Money world

WASHINGTON • U.S. builders began work on more homes last month, evidence that the battered housing market is slowly healing.

The Commerce Department said today that builders broke ground at a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 717,000 homes in April from March. That’s 2.6 percent more than March’s total, which was revised higher. Construction rose for both single-family homes and apartments.

Building permits, a gauge of future construction, fell last month from a 3 ½ year high to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 715,000. But that was because of a 23 percent drop in the volatile apartment category. Permits for single-family homes rose almost 2 percent.

Even with the gains, the rate of construction and the level of permits requested remain roughly half the pace considered healthy. But the increase, along with rising builder confidence and stronger job growth, is a hopeful sign that the home market may finally be starting to recover nearly five years after the housing bubble burst.

Builders have grown more confident since last fall, in part because more people have expressed interest in buying a home. In May, builder optimism rose to the highest level in five years, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo builder sentiment index.

Homebuilders reported improving sales and higher traffic from prospective buyers, the survey showed. A gauge measuring confidence in sales over the next six months also rose to 34 from 31 guaranteed high risk personal loans.

Recent job gains have likely made it easier for more Americans to purchase a home. Employers have added 1 million jobs in the past five months. And unemployment has dropped a full percentage point since August, from 9.1 percent to 8.1 percent in April.

Mortgage rates, meanwhile, have fallen to record lows, making home-buying more affordable. Still, many would-be buyers are having difficulty qualifying for home loans or can’t afford larger down payments required by banks.

Though new homes represent just 20 percent of the overall home market, they have an outsize impact on the economy. Each home built creates an average of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in taxes, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

There are some hurdles to a smooth recovery: Builders are struggling to compete with deeply discounted foreclosures and short sales — when lenders allow homes to be sold for less than what’s owed on the mortgage.

Another reason sales have fallen is that previously occupied homes have become a better deal than new homes. The median price of a new home is about 30 percent higher than the median price for a re-sale. That’s nearly twice the markup typical in a healthy housing market.

Source

Apply today for no-hassle payday loans and cash advance no faxing. Get the money you need faster than the speed of sound. No credit checks. Fast Approval.

Google’s self-driving car got its license this week as the state of Nevada became the first in the nation to license the company’s vehicles.

And while a computer-driven car may seem unsettling, the technology represents a potential leap forward in auto safety.

More than 30,000 people are killed each year in crashes despite huge advances in auto safety. The overwhelming majority of those crashes are caused by human-driver error.

Computer driven cars could reduce traffic deaths by a very significant degree, said David Champion, head of auto testing at Consumer Reports, but only if all cars are computer-driven.

"I think if all the cars were self-driving, it would be a benefit," he said. "I think a mixture would be a bit chaotic."

That’s because humans are better at predicting the behavior of other humans than computers could ever be, he said.

"When I’m approaching an intersection, I look to see of the other driver is looking at me," said Champion. "If he’s looking somewhere else and inching forward, I’m going to lift off the gas."

For the foreseeable future, human "drivers" will continue to bear the ultimate responsibility even in Google’ (, Fortune 500)s self-driving cars. This means you won’t be able to lounge in the back seat and check email on your way to work. You’ll still have to sit in the driver’s seat and pay attention.

Self-driving cars, like Google’s, use sensors to watch cars, pedestrians and other obstacles. They combine a number of technologies that are already available on cars today — including GPS tracking, wheel motion sensors and radar — with additional technology and sophisticated software that allow the car to read street signs and signals and actually drive itself through traffic.

Google’s cars, modified Toyota Priuses, are still in the testing stages and aren’t available to the public. But some so-called "driver assistance" technologies are already helping to lower traffic deaths in cars you can buy now.

Electronic Stability Control which uses computers to help drivers maintain control during abrupt maneuvers, has been shown to reduce fatal crashes by as much as a third.

Cars of the future: They’re going to be tiny and weird

ESC is now required on all new cars but was first used, on a wide scale, on SUVs. That’s why, last year, statistics showed top-heavy SUVs to be less prone to roll over in real-world crashes than regular cars.

Beyond that, there are various other "driver assistance" technologies.

Blind spot alerts warn drivers of cars in adjacent lanes and forward collision alerts sound an alarm when a driver is closing in too quickly on a car ahead payday loans in one hour.

"We’ll start seeing more features that will migrate from just these alerts and warnings to taking a little more control," said John Capp, director of active safety technology at General Motors (, Fortune 500).

GM’s new Cadillac XTS, for instance, will brake automatically if a driver fails to respond to an imminent collision. Nissan’s () Infiniti division has a several models that provide slight braking to nudge a vehicle back into its lane if it begins to drift out.

Many luxury cars are now also available with "active cruise control" that allows a car driving at highway cruising speeds to automatically maintain a safe following distance behind the car ahead. In some models, these systems can work even in stop-and-go city traffic.

Systems like these could be helpful, said Champion, but also present the possibility of over-reliance or abuse.

"It all comes down to the person behind the wheel using the system," he said.

Sometimes these systems can cause confusion. For instance, some reports of unintended acceleration in Toyota cars were triggered by drivers failing to understand how an "active cruise control" system worked.

With these systems, drivers set the active cruise control to a certain speed. If there’s a slower car ahead, the cruise control will automatically slow the vehicle down to maintain a safe distance between the two cars. Once the slower car moves away, active cruise control will accelerate to the higher preset speed. This acceleration can be startling to drivers unfamiliar with the system.

There is at least some evidence, however, that "driver assistance technologies" do work. A recent study by the Highway Loss Data Institute, an insurance industry group, indicated that the forward collision avoidance system in the Volvo XC60 helped reduced accident claims by 27%. Volvo’s system warns the driver of an impending collision and applies the brakes if the driver takes no action.

One technology the Google car doesn’t utilize, but which would help make self-driving cars much more effective, Champion said, is vehicle-to-vehicle communication. So called V2V communication uses transmitters to send and receive signals that tell other cars where each car is, where it’s headed and how fast it’s moving. The devices can also communicate with transmitters along the road.

V2V is already in advanced stages of development by a consortium of automakers and the federal government’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. 

Source

As with fast payday loans, this recently used to be the case, but competitive lenders and higher demand has taken this loan type to mainstay levels.

Stocks opened lower on Wall Street Monday on news that Spain’s economy entered another recession.

The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 34 points to 13,193 in the first half-hour of trading. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell eight points to 1,395 and the Nasdaq composite fell 21 points to 3,048.

Stocks were also being held back by a report from the Commerce Department that consumer spending growth slowed in the U.S. last month. That added to worries that the U.S. economy recovery is slowing down.

The losses were broad. Nine of the ten industry groups in the S&P 500 fell, led by materials. Only health care stocks rose. The dollar rose against the euro and the prices of U.S. Treasury bonds increased as investors parked money in low-risk assets.

European markets were mainly lower over growing concerns about Spain. Stocks were off nearly 1.3 percent in Spain and France.

The Spanish government said that country’s economy shrank 0.3 percent in the first three months of the year, the second straight three-month period of contraction. It’s the second time in three years that Spain has been in a recession.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded Spain’s government debt to just three notches above junk Friday. On Monday S&P lowered its rating for 11 Spanish banks, which are loaded with bad debt from a collapsed housing market. Spain is the fourth-largest economy among the 17 countries that use the euro online payday advance. Investors worry that Europe’s bailout funds won’t be big enough to rescue Spain if it needs help.

Stocks to watch include Barnes & Noble, which is teaming up with Microsoft to create a unit to house the digital and college businesses of the bookseller and include a Nook application for Windows 8. The companies said they may separate those businesses entirely. That could mean a stock offering, sale, or some other kind of deal.

Barnes & Noble jumped 62 percent to $22.26 in early trading. Microsoft was flat.

Health insurer Humana fell 6 percent to $82.44 after reporting a 21 percent drop in first-quarter profit as the company paid out more in claims, falling short of Wall Street expectations.

NYSE Euronext, owner of the New York Stock Exchange, fell 4 percent to $25.95 after reporting that its income plunged 44 percent in the first three months of the because of weaker trading business and the collapse of its proposed merger with the European exchange operator Deutsche Boerse.

Sunoco jumped 21 percent to $49.30, the most of any stock in the S&P 500, on news that the company agreed to be bought by Energy Transfer Partners, a natural gas pipeline company, for $5.3 billion.

Source

Egypt is facing daunting challenges, a leading candidate for president said Sunday, presenting his decades as a senior government official as a prime reason to vote for him and not an Islamist.

Amr Moussa said Egypt is going through an economic and social crisis that requires the talents of an experienced statesman, not a president who learns on the job.

Egyptians pick a new president to replace deposed Hosni Mubarak in a process that begins May 23-24. It is unclear how much power the new president will have, as the process for writing a new constitution is snagged over disagreements about makeup of the body that will write the new document.

Moussa served as Egypt’s foreign minister under Mubarak and in 2001 moved over to head the Arab League. He resigned that post last year to run for president.

At a news conference Sunday in Cairo, he disagreed with the goals of Islamist parties, which have won clear majorities in parliamentary elections running on a platform of Islamic principles.

“I believe that Egypt has been injured, Egypt has been mismanaged and that Egypt should not get into an experiment that has not been tried before,” he said when asked about his top Islamist opponent, a member of Egypt’s powerful Muslim Brotherhood.

Such an experiment, he said, could enter Egypt “into a period of confusion.”

Critics charge that Moussa’s record as a top official under Mubarak could mean his election would mark a return to the ways of the former regime, characterized by corruption, inefficiency and nepotism.

Egypt’s economy has been hard hit in the aftermath of the popular uprising. Tourism and investment rates have plummeted, foreign currency reserves have dipped dangerously and the national budget reels under the burden of heavy subsidies on fuel and basic food products.

Thirteen candidates are running to replace Mubarak. Since he resigned after a popular uprising, Egypt’s military has been running the country.

Facing Moussa are candidates from the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist factions, as well as another Mubarak-era official, Ahmed Shafiq, his last prime minister instant personal loans guaranteed.

In a last minute decision, the Brotherhood decided to field a candidate in the race, after it had promised it would not. This led many to accuse the Brotherhood of being power hungry, aiming to lead Egypt toward into a religion-based system of government. The Brotherhood says it would have Islam as its reference for governing.

The group’s candidate, Mohamed Morsi, said Saturday if he wins, he will be president of all Egyptians, but it is now time to put into practice the group’s slogan, “Islam is the solution.”

The Brotherhood’s main candidate was among 10 disqualified this month by Egypt’s election commission, along with another leading Islamist and Mubarak’s former intelligence chief, boosting Moussa’s chances. Morsi replaced the group’s first choice.

Moussa pointed to his credentials as a longtime government official with deep knowledge of the system.

“I believe I can start from minute one as president with my knowledge of the government, the administration, the management and also the connection with the world and the Arab world and the African world, and Europe,” he said. “The country is in a major crisis. A major crisis doesn’t justify at all a president who will ask around, what should I do at this point or that point and gaining experience as he goes.”

The Brotherhood was outlawed for decades before Mubarak was overthrown in February 2011, so its leaders have never held high office.

Moussa, 76, is popular among Egyptians who see in him a seasoned and outspoken diplomat, particularly voicing criticism of Israeli policies.

On the other hand, he has been harshly criticized in recent protest rallies for his association with the Mubarak regime, and many protesters say that he, like other former regime officials, should not be allowed to run in the first post-Mubarak elections.

Source

The Bank of England

The sweet deal at Crestwood Court, with dirt-cheap rents and all the space you could want, may have come to an end.

But now many of the mall’s little birdies are spreading their wings. A number of the mom-and-pop shops who used the mall’s three-year-long ArtSpace experiment as a business incubator have started moving into other spaces around town.

Bryan Laughlin Jr., who runs The Option B Designery, just signed a lease to move into a building about a mile south of the St. Louis Galleria on Brentwood Boulevard. He ended up finding a generous landlord there, too.

“It’s kind of a blessing in disguise, because we’re in a situation where we’re not paying much more for a prime spot in Brentwood as opposed to paying less for a bigger space in basically a ghost town,” he said.

But he’s not complaining about his year in Crestwood Court.

While the mall didn’t get a lot of traffic, it did give he and his brother a chance to bring in more sales and run a showroom for their business, which previously operated solely online. They sell antiques, art and fashion from the Victorian Era to Yves Saint Laurent and also restore furniture with their father.

“Since we ran it ourselves, we made quite a bit of money last year to help set us up for the future of our business,” he added.

Jennifer Klayman and her mother, Lois, are also happy with their new digs on the Delmar Loop. The duo moved Re-Designz, an eclectic vintage and retro goods store, to a storefront next to the Tivoli last month.

Like many ArtSpace tenants, they had to move out of Crestwood Court by the end of February to make way for still somewhat mysterious redevelopment plans for the mall.

“Crestwood was a good foundation to get our product known and our name known – to get some recognition – so when we moved we did have a following,” she said.

The rent is higher on the Loop – and the space is about half the size – but Klayman says she gets a lot more foot traffic coming by. And, she added, the smaller quarters has forced her to edit down the selection.

“That’s good, because it makes me pick and choose pieces more carefully,” she said.

Denise Krekeler has actually upgraded to a bigger space after leaving the mall paydayloan. She and her husband moved their store, Yeti Gaming, into a 4,000-square foot space last week. They wanted to stay in the area, near their customer base, so they just moved down the street from the mall to 361 Watson Plaza.

They had quickly outgrown the 1,200-square foot space they had in the mall. Kids often spilled out into the mall’s corridors as they played in the store’s Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! tournaments.

So she was ready to move on around the same time the mall announced that tenants had to move out. Still, she was sad to say goodbye to the community that had formed in her corner of the mall with a nearby science fiction lounge and an anime store.

“We all became friends,” she said. “So that was kind of hard to leave. But it was a wonderful experience for a small business owner who wanted to try something who probably wouldn’t get a chance to do that in a regular strip mall.”

BIGGER BOXES

So last week I wrote about how big box stores are becoming smaller boxes. Then, of course, Menard Inc. had to come along and prove me wrong – or at least, give us an exception to the rule.

As you might have read this week, the Wisconsin-based home improvement retailer was chosen by the Richmond Heights city council to develop a two-story, 246,346 square foot store just east of Hanley Road. That doesn’t sound like a small – or even smaller – box at all.

The retailer has been bucking the trend and doubling the size of some of its stores. And the new ones it is building are obviously quite big.

Jeff Abbott, a Menards spokesman, didn’t respond to a question about the company’s strategy to build bigger stores. And he didn’t go into detail about the retailer’s attempts to open its first stores here.

In addition to the Richmond Heights location, the company is also seeking a zoning change to put in a store on Manchester Road in west St. Louis County.

“We’re working through approvals but have nothing official to report at this time,” Abbott wrote in an email.

Source

Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer said Israel shouldn

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York bought the building at 33 Maiden Lane for $207.5 million from Merit US Real Estate Fund III, LP, according to a statement on the district bank

Greek political leaders announced agreement on austerity measures, clearing the way for a deal to cut the nation

Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) –Indonesia may sustain its economic growth, Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan said, as