Hawaii’s initial unemployment claims were down 1.2 percent last week.
The Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism released a report Thursday showing that a total of 2,466 first-time unemployment claims were filed statewide in the past week, compared to 2,497 claims during the same week in 2009.
Oahu, the Big Island and Maui all saw decreases in new claims filed, while Kauai had a significant increase in the number of first-time claims.
Kauai’s 231 new claims was an increase of 90, or 63 saving account payday loan.8 percent, compared to the 141 claims it recorded during the same week last year, according to DBEDT data.
Oahu showed 1,383 new claims last week, a decrease of 2.7 percent from last year. The Big Island recorded 430 first-time unemployment claims, down 12.1 percent, and Maui had 347 new claims, down 7.2 percent from the 374 first-time claims during this week last year.
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Google’s second quarter didn’t do much to help get the company’s stock out of its current rut.
The world’s online search leader reported a quarterly profit on Thursday that rose from its year-ago results but missed Wall Street’s forecasts. Though quarterly earnings rose 24% from a year earlier — healthy by any standards — it’s far from the nearly 40% average growth rate that Google posted over the past five years.
The company said its non-core businesses are growing nicely, most notably in the mobile field. Google reported that its advertising partners are becoming more receptive to mobile-specific advertising, and smart phones running its Android operating system are selling at a rate of 160,000 a day.
"We saw strength in every major product area, as more and more traditional brand advertisers embraced search advertising," Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, said in a prepared statement. "We feel confident about our future, and plan to continue to invest aggressively in our core areas of strategic focus."
Still, the vast majority of Google’s revenue in the quarter — 96% — came from advertising. That has some investors worried that Google will forever remain an advertising company disguised in a tech firm’s clothes. The other 4% of Google’s revenue came mostly from selling Google Apps to corporate customers — a business that’s under pressure from Microsoft after the release of an online version of Office 2010.
Google took a few other hard knocks during the past three months. Users clicked on fewer ads compared to last quarter, and Google’s bottom line was hit hard by an unfavorable foreign exchange rate.
In all, the second quarter produced results that mostly fell short of Wall Street’s expectations. Google said its net income increased to $1.84 billion. Excluding one-time benefits, Google said it earned $6.45 per share. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, who typically exclude one-time items from their estimates, had forecast earnings of $6.51 per share.
Sales for the Mountain View, Calif., company rose 24% to $6.82 billion. Excluding advertising sales that Google shares with partners, a figure also known as "traffic acquisition costs," the company reported revenue of $5.1 billion, roughly in line with analysts’ forecasts of $5 billion.
Shares of Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) fell 5% after hours. The stock is down more than 20% this year, faring far worse than competitors like Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500), Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) and Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500).
The company remained upbeat about its quarter. Google noted that the average per-click rate that it charges advertisers has been rising, helping drive the company’s results higher. The company won regulatory approval for its purchase of mobile advertising company AdMob, and it recently secured its license to continue operating in China.
Google continues to invest in the expansion, adding 1,184 employees during the quarter. On a conference call with investors, Patrick Pichette, Google’s chief financial officer, said now is the "right time" for Google to grow its business, especially because the company is seeing financial growth from its emerging businesses amid a still-difficult economic environment.
"There’s a lot you hear on the news about how the world economy is going to hurt us and all, but from a Google perspective, our business has had a great quarter," said Pichette on the call.
But at the same time, the company deflected an analyst’s question about whether it would start to return some of its $30 billion in cash to shareholders. Pichette said only that the decision is the board’s to make.
Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase are the leading candidates to handle the underwriting of an initial public offering for General Motors, according to published reports.
A move to settle on underwriters would suggest that GM is getting closer to filing for an IPO. A sale of GM stock to the public would help taxpayers start to recoup most of the money GM received as part of a federal bailout.
Still, an offering will not take place before the fourth quarter, according to the Treasury Department, which holds a 61% stake in the company.
Morgan Stanley (MS, Fortune 500) and General Motors declined to comment on the reports in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, while a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) was not available for comment.
It would make sense that Morgan Stanley is in the running. GM’s vice chairman Stephen Girsky was formerly a managing partner at Morgan Stanley.
The Treasury Department also refused to comment on the reports but issued a statement late Thursday that said the selection of underwriters would be GM’s decision.
Treasury added though that the choice of banks would be subject to the department’s "agreement that the selection is reasonable." It also said that Treasury, not GM, will determine the fees paid to underwriters.
Both Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase received their own federal bailout funds Treasury in 2008, although all that money has since been repaid. Still, the department likely has a fair amount of leverage in negotiating fees for the IPO with the banks.
But even a fee of 1% of the offering would likely generate more than $100 million in income for the firms — assuming that GM sells at least $10 billion worth of stock easy payday loans.
Independent International Investment Research estimates that the GM IPO will raise $12 billion, which would be enough to make it the second largest U.S. IPO on record, behind only the $17.9 billion IPO for Visa (V, Fortune 500) in 2008. It would be about 10 times the size of the Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) IPO in 2004.
The IPO is a key step for the Treasury Department being able to recoup some of the remaining $44 billion in taxpayer money the automaker has yet to repay.
While GM has repaid $7 billion in loans it got from treasury, Treasury received $2.1 billion in preferred GM shares along with the 61% stake in GM’s common shares in exchange for the help.
The Treasury Department is expected to sell some, but not all, of those shares in the IPO. Experts say it will take months, if not years, for the government to sell its entire stake.
GM shares would need to have a market value of $69 billion in order for Treasury’s common shares to recoup their portion of the bailout money. Numerous analysts last month estimated GM’s total market value at between $64 billion and $90 billion.
But it may prove difficult for GM to reach that value. The company’s peak market value was $61.3 billion in May of 1999, according to research by the Center for Research in Security Prices at the University of Chicago.
The High Point City Council has voted to approve an incentive package for a startup drug company that is considering locating there.
The incentives for Apixir Pharma Sciences would be worth up to $35,000, if the firm does open a facility and meets certain milestones. Officials with the High Point Economic Development Corp. said Apixir plans to create at least 25 local jobs within three years, mostly in scientific and research positions. The average wage would be between $40,000 and $50,000 per year.
The company is considering a location at Premier Office & Technology Park, but is also considering other locations in the Triad and elsewhere, officials said.
The Peach State remains among the best states in which to business, but it is dropping.
Chief Executive magazine on Thursday ranked Georgia the seventh-best state for business, down from No. 4 in 2009.
To get its annual rankings, the magazine surveyed more than 660 CEOs to rate states based on a range of criteria that included taxation, regulation, workforce quality, education and living quality. Click here to see the complete list of each state ranked by each category.
Chief Executive magazine’s top 10 states for business, in order, are Texas, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Nevada, Florida, Georgia, Colorado, Utah and South Carolina.
Oil prices rebounded Friday on supply concern following strikes at French refineries, and after a report showed a dip in U.S. inflation.
What prices are doing: Crude oil for March delivery rose 75 cents to settle at $79.81 a barrel on Friday. Prices had fallen as low as $77.76 earlier in the session.
On Thursday, oil rose to its highest level in five weeks after an inventory report showed a larger-than-expected inventory drop in supplies of some refined products.
The oil market was closed Monday in the United States in observance of Presidents Day, but prices rose steadily throughout the remainder of the week. From Tuesday to Friday, crude prices gained 3.6%.
What’s driving prices: A stronger dollar kept oil prices in check early Friday, a day after the Federal Reserve raised the discount rate by a quarter percentage point to 0.75%.
But later in the session, reports surfaced about an intensifying strike at French oil giant Total SA, which began shutting operations and warned of fuel shortages. Workers have been on strike for three days to protest Total’s permanent closure of oil processing at a plant in Flanders.
A Friday morning economic report also helped put a floor under prices. The Consumer Price Index, the government’s key inflation reading, showed prices rose just 0.2% in January. The core inflation rate fell a seasonally adjusted 0.1%.
Gas prices: The national average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline rose to $2.623, up 0.9 cents from the previous day’s price of $2.614, according to motorist group AAA.
JetBlue inaugurated new service between Orlando and Montego Bay, Jamaica, on Feb. 8 with a daily round-trip flight out of Orlando International Airport.
Montego Bay is the 23rd nonstop destination served by JetBlue from Central Florida. The airline offers flights to six other destinations in the Caribbean and Latin America: Bogota, Colombia; Cancun, Mexico; Nassau, Bahamas; San Jose, Costa Rica; Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; and Aguadilla, Ponce and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
JetBlue Airways (Nasdaq: JBLU) currently serves 60 cities with 600 daily flights.
Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP, one of the nation’s largest pipeline companies, agreed to buy four terminals from St. Louis-based Slay Industries for $98 million.
The assets include a river terminal in Sauget, a liquid bulk terminal and a warehousing distribution center in St. Louis and a terminal in Muscatine, Iowa.
The purchase gives Kinder Morgan a toehold in the St. Louis terminal market and "unparalleled access to major markets via rail and waterway," Jeff Armstrong, president of the company’s terminals business, said Wednesday in a statement.
Houston-based Kinder Morgan and Slay Industries also formed a joint venture at Slay’s Kellogg Dock coal terminal in Modoc, Ill., and new North Cahokia terminal in Sauget, which includes 175 acres for development.
Slay Industries was founded 90 years ago as Slay Motor Freight and generates annual revenue exceeding $125 million, according to the company’s website.
Bennett Goldworth thought he was set for life when he retired three years ago at age 50. He bought a waterfront apartment at the high-end Four Seasons Condominium in Fort Lauderdale, and said goodbye to New York and his job selling real estate.
"I felt I had everything I wanted in life, which was great," said Goldworth.
A decade of investing with Bernard Madoff had given Goldworth the financial security to enjoy the "good life" in Florida, until Madoff’s arrest last Dec. 11. "I didn’t just have money stolen, I had my whole life stolen," he said.
Today the condominium is in contract to be sold. Goldworth is living with his father in Manhattan and grateful to be back at the Corcoran Group selling homes again.
He’s also among the first to receive a full half-million dollar insurance settlement from the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), which insured direct accounts of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. "I’m one of the fortunate ones," said Goldworth at his office where fellow realtors all were trying to sell million-dollar apartments. "I was very happy, very pleased."
But, other Madoff victims — like Judy and Don Rafferty, senior citizens who’ve had to come out of retirement — have gotten nothing.
"I felt as though we were cheated. I felt violated," said 67-year old Judy who now works as a legal assistant.
The Raffertys for years had withdrawn what they believed were earnings from their Madoff account. The trustee overseeing restitution, Irving Picard, says the Raffertys withdrew more than they invested and are therefore entitled to nothing, even though their account also was insured by SIPC for up to $500,000 payday loans.
"They changed the rules in the middle of the game which I don’t think is fair at all," complained Rafferty.
It is fair, argues Goldworth who maintains, "The net winners should be in the back of the line. First thing that should be addressed is that everyone get back everything they invested."
Rafferty counters, "He got his money back, why wouldn’t he feel comfortable? It’s the people who haven’t gotten their money back that are not happy."
The majority of Madoff investors are not happy. More than 16,000 investor claims have been filed, SIPC President Stephen Harbeck said Thursday. So far, Picard and his staff have reviewed 11,563 of them and approved only 1,647 — just 14%.
Even for those victims whose requests have received an ‘OK’, the bulk of the funds are not guaranteed: only $561 million — 12% of the allowed claims — is being funded by SIPC.
Some Madoff investors are suing Picard, charging him with breach of fiduciary trust for denying them a SIPC insurance payment.
Those lawsuits are especially troubling to Goldworth who believes legal battles will further delay the Trustee paying out claims. "It’s very counterproductive," he said.
Google said Thursday the worst of the recession has passed, as it reported quarterly profit and sales that rose from year-earlier results and easily trounced Wall Street’s forecasts.
"Google had a strong quarter — we saw 7% year-over-year revenue growth despite the tough economic conditions," said Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, on a conference call with investors. "While there is a lot of uncertainty about the pace of economic recovery, we believe the worst of the recession is behind us and now feel confident about investing heavily in our future."
Google’s strong third quarter could be a good sign for the economy, as the company’s ad clicks serve as a kind of barometer of consumers’ willingness to spend. The more people click on ads, the more willing they are to buy things.
"It’s all good news from our perspective," said Schmidt. "I’m very proud of our management team in what could have been a very significant downturn for Google."
By the numbers: The Mountain View, Calif.-based search giant’s net income was $1.64 billion, or $5.13 per share, in the third quarter, up 27% from the same period last year.
Excluding one-time charges, including $95 million from a Google Books settlement with the Authors Guild, Google reported earnings of $1.88 billion, or $5.89 per share. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, who typically exclude one-time charges from their forecasts, expected earnings of $5.42 per share.
Sales rose 7% to $5.94 billion. Excluding advertising sales that Google shares with partners, a figure also known as traffic acquisition costs, the company reported revenue of $4.38 billion, which beat analysts’ forecast of $4.24 billion.
Google makes the vast majority of its sales from online advertising, a market that has struggled over the past year. But two important indicators of advertising market health improved: The number of paid clicks, which include clicks on ads served on Google sites and its partners, rose 4% from the previous quarter and 14% from the same period last year.
The average amount paid to Google per click also increased about 5% from last quarter. That figure was down about 6% from the same period a year ago, but the company said that much of that discrepancy had to do with currency fluctuations.
Both measures improved from the second quarter, when paid clicks were down sequentially and cost-per-click was down by a double-digit percentage from a year earlier.
Shares of Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) rose more than 2% in after-hours trading.
Looking ahead: Schmidt said the companies new investment would come in the form of "people and innovation." He reiterated a statement that he made last week, saying that the advertising recession had ended, and the company has ramped up its hiring as a result. Last quarter, the company shed 121 employees.
The company hasn’t quite returned to its typical purchase rate of about one company a month. But Schmidt said Google has many small, innovative companies in its sights, and the company plans on increasing the number of acquisitions it makes in the coming months.
The company also said another encouraging sign is that advertisers have expressed a desire to spend more money with Google. As a result, Google is continuing to develop new products to assist with that interest.
For instance, the company said its new DoubleClick Ad Exchange will improve advertisers’ ability to put display ads onto Web sites. Google also said it is making improvements to Google Maps, making it easier for companies to connect with customers online on a local level.
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