After relatively modest growth in the third quarter, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty says he's optimistic that Canada's economy will pick up the pace into next year.
Flaherty said Tuesday he believes the domestic economy will show more strength in the remainder of this year and into 2010, eclipsing the slow climb out of a recessionary environment that has characterized the recovery so far.
"We hope that we will have a continuation of growth at a greater pace in (the fourth quarter)," Flaherty said in Toronto at an announcement unveiling federal stimulus spending money to help renovate Maple Leaf Gardens.
"We are certainly more optimistic about economic growth in 2010."
Economists generally agree that Canada's economy is going to grow in the near term but that the climb will be sluggish in the coming months as the global economy struggles toward recovery.
"Over the next six months we're in a recovery phase," Warren Jestin, the chief economist at Bank of Nova Scotia (TSX: BNS), said in an interview after making a presentation at a Toronto economic conference on Tuesday.
He said inventory adjustments, particularly in the auto sector, will drive growth as companies ramp up production.
"Auto production is starting up and government projects are finally getting into the ground. In general, that will lead us into another phase that will tend to be one of probably sustained growth, but not as strong a growth as we used to think was normal," he said.
Jestin warned that developed countries could risk weakening again as stimulus packages start to run their course, and economies attempt to operate with waning government assistance. Many economists caution that the economy is still walking a knife's edge between recovery and another downturn.
Statistics Canada offered some cause for optimism about next year on Monday when it reported that Canada's real gross domestic product inched ahead in the third quarter at an annualized rate of 0.4 per cent, marking an end to the recession in this country.
However, a report released Tuesday by CIBC (TSX: CM) said that key metropolitan areas in Canada are still feeling the financial pinch.
CIBC, which compiles a metro monitor index, said that 10 of the country's top 25 urban areas showed negative growth in the third quarter.
"On a year-over-year basis, our index continued to trend downward," said Benjamin Tal, a senior economist at CIBC.
"More than two-thirds of Canadian GDP is generated in Canada's major cities. So the tale of those cities is the tale of the economy."
The report said nine of the 10 cities that experienced negative growth were in Ontario and Quebec, which have both been battered by years of weakness in the manufacturing and forestry sectors and hurt by lower demand for their products in the United States and a stronger loonie.
"Calgary and Edmonton, which until recently were the stars of our index, (are) losing ground rapidly and currently hardly above water in terms of overall economic momentum," Tal added.
Jestin said that long-term growth will be mild in Canada over the next couple years, near two-and-a-half per cent, while emerging economies like China and India will grow closer to a rate of seven to nine per cent. Jobs will also see a gradual pickup, Jestin said, with the country adding net new jobs in 2011.
But "they're going to be different jobs than in the past," he cautioned.
"Additional jobs created are probably going to be in areas that are small firms, medium-sized firms and very specialized in their markets. (They will be) less focused on the U.S., more focused on niche markets."
Jestin said the Canadian economy is running stronger than south of the border, though exporters are facing heavy headwinds, with sales volumes down 20 per cent in the summer over a year earlier.
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Opel’s top German labor leader said on Sunday he was willing to hold negotiations over a restructuring of the European carmaker under its parent General Motors so long as it gains greater independence.
Klaus Franz was shocked last week when GM’s board abruptly dropped plans to sell a 55 percent stake in Opel to auto parts maker Magna and its Russian bank partner Sberbank.
“GM does not enjoy any credibility or faith in the eyes of the public or the (German) government, so they have to consider whether they now want to seek confrontation or cooperation by finding a common solution,” Franz told Reuters on Sunday.
“To see whether they are interested in cooperation, we need to know whether they are willing to start off where we last stopped — namely, the degree of autonomy and freedom that was set in the contract with Magna and accepted by General Motors,” he said.
He said this was a clear condition for any talks. GM’s chief executive, Fritz Henderson, is due to travel to Opel’s headquarters in Ruesselsheim this week and is expected to discuss the decision with local management on Monday.
Following the sudden decision last week to drop the sale management scared unions by threatening Opel’s bankruptcy and its German boss Carl-Peter Forster left the company after attacking the board’s decision.
A newspaper report said on Sunday that Forster, a former BMW executive and son of a German diplomat who grew up in London, is now slated to take over as head of Indian group Tata Motors’ British carmaker Jaguar Land Rover.
Briton Nick Reilly, currently head of GM’s international operations, is now set to lead the reorganization of Opel, a person briefed on the plan told Reuters on Friday, with GM’s global marketing chief Bob Lutz to be Opel’s new chairman.
Lutz was quoted as saying on Sunday that GM would probably stick to a plan to slash fixed costs at Opel by nearly a third. “The restructuring plan developed at the end of last year is still the basis for a profitable business model. The plan foresees a 30 percent cut in structural costs,” he told Swiss newspaper Sonntag.
Meanwhile Magna’s top European executive, Siegfried Wolf, advised GM to give more freedom to Opel and tread carefully with regard to the brand.
“GM must now smooth things out and win back trust. That requires a lot of sensitivity and tact,” he was quoted as telling German newspaper Bild am Sonntag.
(Reporting by Christiaan Hetzner, additional reporting by Emma Thomasson in Zurich; Editing by Greg Mahlich)
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Oil edged off a peak just above $80 a barrel on Tuesday as investors an eight-day rally cooled.
U.S. crude for November delivery fell down 52 cents and settled at $79.09 a barrel, after reaching $80.05 earlier in the session.
Oil has ended higher for the past eight days, but analysts have questioned whether the recent rally is justified as crude market fundamentals remain weak. Supply has climbed steadily in recent months, while demand remains unclear pending a broader economic recovery.
Additionally, investors were looking ahead to an inventory report from the Energy Information Administration on Wednesday. Research group Platts predicted crude supplies increased by 2.2 million barrels last week.
Stocks tumbled in midday trading after DuPont (DD, Fortune 500) and Coca-Cola (KO, Fortune 500) reported weaker revenue that missed forecasts 24 hour payday loan. Crude prices have tended to move in tandem with the stock market lately, because it is considered a barometer for the overall economy and a gauge for when oil demand will recover.
The currency market also pressured oil prices, as the dollar reversed direction to gain versus the euro and the yen. A firmer greenback tends to sink crude because oil is priced in dollars around the world.
According to Reuters, OPEC Secretary-General Abdullah al-Badri said on Tuesday that oil prices at $80 a barrel were "a bit high."
Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling will be given a hearing before the Supreme Court in his effort to overturn his 2006 convictions on securities fraud and other charges.
The justices accepted his appeal and will hold oral arguments early next year over the culpability of Skilling’s corporate duties.
Skilling’s attorney, Daniel Petrocelli, said "pervasive media coverage" prevented his client from receiving a fair trial from a Houston, Texas, jury.
Skilling, 55, is currently in federal prison. He was convicted of 19 counts of fraud, conspiracy, and insider trading relating to the collapse of the Texas-based energy services giant in late 2001.
He had been a longtime executive at what became the world’s largest wholesaler of gas and electricity, with $27 billion traded in a single quarter at Enron’s height. Skilling was named CEO in February 2001, but resigned under pressure six months later as the company began to collapse financially. Thousands of investors and company employees lost their savings and their jobs in a case that became emblematic of corporate corruption cases during the past decade.
Skilling and Enron’s top executive, Kenneth Lay, were accused of spearheading a massive campaign to mislead investors and shareholders with an aggressive investment strategy aimed at suppressing the company’s shaky financial footing.
Both men were convicted in May 2006. Skilling was sentenced to more than 24 years in prison and fined $45 million. Lay died in July 2006 before being sentenced. Skilling’s conviction was upheld by a federal appeals court.
Skilling’s attorney claims all 19 convictions should be overturned because Skilling was improperly convicted of withholding his "honest services" from Enron’s shareholders, a violation of federal law dealing with fiduciary responsibilities. Petrocelli said the government never proved his client’s conduct was designed to achieve "private gain," as the law required, as opposed to advancing the company’s interests. He also said the "honest services" requirement is too vague.
"The government did not contend, and the record did not suggest in any way, that Skilling intended to put his own interests ahead of Enron’s," the appeal noted.
And Petrocelli claimed, "The widespread, persistent, and scathing demonization of Skilling by the Houston media far exceeded the editorial commentary" allowed by the high court in similar cases, said the appeal. Questionnaires submitted by potential jurors "confirmed the breadth and intensity of the hostility toward Skilling."
There was no immediate reaction from the Justice Department, which had told the court Skilling’s claims were all without merit, and urged the justices to let the conviction and sentence stand.
Petrocelli, a Los Angeles, California-based trial attorney, told CNN in May when the appeal was filed that questions raised by this case had current relevance, given the ongoing financial meltdown. "The issues presented in this appeal cry out for resolution by the Supreme Court," he said.
The case is Skilling v. U.S. (08-1394).
Wall Street’s job woes don’t appear to be over just yet.
At this time a year ago, layoffs were rampant at big investment banks and other securities firms. Companies were scrambling to exit some of the businesses that delivered massive profits in prior years but became big problems once the credit markets collapsed.
Since Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy last September, the securities industry in New York has lost a little more than 20,000 jobs, according to state employment data. And many leading Wall Street firms subsequently took a hatchet to payrolls around the globe.
Last October, Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500) slashed 10% of its workforce, or approximately 3,360 jobs, as a result of difficult market conditions. Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) grabbed headlines a month later when it announced plans to eliminate more than 50,000 jobs.
While the pace of job cuts has slowed in recent months, many experts think that the number of people working on Wall Street will dwindle even further.
"Many, if not most, financial services firms are restructuring and laying people off, even though it may not be in massive numbers," said Marisa Di Natale, senior economist at research firm Moody’s Economy.com. "I expect that will continue."
In late May, the Independent Budget Office, a non-partisan agency that reviews the annual New York City budget, published a report projecting that an additional 32,400 jobs at the city’s financial firms would lost over the next two years.
The job cuts do make sense. Since most Wall Street firms are not as profitable as they once were, they can’t afford (and probably don’t need) as many employees.
Di Natale added that the threat of sweeping Congressional reforms looming over the financial services industry could lead to even more layoffs.
But despite the grim employment outlook, there have been encouraging signs for those some industry veterans or those looking to break into the business.
Even as recruitment numbers are off from their pre-crisis peaks, Wall Street firms continue to hire freshly minted MBAs in droves, notes Greg Ruf, CEO of MBA Focus, which maintains an online database of business school job seekers used by companies around the world.
"Banks are nervous if they don’t hire enough they will be caught two years from now without having enough people to be involved in major deals," he said.
Higher up in the ranks, hiring continues in such key areas as bond trading, notes John Rogan, a partner and head of the global banking and markets practice at executive search firm Russell Reynolds Associates.
And if the current trend of companies looking to sell stock and make acquisitions continues, Wall Street firms will also need to add more experienced investment bankers.
"Once deal activity really accelerates, people at that level with great experience will be like gold dust," said Rogan.
But even in down markets, companies can usually identify an area to expand, said Richard Staite, a London-based banking analyst with Atlantic Equities.
For example, Goldman Sachs is said to be looking to hire up to 200 staffers for its asset management business, according to a report in the Financial Times reported earlier this week.
"I don’t think you can say there has been any widespread rebound," Staite said. "Companies are simply hiring where they feel they are missing out on current opportunities."
Despite a drop in inflation, the annual cost of employer-sponsored family health insurance coverage has risen 5% this year to $13,375, according to a new survey released Tuesday.
Employers picked up the lion’s share of that tab. Companies paid an average of $9,860, while their workers picked up the other $3,515, according to the 2009 survey of employers from the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research & Educational Trust. Kaiser is a nonprofit, nonpartisan health policy research foundation.
For individual coverage, annual premiums rose more modestly, up an average of 2.6% to $4,824. But those increases came as prices fell roughly 1% this year because of the recession.
Over the past decade, the annual cost of family coverage has risen 131% and the annual cost for single coverage is up 120%, according to Kaiser. In each of the past 10 years, insurance increases have outpaced inflation — sometimes by as much as 11 percentage points.
"When health care costs continue to rise so much faster than overall inflation in a bad recession, workers and employers really feel the pain," said Kaiser president and CEO Drew Altman in a statement.
Even though companies pay far more of health insurance premiums than their employees, many economists note that increases to the employer portion of health costs reduce workers’ wages over time. This year, workers’ wages have risen 3.1%, according to the Kaiser survey.
In response to the economic downturn, 22% of large employers and 21% of small employers offering health insurance to workers said they reduced the cost of health benefits or increased how much their workers had to pay through deductibles and co-payments.
The same percentage of large employers and 15% of small companies said they increased their workers’ share of the premiums.
And 42% of all firms said they are likely or somewhat likely to increase what workers pay in premiums next year, while more than 35% said they would increase deductibles or worker copayments and share of drug costs free credit report and score.
According to the survey, more than 20% of workers with employer-sponsored insurance plans must pay $1,000 in deductibles for individual coverage before their insurance policy kicks in. That’s up from 10% in 2006.
The survey comes during one of the most pivotal weeks in the health reform debate, as Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., prepares to release a much-awaited reform bill worked on — although not always supported — by a bipartisan group of senators. Whether that bill can generate bipartisan support among the broader committee and others in the Senate is still an open question.
But one idea that has generated support among many in both parties is that any reform should be built around the employer-sponsored insurance system, which currently insures the majority of Americans. Efforts to curb costs within that system remains one of lawmakers’ — and employers’ — biggest challenges.
If health care costs continue to grow at an average annual rate of 8.7% — which they did over the past 10 years — Kaiser estimates the annual premium cost for employer-based family coverage will top $30,000 by 2019.
"There’s no reason to believe we’ve done anything meaningful to address the fundamental drivers of health care costs," Altman said in a conference call with reporters.
Should health reform take place and should it succeed in reducing costs the long-term trend could be altered, he said, but cost containment won’t be immediate.
While Detroit has benefited from Cash for Clunkers, foreign automakers have gained even more.
Some critics of the program warned that because it let consumers buy domestic or foreign cars, Clunkers could end up spending more American tax dollars to help foreign companies than American ones.
And in fact, foreign automakers — and foreign auto factories — have gained somewhat more from the program than domestic automakers have.
The differences aren’t enormous, but Cash for Clunker buyers have tended, more than auto buyers ordinarily do, to prefer foreign-made cars.
Domestic automakers usually account for about 47% of all cars and trucks sold in the U.S, according to data from J.D. Power and Assoc. But they sold just 38.5% of vehicles in the Clunkers program.
That’s in part because companies like Toyota (TM), Honda (HMC) and Hyundai are still perceived as making cheaper, more fuel-efficient cars, experts said.
Factories, not just brands
Even taking into account the fact that some foreign brands are manufactured in the U.S. and vice versa, Cash for Clunker buyers were more likely to buy a car made in another country.
The DOT recently said that roughly 52% of cars being bought under the Clunker program were made in America. According to J.D. Power, about 63% of the cars usually sold in America are made here.
Not that the domestic automakers are complaining about any of this. Even if foreign automakers saw a somewhat bigger lift in sales, domestic automakers still got significant benefits from the program. Ford (F, Fortune 500) and General Motors have restarted factories to deal with the added demand and Chrysler says it’s already making new cars and trucks as fast as it can.
The shift towards foreign cars also reflects changes that were already underway in the auto market, with or without Clunkers, said Jeff Schuster, an analyst with J.D. Power and Associates. Bankruptcies, bail-outs and factory shutdowns put U.S. automakers at even more of a disadvantage in 2009.
In the first half of 2009, domestic manufacturers sold only 45% of all vehicles. In the same period last year, the figure was 48%.
Product shift
For the most part buyers in the Clunker program were focused on maximizing fuel efficiency, said Tom Libby, president of the Society of Automotive Analysts. When the goal is gas mileage, consumers turn more often to import brands, since they’re thought to make better small cars and foreign makers offer more options in that category.
"You look at the product portfolios and it explains it completely," he said.
But when it comes to trucks, domestic automakers generally sell more of them. And the Clunker fuel economy requirements for truck purchases were much less stringent than they were for cars.
That should have helped boost U.S. Clunker sales, but most buyers were still focused on making big fuel economy gains.
That’s probably not because of their concern for the environment, said Libby. More likely, he said, it’s because most car shoppers didn’t bother to read the rules closely enough to understand they didn’t have to buy small cars.
"The general impression is that the program is designed to sell more fuel-efficient vehicles," said Libby, "so the buyer who is the market for a larger vehicle is probably dismissing the program."
Compact cars come out ahead
John McDonald, a spokesman for GM, has a different explanation for all of this. He argues that Toyota outsold GM at least in part because GM dealers simply ran out of cars.
He points out that, until recently, GM’s share of Clunker sales closely mirrored its share of the general auto market. It dropped off because GM, like other domestic automakers, was struggling with "historically low" inventory.
"It’s probably the fact that the domestics [were] running out of cars on their lots," he said.
But McDonald does agree that lower price points on foreign cars also hurt domestic sales. Many Clunker buyers are only in the market because they smell a deal, he said, and Japanese and Korean automakers have more to offer the customer who just wants a dirt cheap set of wheels McDonald said. He cited one advertisement he’d seen offering a new small car for $5,500 after the Clunker rebate.
"That’s motorcycle or snowmobile money," he said.
Jeff Schuster, an analyst with J.D. Power and Associates, agreed with that assessment. His statistics show a big spike in sales of so-called "compact basic" cars, a term that translates to "econo-boxes."
"Things do tend to skew toward the imports if you’re looking at how low you can get the vehicles price down to," he said.
A key measure of consumer confidence jumped much more than predicted in August, as the job market outlook and business expectations improved, said a report released Tuesday.
The Conference Board, a New York-based business research group, said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index rose to 54.1 in August from an upwardly-revised 47.4 in July.
Economists were expecting the index to increase to 48, according to a Briefing.com consensus survey. The measure is closely watched because consumer spending makes up two-thirds of the nation’s economic activity.
The index posted declines in June and July, but the reading "appears to be back on the mend," said Lynn Franco, a director at The Conference Board, in a prepared statement.
"Consumers were more upbeat in their short-term outlook for both the economy and the job market in August," Franco added. But the reading for income expectations rose only slightly.
Despite August’s increase, the index remains at historically low levels. An overall reading above 90 indicates the economy is solid, and 100 or above signals strong growth.
The report is based on a survey mailed to a representative sample of 5,000 U.S. households. The questionnaire asks whether respondents think current business conditions are good, bad or normal, about employment conditions, as well as if they expect employment or income levels to improve or deteriorate over the next six months.
Job market outlook. The percentage of respondents expecting more jobs in the next six months rose to 18.4% from 15.5%.
Similarly, those saying jobs are "hard to get" slipped to 45.1% from 48.5% in August, while responses that jobs are "plentiful" ticked up to 4.2% from 3.7%.
Earlier this month the Labor Department reported that 247,000 jobs were lost in July and the unemployment rate fell to 9.4% from 9.5% in June — the first decline in more than a year.
According to government figures, 237,000 fewer people were unemployed last month. That decline could be due to discouraged job seekers who have stopped looking, people who have now retired, or those have gone back to school. But the rate does include people who have exhausted their unemployment benefits or do not collect them.
Income expectations. Consumers were only slightly more positive in their income expectations, Franco noted. Those expecting an increase in their incomes jumped to 10.6% from 10.1%.
"As long as earnings continue to weigh heavily on consumers’ minds, spending is likely to remain constrained," Franco said.
Business conditions. Consumers anticipating business conditions to improve over the next six months increased to 22.4% from 18.4% in July, the report said.
Conversely, respondents expecting conditions to worsen in the months ahead slipped to 15.8% from 19%.
The unemployment rate could top 10% later this year, the Federal Reserve said Wednesday, but the central bank also said it believes the end of the recession could be in sight.
These forecasts were included in the minutes of the central bank’s June 24 meeting. At that meeting the Fed left its key interest rate near zero percent, but said there were signs of a recovery in some sectors, including the financial markets.
According to the minutes, members of the Fed’s rate-setting committee generally agreed that "the decline in [economic] activity could cease before long."
The current recession, which started in December 2007, is the longest downturn in the U.S. economy since the end of World War II.
Fed policymakers now believe that the unemployment rate will rise to between 9.8% and 10.1% in 2009 before declining modestly next year. The Fed had forecast in April that unemployment would top out in a range of 9.2% to 9.6% this year, but the rate reached 9.5% in June.
The Fed also issued a slightly more optimistic forecast for the economy. The Fed said the nation’s gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, should decline by between 1% and 1.5% in 2009, compared to an earlier forecast of a drop of between 1.3% to 2%.
Policymakers also raised their forecast for GDP growth in 2010 and 2011, calling for growth of between 2.1% and 3.3% next year and growth of 3.8% to 4.6% the following year.
The Fed said in its forecast that it expected a "sluggish" recovery in the second half of this year, and that problems in the credit markets would allow for only gradual improvement in the economy next year.
The central bank also said most of its members believe it could take as long as five or six years for the economy to achieve a sustainable growth rate and for desired levels of unemployment and inflation to meet the central bank’s objectives payday loan online.
Rich Yamarone, director of economic research at Argus Research, said the Fed minutes showed that the central bank is still concerned about the state of the economy and any possible recovery.
He pointed out that even as the Fed talked of signs of a possible turnaround, it warned that the economy is "still quite weak and vulnerable to further adverse shocks." And he said some of those shocks, including rising job losses and the threat of bankruptcy at leading small business lender CIT Group (CIT, Fortune 500), still loom.
"I don’t think the Fed is about to hang the ‘Mission accomplished’ sign," he said.
Brian Bethune, chief U.S. financial economist at Global Insight, agreed that the Fed is still very worried about the economy. He said the Fed is likely to keep rates low and maintain various programs designed to spur spending and lending for an extended period of time.
Bethune noted that the Fed is still expecting the unemployment rate to be in the 8.4% to 8.8% in 2011, well above the expected longer-term unemployment rate of 4.8% to 5%.
"There seems to be a Grand Canyon in between those two numbers," he said.
But David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor’s, said that it’s also clear that the central bank is less worried now than it was at its April meeting.
"They’ve shifted to a more neutral stance from a downbeat one," he said. "That’s an important change."
After 18 months of study the federal government has finally decided to privatize a portion of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., but how the problem-plagued nuclear company will be restructured won’t be known for several months.
Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt told reporters today that Mississauga-based Atomic Energy faces stiff competition from much larger, better-funded rivals and is simply too small to take advantage of the "nuclear renaissance" taking place worldwide.
An internal ministry review concluded that Atomic Energy’s commercial Candu reactor division "can be best served by a strategic alliance with one or more partners with global scale that can leverage the technology, skills and experience of AECL in Canada and internationally."
The review said a strategic alliance could take the form of a joint venture or merger with another nuclear reactor supplier or the sale of a minority or majority equity interest in Atomic Energy.
"We’re going to review all the options that are put forward," said Raitt. "We can’t speculate on what may or may not be on the table with respect to private equity."
Ottawa also plans to separate the Candu division from Atomic Energy’s research division, which includes its troubled Chalk River laboratory and National Research Universal reactor that produces up to half of the world’s medical isotope supply.
A heavy-water leak shut down the 52-year-old NRU reactor two weeks ago, and the company says it will be out of commission for at least three months. It’s the Chalk River reactor’s second major shutdown in two years.
AECL also scrapped two MAPLE reactors last year due to design flaws car insurance quote. The MAPLEs were meant to replace the NRU reactor. They were millions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule when the Tories pulled the plug.
The research division has been a drain on the commercial division, the review said. "AECL has not been profitable for the last five years as a consolidated entity, a situation that persists despite the commercial revenue it has generated and the infusion of significant government funding."
Raitt said an expert panel will be created that will determine the future management structure at Chalk River, including the possibility of bringing in private-sector management.
The partial privatization of Atomic Energy’s commercial division has been long anticipated, and many companies, including French rival Areva SA, Canadian engineering partner SNC Lavalin Inc., Ontario nuclear operator Bruce Power, and U.S. reactor supplier General Electric have expressed an interest in partnering with or owning a piece of the crown corporation.
Ottawa’s decision to restructure Atomic Energy comes as Ontario weighs bids from reactor supplier for a newly planned nuclear plant at Darlington. Atomic Energy is competing against Areva and U.S.-based Westinghouse Electric for the business.
Energy and Infrastructure Minister George Smitherman was expected to announce a reactor supplier by June 21 but has hinted lately that the decision, originally expected last December, may be delayed for a second time.
With files from The Canadian Press
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