Swiss Reinsurance Co. estimates its claims resulting from the eartquake in Japan will reach $1.2 billion net.
Swiss Re said Monday that the scale of destruction means it will take longer than usual to assess the damage caused to residential and commercial property.
Spokesman Rolf Tanner noted that damage to nuclear facilities and as a result of radiation contamination isn’t covered by insurance policies.
Workers at the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant are struggling to contain radiation after the cooling system was knocked out by the tsunami that followed the quake.
Zurich-based Swiss Re says it has donated $500,000 to the relief and reconstruction effort in Japan.
Asian markets posted solid gains Friday, and the yen retreated from historic highs, after the world’s seven major industrial nations agreed to intervene in currency markets to help earthquake-stricken Japan.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 in Tokyo rose 3.2 percent, or 285.81 points, to 9,248.48, capping a turbulent week that saw stocks lose 16 percent on Monday and Tuesday _ the first two trading days after Japan was struck by a mammoth earthquake and towering tsunami that wiped out much of its industrial northeast.
Other major Asian indexes also opened higher after mostly dour trading the day before. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 0.8 percent to 22,451.29. South Korea’s Kospi was up 1.4 percent to 1,985.91.
Finance officials from the G-7 said they had agreed on coordinated currency intervention to support Japan’s economy following a devastating earthquake. It would mark the first time the G-7 countries have jointly intervened in currency markets since the fall of 2000.
The Japanese government said it would intervene in the Tokyo market once morning trading opened, but the Finance Ministry declined later to confirm whether that happened. Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda said the planned intervention was meant to calm “volatility” and the G-7 governments were not aiming at a specific exchange rate for the yen.
A stronger yen hurts Japan’s powerhouse export sector _ potentially dealing another problem to an economy already wracked by the biggest earthquake in its history on March 11, which crippled nuclear reactors that are still leaking radiation.
The G-7 pledge adds to a flurry of moves by Japan to calm roiled financial markets. The Bank of Japan injected an additional 6 trillion yen ($76.7 billion) in same-day funds Thursday that banks could access immediately. From Monday to Wednesday, the central bank’s emergency funding totaled 55 Business Card Holders.6 trillion yen ($688.3 billion).
In Asia on Friday, the dollar had risen to 81.80 yen after the intervention announcement. It had traded at 78.97 yen Thursday afternoon after earlier hitting 76.53 yen _ an all time low for the dollar and a record high for the yen.
The yen’s strength in the wake of the disaster has been attributed to investors expecting the Japanese to repatriate funds from overseas to pay reconstruction costs _ or in the case of insurance companies, to pay claims for the massive loss of property and life. But analysts also said they believed currency speculators had contributed to the yen’s rise.
In New York on Thursday, stocks rose broadly on signs that the U.S. economy is improving.
A gauge of manufacturing in the mid-Atlantic region jumped in February to the highest point since January 1984. The survey from the Federal Reserve’s Philadelphia branch showed new orders soared. Production at U.S. factories, mines and utilities dipped last month but was higher in previous months than first estimated, according to the Federal Reserve.
The Labor Department reported that the number of people applying for unemployment benefits fell more than economists expected last week. Ongoing claims dropped to the lowest level since October 2008.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 rose 16.84, or 1.3 percent, to 1,273.72. The Dow gained 161.29 points, or 1.4 percent, to 11,774.59. The Nasdaq rose 19.23, or 0.7 percent, to 2,636.05. The technology-heavy index is down 0.6 percent for the year.
Benchmark crude for April delivery was up $1.61 at $103.03 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
MEMC Electronic Materials Inc., the maker of silicon wafers for semiconductors and solar panels, surged 11 percent Monday on speculation that Japanese supply disruptions will drive up demand for its products.
Japan, devastated by a magnitude 8.9 earthquake last week, accounts for more than 50 percent of the world’s supply of the wafers, the building block of the chip and solar industries, according to a report by Barclays Capital. While MEMC, based in O’Fallon, Mo., has some operations in Japan, it also has facilities in the U.S., Europe and other parts of Asia, insulating it from the disaster.
Supply disruptions will increase prices for silicon wafers and squeeze chipmakers, which may have to raise their own prices if they want to preserve profitability, according to Barclays.
MEMC rose $1.35 to $13.37 at 4 p.m. on the New York Stock Exchange, the biggest one-day gain in almost six weeks. Shares of the company have climbed 19 percent this year.
Barclays also raised concern that makers of smartphones and their components will be harmed by shortages of capacitors made in Japan. If phone production slows, it may hurt Qualcomm Inc. and Broadcom Corp., which make chips for the devices, said Tim Luke, a Barclays analyst in New York.
Japan also is home to Toshiba Corp., which accounts for about 30 percent of the world’s output of so-called Nand flash-memory chips, according to the Barclays report. Nand handles storage for Apple Inc.’s iPhone, iPad and other mobile devices.
Disruptions in those supplies may benefit Micron Technology Inc. of Boise, Idaho, Luke said in the report.
On Friday, SanDisk Corp., which has a joint venture with Toshiba, said the earthquake in Japan caused a temporary halt to production in its two Japanese plants. The factories were “down for a short period” and are now operational again, the company said.
China’s government will target 8 percent economic growth this year and “decisively” curb increases in prices that may threaten social stability, Premier Wen Jiabao said in his state-of-the-nation report.
“We cannot allow price rises to affect the normal lives of low-income people,” Wen said in a report to the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress in Beijing today. He confirmed a goal of holding inflation to 4 percent for the full year.
Wen, 68, needs to tame inflation, boost incomes and narrow the gap between rich and poor to maintain social stability and strengthen support for the Communist Party’s 61-year rule. In the past two weekends, the government has deployed hundreds of police in Beijing and Shanghai after Internet calls for so- called Jasmine protests, inspired by revolts in the Middle East and North Africa.
“The top concerns for the public are issues such as inflation, property prices, and income distribution,” Chang Jian, a Hong Kong-based economist with Barclays Capital, said before today’s meeting. “Corruption is also on the list.”
The budget deficit may be 900 billion yuan ($137 billion), or 2 percent of gross domestic product, Wen said. He confirmed that the nation is maintaining a “proactive” fiscal policy and a “prudent” monetary policy.
Top Priority
“Inflation expectations have increased” and controlling price is the top economic priority, Wen said. The government will manage liquidity, ensure agricultural production and use price controls when needed, he added.
The premier had already disclosed an annual growth target of 7 percent for the nation’s five-year plan, running from 2011 to 2015, down from the previous 7.5 percent. The goals are routinely surpassed, with China’s economy expanding an average 11 percent over the past five years, adding jobs and boosting incomes.
The premier will read his report to more than 4,000 delegates gathered at the Great Hall of the People, alongside Tiananmen Square, for a meeting first held in 1954 to approve government policies. Members of the congress include Zong Qinghou, the billionaire chairman of Hangzhou Wahaha Group and China’s richest man.
Bubble Risks
The world’s second-biggest economy faces heightened inflation and asset-bubble risks and banks may be saddled with more bad loans after a record expansion in credit drove China’s recovery from the financial crisis. Consumer prices rose an annual 4.9 percent in January and food prices jumped, even after the central bank increased interest rates and banks’ reserve requirements payday loans in one hour.
“The main challenge for controlling inflation is the property price bubble stemming from overly loose monetary conditions relative to asset prices,” economists led by Peng Wensheng at China International Capital Corp. Ltd. said in a March 2 report.
Besides tackling price pressures, the government aims to cut dependence on exports and investment and boost consumer spending, a shift that could help to ease global economic imbalances blamed for the financial crisis.
Wealth Gap
“Expanding domestic demand is a long-term strategic principle,” Wen said in the report. Methods for boosting consumer spending will include subsidies for urban low-income earners and farmers and continued incentives for rural purchases of home appliances, he said. The government will also encourage private investment.
A stronger Chinese currency would also boost consumption, the U.S. government says. Another step may be raising the threshold for income tax from 2,000 yuan per month, a plan already approved by the State Council.
On Feb. 27, Wen pledged to punish abuse of power by officials and narrow the wealth gap, comments that coincided with public security operations in Beijing and Shanghai to prevent protests after an open letter called for “jasmine” rallies, named after the January uprising in Tunisia that overthrew President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
China’s Gini coefficient, an income-distribution gauge used by economists, has climbed to near 0.5 from less than 0.3 a quarter century ago, according to Li Shi, professor of economics, School of Economics and Business at Beijing Normal University. University. The measure ranges from 0 to 1, and the 0.4 mark is used as a predictor by analysts for social unrest.
The wealth gap is at levels not seen outside of Africa, Credit Suisse Group AG said in an August report. The average full-year income in the countryside last year was 5,919 yuan ($900), according to the statistics bureau.
“The new five-year plan will be more about quality of growth,” Kevin Lai, a Hong Kong-based economist at Daiwa Capital Markets, said before today’s report. “The government is going to pay more attention to sustainable growth, environment, better distribution of income, rather than pure GDP pursuit.”
–Zhang Dingmin, Zheng Lifei, Michael Forsythe, Sophie Leung, Kevin Hamlin. Editors: Paul Panckhurst, Nerys Avery.
President Barack Obama says he doesn’t take it personally when people say they hate him. And the thing he dislikes most about being president is the constant, intense scrutiny.
“The people who dislike you don’t know you. The folks who hate you, they don’t know you,” Obama said Sunday in an interview broadcast during Fox’s pre-game coverage of the Super Bowl. “What they hate is whatever funhouse mirror image of you that’s out there. They don’t know you.”
Asked by Fox News Channel host Bill O’Reilly whether his critics annoyed him, Obama said: “By the time you get here, you have to have had a pretty thick skin. If you didn’t, then you probably wouldn’t have gotten here.”
The 14-minute, live interview sought Obama’s views on a range of timely matters, including the unrest in Egypt and the ultimate fate of the new health care law. O’Reilly also probed Obama on lighter topics, including which team would win the NFL championship game and the worst part of his job.
Obama lamented anew about “being in the bubble.” He is followed practically everywhere by staff, Secret Service agents and the media.
“It’s very hard to escape,” said Obama, seated in the Blue Room of the White House. “Every move you make . and over time, you know, what happens is is that you feel like you’re not able to just have a spontaneous conversation with folks. And that’s a loss. That’s a big loss.”
Asked what surprised him after he took office, Obama said it’s that he’s never asked to solve an easy problem.
“I think that the thing you understand intellectually but that you don’t understand in your gut until you’re in the job . is that every decision that comes to my desk is something that nobody else has been able to solve,” he said. “The easy stuff gets solved somewhere by somebody else. By the time it gets to me, you don’t have easy answers.”
Obama said he has to use his best judgment knowing that “you don’t have perfect information and you know that you’re not going to have a perfect solution.”
A liberal, Obama denied that he’s begun a shift to the political middle following the “shellacking” Democrats suffered in the November elections _ the party lost control of the House and has a slimmer majority in the Senate _ and as he lays the groundwork for an expected campaign for re-election in 2012.
“I’m the same guy,” Obama said. “And my practical focus, my common-sense focus is how do we out-innovate, out-educate, out-build and out-compete the rest of the world? How do we create jobs here in the United States of America? How do we make sure that businesses are thriving . but how do we also make sure ordinary Americans can live out the American dream because right now they don’t feel like they are?”
O’Reilly asked Obama three times whether the job had changed him before he acknowledged that it had. Obama said his hair is grayer and that “I’m basically the same guy as when I came in” to office. O’Reilly then said that some of Obama’s friends have said Obama is not as light or spontaneous as he once was, to which Obama agreed.
“I would say that’s probably true. There’s no doubt that the weight of this office has an impact,” he said.
As for the game, Obama declined to choose between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers poor credit personal loans.
“Here’s the thing, once my (Chicago) Bears lost, I don’t pick sides,” he said. Green Bay defeated the Bears to get to the Super Bowl.
But he and his wife, Michelle, were throwing a party and Obama, an avid basketball player, said he’d be watching.
“I know football and I will watch the game. What happens is I schmooze with everybody when they come, give them a little bit of time. But once the game starts they can just sit down and watch the game. I’ll be sitting there with them but I don’t want them coming up and chitting and chatting.”
About 100 people were expected, including celebrities Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez, the husband-and-wife part-owners of the Miami Dolphins. Elected officials from Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were also invited, including Pennsylvania Sens. Robert Casey, a Democrat, and Pat Toomey, a Republican, and Wisconsin Rep. Reid Ribble, a Republican who represents Green Bay.
The menu featured beer from each state: Hinterland Pale Ale and Amber Ale from Wisconsin, and Yuengling Lager and Light, brewed in Pennsylvania, along with plenty of calorie-laden football fare: bratwurst, kielbasa, cheeseburgers, deep-dish pizza, Buffalo wings, potato salad, chips and dips, salad and ice cream, according to the White House.
Asked about the crisis in Egypt, Obama said the country has been forever changed by the huge pro-democracy protests that began Jan. 25. He also played down prospects that the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned political and religious group in Egypt with strains of anti-U.S. ideology, would take a major role in any new government.
On health care, Obama said a federal judge in Florida who recently struck down the entire law “was wrong.” That judge said the requirement that nearly everyone have health insurance is unconstitutional. A different judge who reached the same conclusion in a separate case voided only that requirement. Judges in two other cases upheld the law.
It’s generally accepted that the U.S. Supreme Court will have the final word. Obama gave an indirect answer to O’Reilly’s question about whether he’s prepared for the law to “go down.” Obama said only that he doesn’t want to spend the next two years “refighting the battles of the last two years.”
The Fox News Channel host, a frequent Obama critic who called him “Robin Hood Obama” in a September 2008 interview during the presidential campaign, opened Sunday’s meeting by thanking Obama and his administration for assisting two Fox reporters who’d gotten “roughed up” in Cairo.
“Those guys could have died and I just want everybody to know the State Department really saved them,” O’Reilly said.
The Obama administration has had a contentious relationship with Fox, with some officials accusing it of operating like a wing of the Republican Party.
But O’Reilly was not quite as combative Sunday.
“I enjoy talking to you,” O’Reilly said in closing. “I disagree with you sometimes. I hope you think I’m fair to you. I try to be, but I wish you well in the next two years.”
Our Fame & Fortune series continues with Toronto actor Allen Altman, 45, who followed his instincts in buying a first home, even though he thought he was spending too much.
How did your childhood influence your attitude toward money?
Both my parents worked very hard and growing up we were taught about heart and generosity. My parents were always the ones who helped neighbours or lent relatives money in time of need. I am thankful for this upbringing. It
Inmet Mining Corp. CEO Jochen Tilk says the proposed merger of Inmet and Lundin Mining Corp. will give the new company the scale it needs to develop its projects.
Tilk, who will head the merged company to be called Symterra Corp., said the combination would let the companies survive and become a major player in the copper business.
Brazil raised its tariffs on toy imports from China in a bid to help the South American country’s manufacturers hurt by a 37 percent gain in the real against the yuan over the past two years.
Duties on 14 types of toys ranging from dolls and puzzles to tricycles and electric train sets will be increased to 35 percent from 20 percent until the end of 2011, the Foreign Trade Chamber said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
The chamber said it was acting on a request from Brazilian toymakers to help them “fight” an increase in imports, 90 percent of which come from China. The higher tariffs will affect goods whose imports totaled $290 million between January and November of this year, according to trade ministry data.
China’s Ministry of Commerce didn’t respond to a faxed request for comment and telephone calls to a spokesman weren’t answered.
Brazilian imports of Chinese goods in the 12 months through August increased 37 percent to $21.4 billion, from $15 billion in all of 2009, according to a study published this month by Brazil’s state-development bank. The surge in Chinese imports, boosted by the yuan’s competitive exchange rate, threaten to displace domestic sales by Brazilian manufacturers and has “important implications” for the country’s industrial development, said the bank, known as BNDES.
The real’s 37 percent gain against the yuan over the past two years is the third-best performance among major currencies tracked by Bloomberg after the Australian dollar and South African rand. The 12-month non-deliverable forwards suggest traders are betting that the yuan will strengthen 2.2 percent in one year from its current spot value of 6.625 per U.S. dollar.
Toy sales in Brazil will reach 3 billion reais ($1.8 billion) this year, 49 percent of which will come from products made abroad, according to estimates by Brazil’s toymakers association. In 2009, imported toys accounted for 46.8 percent of 2.7 billion reais in sales, the group said.
The White House and key lawmakers in both parties cleared the way Thursday night for swift Senate action to avert a Jan. 1 spike in income taxes for most Americans, agreeing to renew expiring breaks for ethanol and other forms of alternative energy.
Tax provisions aimed at increasing production of hybrid automobiles, biodiesel fuel, energy-efficient homes, coal and energy-efficient household appliances would be extended through the end of 2011 under the bill, according to a summary that circulated in Congress.
Officials said debate could begin on the measure within hours. There was no timetable for a final vote, but the decision to expand the scope of the original bill capped days of secret negotiations aimed at increasing support.
The events unfolded as the White House predicted that the deal President Barack Obama struck with top Republicans would clear by year’s end _ even though House Democrats voted Thursday not to allow it to reach the floor without changes to scale back tax relief for the rich.
“If it’s take it or leave it, we’ll leave it,” said Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, after a closed-door meeting in which rank-and-file Democrats chanted, “Just say no.”
“The deal will get passed,” said presidential press secretary Robert Gibbs. There were no predictions to the contrary among senior Democrats on either side of the Capitol.
Houston employers will remain cautious when considering new hires through the end of the year, according to a survey released Tuesday.
Eighteen percent of employers in the Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown region will increase staff levels during the fourth quarter, while 9 percent will reduce payrolls, according to the quarterly Manpower Employment Outlook Survey.
The bulk of employers, some 71 percent, will maintain current headcounts.
Although Houston-area employers are less optimistic than during the third quarter, they are much more positive than a year ago. In the fourth quarter of 2009, only 11 percent of Houston employers expected to add staff, while 10 percent planned job cuts.
The Houston outlook for the fourth quarter is marginally less positive than the state as a whole. Nineteen percent of Texas companies plan to increase staff while nine percent expect to trim headcounts.
The top three sectors expecting job growth in the region during the fourth quarter include nondurable goods manufacturing, transportation and utilities and the financial sector. Construction and wholesale and retail trade employers expect job cuts.
Nationwide, 15 percent of employers will increase staff while 11 percent will cut jobs in the fourth quarter, the survey reported. The survey involved 18,000 U.S. employers.
Powered by WordPress -- XHTML 1.0