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New Jobless Claims Rise, but Hiring Shows Gains

July 11, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The Labor Department said on Thursday that the less volatile four-week average increased 6,000, to 351,750.

The weekly applications data can be volatile in July because some automakers briefly close their factories to prepare for new models and many schools close. Those factors can create a temporary spike in layoffs.

The broader trend has been favorable. Applications have declined steadily in the last year, as companies have laid off fewer workers and stepped up hiring. In the last six months, employers have added an average of 202,000 jobs a month. That is up from an average of 180,000 in the previous six months.

Yelena Shulyatyeva, an economist at BNP Paribas, said the volatility would most likely continue for the rest of the month and “could mask the true underlying trend in jobless claims data.”

“We believe that labor market conditions remain on a gradually improving trajectory,” she added.

Employers added 195,000 jobs in June, and revisions showed that an additional 70,000 jobs were added in the previous two months. The unemployment rate was 7.6 percent, down from 8.2 percent a year earlier.

Applications fell in the April-June quarter to their lowest level since the recession began, according to calculations by Joseph LaVorgna, chief United States economist at Deutsche Bank. They averaged 346,000 a week in the second quarter. That is the lowest quarterly average since the final three months of 2007, when the recession began; it was then 338,000.

About 4.5 million people received unemployment benefits in the week ending June 22, the latest data available. That is about 50,000 fewer than the previous week and a reduction of 23 percent from a year ago, when there were nearly 5.9 million recipients. Some of those who no longer receive benefits have gotten jobs, but many have simply used up all the benefits available.

Another economic report released on Thursday found that export prices fell by 0.1 percent, matching the expectation in a Reuters poll. Import prices slipped 0.2 percent last month compared with expectations calling for unchanged import prices, signaling global economic growth may be cooling.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/12/business/economy/new-jobless-claims-rise-but-hiring-shows-gains.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Economy News Tagged With: , ,

LinkedIn’s Fourth Quarter Reinforces Its Strengths

February 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment

This is the seventh consecutive quarter since LinkedIn’s initial public offering in May 2011 that the company has pulled that off. The run of pleasant surprises is one of the reasons that LinkedIn’s stock has tripled from its I.P.O. price of $45. After LinkedIn reported its fourth-quarter results, its shares surged $11.36, or 9.15 percent, to $135.45 in after-hours trading.

Besides a 66 percent increase in earnings from the previous year, the latest quarter was highlighted by an influx of 15 million accounts to propel LinkedIn’s total membership beyond 200 million. Visitors to LinkedIn’s Web site also viewed 67 percent more pages than the previous year, an indication that the company’s efforts to add more business news and career tips from top business executives are paying off.

LinkedIn earned $11.5 million, or 10 cents a share, during the final three months of last year. That compared to $6.9 million, or 6 cents a share, a year earlier.

If not for the costs of employee stock compensation and certain other charges, LinkedIn said it would have earned 35 cents a share. That was far above the average estimates of 19 cents per share among analysts surveyed by FactSet.

Revenue soared 81 percent from the previous year to $304 million — about $24 million above analyst forecasts.

LinkedIn’s revenue outlook for the current quarter and all of 2013 were roughly in line with analyst estimates, setting the stage for the company to clear those financial hurdles once again.

Management’s forecast for annual revenue of $1.4 billion this year appears conservative, given that it would translate into an increase of about 45 percent from last year. In 2012, LinkedIn’s annual revenue rose 86 percent.

“We are trying to utilize a prudent approach to year-over-year growth,” Steve Sordello, LinkedIn’s chief financial officer, told analysts in a conference call.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/08/business/linkedins-fourth-quarter-reinforces-its-strengths.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business Tagged With: , ,

EBay Tops Forecasts on Holiday Sales

January 16, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The results were the best ever for eBay, an e-commerce pioneer founded in 1995.

Online shopping has since become a staple for hordes of consumers, turning eBay into a thriving business and a Wall Street favorite.

But the growing popularity of smartphones and tablet computers is once again changing the way many people shop. EBay is trying to remain at the forefront by retooling its online bazaar and popular payment service, PayPal, to work better with mobile devices.

The company, based in San Jose, Calif., says its mobile applications have been downloaded on more than 120 million devices, putting its services in easy reach of consumers even as they browse the aisle of brick-and-mortar stores.

“Mobile is quickly becoming the new normal, and we are leading this new way consumers shop and pay,” eBay’s chief executive, John Donahoe, told investors in a conference call on Wednesday. He predicted that PayPal and eBay’s marketplaces division, where most of eBay’s shopping activity occurs, will each process more than $20 billion in mobile transactions this year.

EBay does not keep all the revenue that passes through its services. PayPal charges merchants a fee to deliver payments from customers, and eBay collects fees for products listed and sold online.

The strides that eBay has made in the mobile market have impressed investors, helping propel its stock price to a 68 percent gain last year.

Its stock rose 40 cents, to $53.30 a share, after-hours trading Wednesday. The market’s reaction was tempered by a management forecast for the current quarter that was slightly below analysts’ expectations.

EBay earned $751 million, or 57 cents a share, during the final three months of last year. That is a 62 percent decrease from net income of $2 billion, or $1.51 a share, for the comparable period in 2011.

The 2011 numbers were inflated by a windfall from eBay’s $8.5 billion sale of the online calling service Skype to Microsoft.

If not for certain one-time items, eBay said it would have earned 70 cents a share. That figure was a penny above the average forecast among analysts surveyed by FactSet. The most recent quarter’s earnings were up 17 percent from 2011 on an adjusted basis.

Revenue rose 18 percent from the previous year to nearly $4 billion, in line with what analysts forecast.

As has been the case for some time, PayPal generated the greatest growth. Fourth-quarter revenue from the payment service totaled $1.54 billion, a 24 percent increase from the previous year.

PayPal, which eBay bought a decade ago, added five million users in the fourth quarter, its biggest three-month gain in eight years. The service now has about 123 million users, many of whom contributed to the roughly 700 million payments processed by PayPal in the fourth quarter.

EBay is now trying to extend PayPal’s reach offline. The company has already struck agreements with 23 retailers. Beginning this spring, PayPal will also be accepted at retailers that take the Discover card.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/business/ebay-tops-forecasts-on-holiday-sales.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: , ,

Home Resales and Midwest Factory Activity Increase

December 28, 2012 by Leave a Comment

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Contracts for home resales hit a two-and-a-half-year high in November and factory activity in the Midwest expanded this month, suggesting some economic strength despite the threat of tighter fiscal policy.

The National Association of Realtors said on Friday that its pending home sales index, based on contracts signed last month, increased 1.7 percent to 106.4, the highest level since April 2010, when the homebuyer tax credit expired.

November was the third consecutive month of gains for signed contracts, which become sales after a month or two. There was a 5 percent rise in October.

A separate report showed that the Institute for Supply Management’s Chicago business barometer rose to 51.6 in December, from 50.4 in November. A reading above 50 indicates expansion in the regional economy. It was the second consecutive month of growth and was driven by a rebound in new orders.

The data suggested that some of the growth momentum from the third quarter carried into the final three months of 2012, even as businesses and households braced for sharp cuts in government spending and higher taxes in the new year.

Data in the fourth quarter, including consumer spending, housing, employment and various manufacturing indicators, have been fairly upbeat so far.

“We don’t see much evidence that the economy was slowing as we headed into the end of the year, but everything could change on Jan. 1,” said John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics in New York.

There are fears that budget talks in Washington will fail to prevent $600 billion in government spending cuts and higher taxes, which could tip the economy back into recession.

“There is nothing here to suggest that the economy has enough momentum to withstand the shock if we go over the fiscal cliff with no quick return,” Mr. Ryding said. “The good news right now is it looks like we could have the mid-2s kind” of G.D.P. growth in the fourth quarter.

The economy grew at a 3.1 percent annual rate in the third quarter. The latest Reuters survey of economists put fourth-quarter G.D.P. growth at a 1.2 percent rate, with the decline a result mostly of Hurricane Sandy, which struck the East Coast in late October, and of cutbacks in business spending.

Though the employment gauge in the I.S.M.-Chicago survey fell to a three-year low in December, economists expect a rebound given the strength in new orders.

“The drop in employment reflects the weakness in new orders in November and, to a lesser degree, the fiscal cliff,” said Eric Green, an analyst at TD Securities in New York. “With the bounce-back in new orders, employment will also bounce back.”

The pending home sales report indicated a strengthening in the housing market recovery. Contracts were up 9.8 percent in the 12 months through November.

The housing market has turned a corner after the collapse that dragged the economy through its worst recession since the Great Depression.

Home sales and prices are rising, encouraging builders to pursue new construction projects. Home resale contracts were up in three of the country’s four regions, and steady in the South.

“The housing revival seems to be happening in a way that puts some positive feedback loop, a virtuous cycle, into the economy,” said Jerry Webman, chief economist at OppenheimerFunds.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/29/business/economy/existing-home-sales-increase.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Economy News Tagged With: , ,

Bucks Blog: Late Credit Card Payments Low and Expected to Stay There

December 13, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Credit card delinquencies are likely to remain low, even as riskier consumers open more card accounts, according to an annual forecast from TransUnion, a consumer credit reporting company.

Meanwhile, the mortgage delinquency rate is expected to fall to 5.06 percent by the end of next year, from an estimated 5.32 percent at the end of this year. (The delinquency rate is the ratio of borrowers who are at least 60 days past due on their payments. The mortgage delinquency rate peaked at the end of 2009 at 6.89 percent.)

Mortgage delinquency rates, considered a precursor to foreclosure, will fall in 34 states and the District of Columbia, TransUnion predicted.

While delinquency rates are moving in the right direction, they are dropping slowly and remain well above the historic “normal” rate of roughly 2 percent. The slow pace of improvement seems to be tied to a generally slow foreclosure process for mortgage holders who have been delinquent for a long time, said Steve Chaouki, group vice president in TransUnion’s financial services unit. The company’s analysis suggests that the delinquency rate would fall to about 2.5 percent — near normal — if borrowers who haven’t made a mortgage payment in over a year are excluded from the calculation.

The outlook remains good for credit cards, he said. Credit card delinquency rates — the ratio of borrowers who are at least 90 days behind on one or more cards — are expected to remain low, even though they may rise to 0.87 percent at the end of next year from 0.83 percent now. That’s still remarkably low. From 2000 to 2011, the rate has averaged 1.24 percent in the final three months of the year.

Mr. Chaouki said consumers are taking care to keep their credit cards current even if they are behind on their housing payments, because they have come to rely on cards as a means of liquidity in a slow economy.

Card delinquencies have moved somewhat higher in the last year, in part, he said, because the number of new cards issued has been increasing, and nonprime borrowers make up a larger share of new account holders.

Data from TransUnion shows the share of nonprime cards being issued was 29.55 percent in the second quarter of this year, compared with 23.86 percent two years earlier.

The average credit card debt per borrower is expected to rise in the next year to $5,446 at the end of 2013 from $4,996 currently. That would be the highest credit card debt level since early 2009, when average debt per borrower was $5,776.

How are you handling credit card and mortgage debt these days?

Article source: http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/late-credit-card-payments-low-and-expected-to-stay-there/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Your Money Tagged With: , ,