of countries that have been seen as more risky rose in price. Italian 10-year bonds traded to yield 7.191 percent, down four basis points. Spanish 10-year bonds were down 13 basis points at 6.50 percent.

“Talk that European countries were discussing bilateral treaties to strengthen fiscal ties across the current monetary union seems to be easing tensions somewhat this morning, and driving a sizable sell-off in the U.S. rates markets,” Guy LeBas, the chief fixed-income strategist for Janney Montgomery Scott, wrote in a research note.

Investors seemed to shrug off dire warnings from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and Moody’s Investors Service, both of which warned that the euro zone problems were well on their way to becoming serious issues for noneuro countries.

Markets also took a measure of optimism from the National Retail Federation, which said on Sunday that spending in the United States during the Thanksgiving weekend surged 9.1 percent over last year — the biggest increase since 2006 — to an average of almost $400 per shopper. On Wall Street, consumer stocks were up about 3 percent, while energy stocks were up more than 3.5 percent as oil prices rose.

United States Steel rose 8.49 percent, or $1.89, to $24.16, as the materials sector over all rose 3.6 percent.

Marathon Oil was up 5.35 percent at $25.98, and consumer shares were helped by Netflix, which jumped 9.54 percent, to $69.95.

Commercial Metals Company pushed 23.76 percent higher, to $14.17, after Carl C. Icahn offered to acquire the company, a recycler based in Irving, Tex., for $15 a share.

David Jolly contributed reporting.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 28, 2011

An earlier version of this article misstated the recent yield for the United States 10-year Treasury bond.

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White House Offers Tax Plan for Jobs Bill

But the White House also says its plan should be viewed as a rough framework, because its top priority is to get the jobs bill enacted. If Congress approves the president’s jobs plan, it could instead pay for it with other spending cuts or tax increases if that is what the Congressional committee on deficit reduction recommends later this fall.

The bulk of the additional tax revenue under Mr. Obama’s proposal would come from the wealthiest 1.5 percent of taxpayers — individuals with adjusted gross income over $200,000, families with more than $250,000 — who would face new limits on their itemized deductions for such things as charitable contributions and state and local taxes. The initiative is similar to one made by the president during the debt ceiling negotiations two months ago and rebuffed by Congressional Republicans.

In its new incarnation, however, the measure would raise an additional $80 billion in taxes over 10 years by restricting “above the line” deductions, which allow taxpayers to exclude items like foreign earnings and earnings from municipal bonds from their taxable income. The proposal would also require wealthy taxpayers to count some employer health benefits as income.

Other elements of the proposal would end tax breaks for hedge fund managers and other investment partnerships, for corporate jets and for oil companies.

Most of the measures have been pitched by the Obama administration in some form or other since 2009, yet none generated enough support to pass Congress — even when Democrats controlled both houses.

Judging from the reaction Republicans gave Mr. Obama’s initiatives, they will also re-ignite the debate over the role tax increases play in job creation.

House Speaker John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, pointed out that tax increases had already been rejected by both parties because of concerns they would squelch growth and discourage companies and business owners from hiring.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, called the administration’s tax initiative “dead on arrival,” and accused the president of suggesting politically provocative tax breaks to stoke Democratic voters. But administration officials brushed aside those complaints, saying that they believed the proposals would raise money while making the tax system more fair.

”We’ve got to make sure that everybody pays their fair share including the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations. We’ve got to decide what our priorities are,” Mr. Obama said Tuesday outside the Fort Hayes Arts and Academic High School in Columbus, Ohio.

Administration officials said that most of the $400 billion in additional taxes on individuals would come from people whose annual income exceeds $1 million, a group whose tax rates have fallen significantly over the last decade.

Previous efforts to limit deductions on high earners were blocked by nonprofit groups, which warned they would curtail charitable donations, and residents of states like New York that have high income taxes and would have been adversely affected. The president’s new plan was also criticized by securities brokers, who warned that restricting tax deductions for municipal bond earnings would rattle an already shaky market.

“It’s going to mean higher borrowing costs for local governments, state governments,” said Mike Nicholas, chief executive of the Bond Dealers of America. “And the burden is ultimately going to end up hitting the taxpayers.”

The three other tax breaks Mr. Obama hopes to eliminate would raise comparatively small amounts of money for the Treasury.

The tax break for corporate jets, which would raise an estimated $3 billion over 10 years, has been a populist symbol for the administration. Companies can now write off the cost of jet purchases in just five years; the Obama Administration would extend that to seven years, the same period now used for commercial airliners.

Raising taxes on venture capitalists, fund managers and private equity partners is projected to generate $18 billion over 10 years. Under current law, investment partners can classify most of their earnings as “carried interest,” rather than ordinary income, meaning it is taxed at a top rate of 15 percent instead of the top federal rate of 35 percent.

Many labor unions and liberal groups call that a loophole and say it unfairly favors investment managers over wage earners. But on Wall Street, investors say it is appropriate to tax those earnings at rates similar to capital gains because those investments entail risk. They also warn that eliminating carried interest would deter investment at a pivotal moment.

“Raising taxes on investments would only sideline employers and investors and create further uncertainty in an already struggling economy,” said Steve Judge, interim president and chief executive of the Private Equity Growth Capital Council.

Tax lawyers caution that changing the carried interest rules may not raise as much tax revenue as the administration forecast because investors can use accounting strategies to shelter their earnings and effectively count them as capital gains.

Aside from hedge funds, the only industry targeted by the administration is the oil business. Mr. Obama’s plan would end the tax rule that classifies oil drilling as “manufacturing” and that allowed those companies to deduct 9 percent of their production costs this year. That measure, expected to raise $40 billion over 10 years, would also reduce the generous write-offs for drilling expenses and the tax credit for royalties paid to foreign governments.

A similar effort to end subsidies to oil companies died in the Senate this summer, after industry officials, led by the American Petroleum Institute, said it would lead to higher gasoline prices, deter hiring and increase the nation’s dependence on imported oil.

But administration officials say there is growing public support for tax policies that raise the contributions from wealthy Americans and the most profitable industries.

“There’s been an increasing awareness among the public that at a time of shared sacrifice when there are potential cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, you can’t hold harmless hedge fund managers, corporate jets and oil companies,” said Jason Furman, principal deputy director of the National Economic Council.

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The Caucus: Obama Plans Jobs Speech After Labor Day

President Obama plans a major speech on jobs after Labor Day in which he will lay out new proposals for jump-starting the economy and specific plans for legislative efforts to cut spending, White House officials said.

Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said on MSNBC’s “Daily Rundown” that the president would lay out two proposals — one to jolt short-term job growth and another to guide the Congressional committee charged with deficit reduction in the fall.

“In early September, we will put forward proposals for jobs-creating ideas and economic growth ideas,” Mr. Carney said Wednesday morning. “We want to be aggressive with deficit reduction that helps pay for things you need to do in the near term to grow the economy.”

A major jobs speech by the president could help set a campaign narrative for Mr. Obama as this Republican challengers increasingly focus their attacks on his handling of the economy. Top aides to the president are eager to show that his ideas are being stymied by a recalcitrant Republican Congress.

“They are more interested in politics than they are in solving the problems,” Mr. Obama told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in an interview Wednesday.

The speech comes amid a growing clamor from the president’s liberal base for him to be more aggressive in pushing his own jobs agenda to counter the conservative debt-cutting philosophy.

And the speech follows repeated criticism from Republicans throughout the debt fight earlier this summer that Mr. Obama has failed to lay out his own plan for turning around the economy.

The White House has said for weeks that the criticism is unfair. Every time the president has spoken publicy recently, he has laid out a series of relatively small proposals that he says Republicans have refused to act on, including trade deals and an extension of the payroll tax cut.

White House officials have said the president’s speech — to be given soon after Labor Day — will contain new ideas that go beyond those he has made in the past several weeks.

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Fitch Ratings Keeps U.S. at Top Credit Rating

NEW YORK (AP) — Fitch Ratings said Tuesday it will keep its rating on U.S. debt at the highest grade, AAA, and issued a “stable” outlook, meaning it expects the rating to stay there.

That’s better than the other two main ratings agencies: Moody’s lists the U.S. debt at AAA but says its outlook is negative. And Standard Poor’s set off a maelstrom in the stock market last week after it took its rating on the U.S. down to the second-highest grade, AA-plus, for the first time.

In Washington, the Obama administration welcomed the announcement from Fitch but said it would be important for Congress to take the steps called for in the budget agreement.

“The Treasury Department continues to believe that Treasury securities are AAA investments. Today’s report underscores the importance of Congress taking additional actions to address our long-term fiscal challenges,” Treasury spokesman Anthony Coley said.

The SP cited bickering in Congress over the debt ceiling earlier this summer, as well as the country’s rising proportion of debt, for its downgrade. But Fitch said that it decided to keep its rating because the “key pillars” of U.S. creditworthiness remain intact, including its “flexible, diversified and wealthy economy.”

It also said that the country’s flexibility in monetary policy gives it the ability to absorb economic shocks. The dollar’s central role in the world economy allows the U.S. to hold a higher proportion of debt to gross domestic product.

Fitch said it would revisit the rating after the congressional committee that is supposed to figure out how to cut government spending presents its findings, due by the end of November.

The rating, which measures the possibility that the U.S. will default on its debt, has been a hot-button issue in the past two weeks. Standard Poor’s downgrade on Aug. 5 ignited a volatile week on Wall Street, with the Dow rising or falling by at least 400 points for four days. The government and some analysts have criticized the SP’s decision, calling it unjustified and based on faulty math.

The SP has defended the move, and some analysts have said it is a necessary wakeup call for a government that has been spending too much. The SP said its downgrade was based on political grandstanding this summer over the debt ceiling. The SP analysts also said they predict that the country’s debt a portion of output will continue to rise.

The SP has also pointed out that its downgrade is only to the second-highest rating, saying that the psychological effects are deeper than the practical ones.

“It’s like going from indigo to navy blue,” SP analyst John Chambers said in a call after the downgrade.

Moody’s assigned a negative outlook to its rating of U.S. credit on Aug. 2. Analysts there said they were uncertain how much the congressional committee will be able to agree on cutting spending.

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