Skeptical kids can doubt whether Santa Claus exists. But for stock-market statisticians, there's not much debate: The year-end lift known as the Santa Claus rally is no myth.

The stock market typically posts modest, but reliable, gains in late December into the beginning of early January.

"It's pretty much like clockwork," says Jeff Hirsch, editor of the Stock Trader's Almanac, which tracks market trends. "And when it doesn't happen, it can be a very helpful warning of impending trouble."

This year the stock market began December in somewhat typical fashion with a stagnant first half of the month. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index is up just 0.6 percent so far in December, and the Dow Jones industrial average is down 0.2 percent.

That leaves room for the market to snap back by the end of the year, although stocks are still facing headwinds from lingering doubts about the economy as well as trepidation among investors about the huge gains logged so far this year. The S&P is already up 22 percent in 2009, the Dow 18 percent.

The entire period around the end of the year, though, has a bullish track record.

Consider:

&S226; November through January tends to be the best three-month span for stocks. Over the past four decades the average gain from Nov. 20 through the end of January has been 4.2 percent, or an annualized rate of 23 percent, according to James Stack, president of InvesTech Research in Whitefish, Mont.

&S226; December is the best single month, with the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index averaging a 1.6 percent gain. The first December after a bear market ends performs even better, averaging 3.1 percent.

&S226; The S&P has increased an average of 1.5 percent during the seven trading days that start with Christmas Eve and end with the first two days in January since 1950. That's the widely recognized period for the Santa Claus rally, as first identified in 1972 by Stock Trader's Almanac founder Yale Hirsch, Jeff's father.

&S226; Stocks went up in 12 of the last 15 of those year-end periods saving account payday loan.

To better understand what drives the Santa Claus rally, let's look at the variety of positive factors for the stock market that usually come together around this time of the year.

The holidays are the strongest retail season of the year, giving a boost to the economy while also generating positive headlines. Year-end investment reports also tend to offer upbeat outlooks for the coming year, and often plug hot stock picks just as investors are repositioning their portfolios.

And since lots of investors are already in a good mood this time of year anyway, more people tend to be buying rather than selling around the holidays.

"It's one of the most reliable rallies of the year," says Scott Marcouiller, senior equity strategist for Wells Fargo Advisers. "The probability is very high that we get a move up before the end of this year."

Also, investors who might normally sell stocks for tax purposes late in the year could be more likely to hold off this time around. Since this stock market rally is only nine months old, any gains from stocks bought this year would be considered short-term profits by the IRS. That would mean a much higher tax rate than gains on assets held for more than a year.

Even those who aren't interested in buying stocks during the holiday season would do well to keep an eye on the market. In years when there hasn't been enough enthusiasm for a Santa Claus rally, it's often been a sign that turmoil lies ahead.

After 1999, for example, when there was no Santa Claus rally, the market tanked in 2000. And a late-year drop two years ago was a forerunner to a disastrous 2008.

Some market experts take dim views of trends based on the calendar. But the Santa Claus rally still has plenty of believers on Wall Street.

Santa Claus rally could still show up this year

Filed at 7:57 p.m. ET

TOKYO (AP) -- Business confidence among Japanese companies has improved for the third straight quarter, but not enough to convince them to spend, the central bank said Monday.

In the Bank of Japan's closely watched "tankan" quarterly survey of business sentiment, the main index for large manufacturers stands at minus 24. Three months ago the index stood at minus 33.

The figure represents the percentage of companies saying business conditions are good minus those saying conditions are unfavorable. The result beats Kyodo News agency's average market forecast if minus 27.

The mood has been tempered by the yen's recent climb, which reduces the value of overseas profits for companies like Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE:TM) and Sony Corp. (NYSE:SNE) Companies remain reluctant to restart investing in new factories, equipment or workers, the survey showed.

The yen hit a 14-year high of 84.83 against the dollar on Nov. 27. The dollar has recovered somewhat since then, trading above 89 yen Monday morning saving account payday loan.

Major manufacturers and non-manufacturers reduced their capital spending plans and now expect to cut expenditures by an average 13.8 percent this fiscal year through March 2010.

The sentiment index for big non-manufacturers inched up to minus 22 from minus 24 in September.

Sentiment among medium-sized manufacturers stood at minus 30 from minus 40, while the reading for small manufacturers was up slightly to 40 from minus 52 in September.

The Bank of Japan surveyed a total of 10,116 companies between Nov. 9 and Dec. 11, of which more than 99 percent responded.

The tankan helps the central bank guide monetary policy, though board members are not expected to change the central bank's key interest rate, now at 0.25 percent, for the time being.

Confidence Up at Japanese Manufacturers

ULAN BATOR

A pungent odor like turpentine wafts over the hillsides north of the Mongolian capital. It comes from the sharilj, a wild plant that has taken over the scalloped landscape, a telltale sign of overgrazing since the plant is inedible for sheep and goats.

Sukhtseren Sharav has a herd of 150 goats and 100 sheep, and as they chew their way through everything else, and the sharilj spreads, he must shepherd them ever higher into the mountains to find fresh grazing land.

The lack of foraging terrain is not Mr. Sharav&S217;s only worry. The price for cashmere, the wool made from the fleece of his goats, has plunged 50 percent from last year. The price of flour, his most essential food staple, has more doubled.

These are hard times for Mongolia&S217;s cashmere industry, which provides jobs and income for a third of the country&S217;s population of 2.6 million and supplies about 20 percent of the world&S217;s market for the fluffy, feather-light fiber, prized for its warmth, delicate feel and long wear.

To compensate for low prices, herders have been increasing supply by breeding more goats &S212; a classic vicious circle. Mongolia&S217;s goat population is now approaching 20 million, the highest ever recorded.

Environmentalists and social scientists say this is destroying biodiversity and pastureland, and undermining herding livelihoods. But goats are hardier than other livestock, breed faster and can survive on sparser resources: so, the more the land is degraded, the more herders are driven to switch from cows, camels or other less destructive herds &S212; another vicious circle.

Mixed into the problem is climate change. According to Erdene-Ochir Badarch, environment officer of the World Bank, rainfall on the Mongolian steppe has become increasingly erratic, resulting in the disappearance of 600 Mongolian rivers and 700 lakes. This too may be a chicken-and-egg problem. Increasing aridity and loss of plant species may itself be contributing to the dwindling rains.

In a study funded by the World Bank, Dennis Sheehy, a rancher from Oregon with a doctorate in range management, last year measured two of Mongolia&S217;s four major ecological zones &S212; desert and forest steppe &S212; to determine changes in the composition of species compared with an earlier study made in 1997.

Mr. Sheehy found a 34 percent loss in plant species in the Gobi Desert and about a 30 percent loss in Mongolia&S217;s forest steppe.

&S220;Two conditions have created the loss in species: the proportion of goats in the herd in the last 10 to 12 years, and the areas are becoming increasingly arid,&S221; Mr. Sheehy said. &S220;The plant species that had disappeared were most palatable to all livestock, but especially to goats,&S221; he added. &S220;There are too many of them.&S221;

The problem with goats is not only what they eat. In arid regions, their sharp hooves have been accused by environmentalists of piercing the soil surface, known technically as the cryptobiotic crust, a tangle of gray-brown material composed of fungi, mosses, lichens and bacteria which helps to retain moisture. Once the crust is torn, strong northwesterly winds carry away the sand underneath in dust storms that are contributing to the spread of the desert, according to a 2003 World Bank report.

Still, large parts of Mongolia remain in good shape, notably in the eastern parts of the country, and some researchers, including Andrei Marin, a doctoral student preparing a thesis on climate-change adaptation at the Institute of Geography, part of the University of Bergen in Norway, caution against jumping to conclusions about cause and effect low fee payday loans.

Mr. Marin says the 10-year timetable for Mr. Sheehy&S217;s comparative study may be too short to measure environmental shifts, and a 25-year span would be more meaningful.

The reasons goats are proliferating are as much about nurture as nature, Mr. Marin said by telephone from Bergen. When the country shifted from a planned socialist economy to a market economy and a parliamentary democracy, it largely retreated from supporting the livestock industry, leading herders to increase the size of the goat herd to finance rising expenses, he said.

&S220;Government subsidies for transportation, boarding schools and a hay reserve have disappeared to a large extent,&S221; he said.

Adding some complexity to the debate, land degradation, as a term, lacks a precise and widely accepted definition, and environmentalists urge a note of caution when discussing it.

&S220;There are seven different ways to measure desertification in Mongolia,&S221; said Tony Whitten, a biodiversity specialist with the World Bank in East Asia and the Pacific.

Yet another layer of the problem is the dysfunctionality of Mongolia&S217;s cashmere marketing.

China is the largest buyer of Mongolia&S217;s raw and washed cashmere by far, taking an estimated two-thirds of all exports &S212; one-third legally and one-third smuggled to avoid export taxes.

Facing such a dominant buyer, Mongolian traders tend to get the short end of the bargain even in good times, accepting prices far below market value for high-quality fleeces and passing on the pain to the producers; and in the past year, times have not been good. As the global economic crisis shrank Chinese clothing exports, Chinese cashmere purchases effectively ground to a halt, just as another rain failure was pushing the herders into longer and more expensive migrations in search of grazing land.

&S220;Climate change and globalization interacted to severely curtail the adaptive capacity of the herders,&S221; Mr. Marin said.

Whatever the exact mix of causes, Mr. Sheehy says, the result is the same: a situation that poses a major risk to sustainability, with too many goats, and too much livestock in general.

The total Mongolian livestock herd numbers about 44 million animals, but Mongolia is haunted by the decimation of its herds when four successive years of summer drought, from 1999 to 2002, were followed by cold and snowy winters, killing off 9 million animals &S212; a disaster from which many smaller herders have still not recovered.

&S220;We&S217;re predicting that with any significant drought, the whole livestock pastoral system will crash,&S221; he said. &S220;Especially in central Mongolia, where there is not much resilience &S212; it is on the verge of a breakdown.&S221;

But the solution is easier envisaged than done: reduce livestock numbers, when herders are hard up for cash, and introduce modern market management to a country that has never known it.

&S220;Everyone thinks there are too many goats. But no one does anything about it,&S221; Mr. Sheehy said.

An earlier version of this article said that a study last year of Mongolian ecosystems was funded by Sony. In fact, the study was funded by the World Bank.

Special Report: Business of Green: Pastoralism Unraveling in Mongolia

BEIJING, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Renault, France's second-largest automaker, is recalling 2,136 units of Koleos series passenger cars in China because of steering defects, said the State Administration of Quality Supervision and Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) Friday.

The company said the product poses a risk of injuries because the securing nut of the steering column on the gearbox may slacken at low speed when steering is turned very far in either direction free credit report and score. This might cause the steering column itself to disconnect, resulting in a loss of steering.

Dealers will conduct detection on the involved vehicles and fasten the securing nut free of charge. The recall will start from December 25.

Renault to recall 2,136 Koleos on steering system defects

Bowing to government pressure, Japan&S217;s central bank said Tuesday it would pump short-term funds into the country&S217;s banking system in a renewed bid to kick-start lending and breathe life into the moribund economy.

But the Bank of Japan refused to increase its purchases of government bonds and engage in full-blown &S220;quantitative easing,&S221; as called for by government officials. The measured response raised questions about whether the central bank, reluctant to take orders from politicians on monetary policy, was merely maneuvering to get government officials off its back.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has repeatedly warned that the return of deflation and a surging currency threaten to wipe out the economic recovery Japan has seen in the last two quarters. The yen climbed to a 14-year high against the dollar last week, dealing a blow to Japan&S217;s many exporters, because a strong yen makes Japanese goods more expensive abroad.

Meanwhile, prices and wages have slumped, raising fears of a prolonged and painful bout of deflation that could drag Japan&S217;s economic growth back into negative territory. The country is still reeling from its deepest recession in decades, brought on by the collapse in world trade that came in the wake of the global economic crisis.

At a hastily called emergency meeting on Tuesday, the Bank of Japan&S217;s board voted to provide &<65;10 trillion, or $115 billion, in short-term loans to commercial banks to bolster liquidity. The loans will carry a fixed interest rate of 0.1 percent and the bank said it would accept commercial paper as well as government and corporate bonds as collateral. The bank kept its key short-term interest rate unchanged at 0.1 percent.

&S220;While Japan&S217;s economy is picking up, there is not yet sufficient momentum to support self-sustaining recovery,&S221; the central bank said in a statement. &S220;The bank has judged that, in supporting the economic recovery from the financial side, it is most effective at present to further spread the strong effects of monetary easing.&S221;

While some analysts questioned how much effect the bank&S217;s move would have on the economy, Mr. Hatoyama said he was satisfied, for now.

&S220;I applaud their efforts to show their resolve to stop deflation and spur the economy,&S221; he told reporters.

The Bank of Japan&S217;s move bucks a nascent trend among monetary authorities around the globe to start scaling back emergency measures like rock-bottom interest rates. The central bank&S217;s moves also show how precarious the recovery of the world&S217;s second-largest economy seems to be.

Australia, whose economy has rebounded rapidly this year, on Tuesday raised interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point for a third straight month. And the U.S. Federal Reserve said Monday it would begin testing a strategy to shrink its trillion-dollar portfolio of mortgage-backed securities and eventually wind down its program to prop up financial markets online cash advance.

Still, Dubai&S217;s announcement last week that its investment arm would delay payments for some of its billions of dollars in debt has led to renewed jitters among some global investors.

Concerns over the financial health of the formerly cash-rich emirate have also sparked a flight to currencies that are considered safe havens, including the yen.

The yen, which declined in early trading Thursday on expectations the central bank would take bold policy steps to counteract the currency&S217;s appreciation, crept up to near 14-year highs after the announcement. Earlier, the Nikkei stock index rallied 2.4 percent on hopes that a respite from the strong yen would help exporters&S217; shares.

The Bank of Japan had initially expressed doubts over the need to inject further liquidity into the economy, pointing to stabilizing consumer prices and falling unemployment as signs of recovery.

But as exporters&S217; stock prices tanked recently, demands from government ministers for action by the central bank reached a fever pitch.

With interest rates already near zero, however, the bank has few options.

By providing a new lending facility, the central bank hopes to pump more money into the nation&S217;s banks to encourage them to increase lending to the troubled corporate sector.

The central bank is eager &S220;to show that any policy change is taken with the initiative of the Bank of Japan, not by political pressure,&S221; Masaaki Kanno, economist at JPMorgan Securities Japan, wrote in a note Tuesday.

Demands by officials for more action from the central bank reflect the government's own lack of options. Saddled with a crippling public debt approaching twice the size of its gross domestic product, Japan has limited room for stimulus.

This week, Mr. Hatoyama is set to announce an extra budget that will greatly exceed an initial estimate given by officials of &<65;2.7 trillion. But much of the package will be a mere reshuffling of programs promised by the previous government, and its effect on the economy is likely to be small, analysts say.

Moreover, Mr. Hatoyama, whose Democratic Party won a landslide victory in elections in August, has promised to slash wasteful public spending. While such a move is popular with the public, cutting public works with the economy so fragile could deal a blow to recovery.

The government is therefore leaning increasingly on the central bank.

&S220;We cannot resolve all our economic woes, especially those in our financial system with short-term fiscal spending,&S221; said Naoto Kan, deputy prime minister and state minister for national strategy. &S220;These two pillars must more closely integrate their actions.&S221;

Japan’s Central Bank Takes New Steps to Lift Economy

Hot News: Manufacturing Improved in November

On-the-job training has its roots in the Middle Ages. Apprenticeship, it was called then, and it generally was for the young.

The new variation, now called an internship, is not the painstaking, multiyear experience it once was, but it still offers the same advantages: a chance for a worker to gain knowledge at little or no cost to the employer.

In boom times, companies with too much work for existing employees &<51; yet not enough work to justify another hire &<51; may have turned to temporary workers. But with the economy still in the doldrums, companies again are opting for unpaid or low-paid internships to get the extra work done.

It is a brilliant, recession-proof way to double your work force, said Drew McLellan, whose McLellan Marketing Group in Des Moines has long hired unpaid interns. &S220;It&S217;s more money to the bottom line for you.&S221;

While there are no definitive numbers on how many internships exist or how many companies offer them, most are probably at smaller companies and nonprofit groups rather than large public companies, according to Internships.com, a placement service with some 13,000 listings. C. Mason Gates, the president and founder of Internships.com, said that with economic uncertainty, smaller businesses would continue to view interns as a source of growth, talent development and project-based work.

Internships have never been out of vogue, but the competition for positions is heating up, which is good news if you run a company needing economical, entry-level workers.

&S220;The importance of an internship has changed from what parents experienced,&S221; said Steve Rodems, senior partner at Fast Track Internships, which charges $799 to help an intern find an unpaid job. &S220;It&S217;s no longer a nice-to-have addition to you r&>33;sum&>33;. Upon graduation, more and more companies are looking for graduates who also have some real-world internship experience.&S221;

One employer who recently hired an intern was Suzan French, who, after four years as an independent public relations consultant in Allentown, Pa., needed help but was not prepared to bring on a full-time employee. In May, she hired Kate Mackes, 21, a finance major at nearby Lehigh University. Ms. Mackes runs clients&S217; social media projects while Ms. French offers old-school instruction in the public relations business.

&S220;Kate was raised on it and is active in it, and that is something I&S217;m still learning,&S221; Ms. French said. &S220;She is able to come in and use social media for the betterment of a client, and I&S217;ve been able to teach her some of the more traditional P.R. and marketing practices that you don&S217;t learn in the classroom.&S221;

Internships run the gamut from marketing and finance to geology, fashion, architecture and entertainment. While some are part of university programs and carry academic credit, others are less formal with nothing changing hands except an occasional lunch.

And internships are no longer just the province of college students. More unemployed professionals are seeking them &<51; whether to test-drive a new career or simply to keep themselves occupied, according to internship placement services. Mr. Rodems, of Fast Track Internships, said 10 percent of his clients were college graduates changing professions, compared with just 1 percent in 2008. And, he said, internships are increasingly running throughout the year, not just in the summer.

Michael Sabatino, 38, an equity analyst at Smith Barney in New York until he was laid off in 2008, is one of those professionals who sought an internship.

He said that, after caring for his newborn daughter for a year, he approached a small fee-only wealth management firm in New Jersey for a full-time position. None were open, so Mr auto loan. Sabatino offered his services free to learn the business.

He ended up earning $10 an hour &<51; far less than his family&S217;s living expenses &<51; and had no job offer at the end of his five-month stint. But he described the position as a turning point, in part, because it exposed him to the daily challenges of running a small business and demonstrated to potential employers his passion for serving clients and developing his technical expertise.

&S220;The internship was a key transitional experience in my career that positioned me for a long-term opportunity in a wealth management organization,&S221; Mr. Sabatino said. He is interviewing with boutique wealth managers.

Connie Rivera, 57, also used an internship to change careers after she left her job as chief executive of the American Dietetic Association in Chicago in 2000 to pursue her passion for gardening.

She got a job at a local garden center to learn the business. For 18 months she did grunt work &<51; answering customer telephone calls, watering plants, helping with payroll, she said. In 2003, she opened her own garden and landscape business. She now has 42 employees &<51; and one intern &<51; and says she expects to have $4 million in revenue by Dec. 31.

&S220;I took a $250,000 pay cut, but it was the kind of research I needed to do to write my business plan,&S221; Ms. Rivera said.

While menial tasks often go with the territory, the best internships interpose photocopying with client meetings, true-life assignments and mentoring.

&S220;A company gets as much from an intern as the intern gets from the company &<51; if it&S217;s a good internship,&S221; said Lalia Rach, dean of the Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism and Sports Management at New York University.

For employers, setting up an internship program is relatively easy and inexpensive. Veterans of the hiring process say business owners interested in offering internships should develop relationships with local college professors who can choose good intern candidates and seek legal advice to ensure that federal and state labor laws are followed. Business owners should have a clear idea of what they want from an intern and then interview candidates in the same way they do potential regular employees.

Mr. McLellan, from the Des Moines marketing company, said several of his interns had been hired at or opened marketing shops.

&S220;The reward as a business owner is knowing you gave them a little boost,&S221; he said. &S220;And it&S217;s fun to watch them take it wherever they are going to take it.&S221;

While most interns receive no money &<51; and others slightly more than the $7.25 hourly minimum wage &<51; interns are not exactly free. At least initially, it is more efficient for managers to do something themselves than to train someone. Also, while most interns are go-getters, exams and socializing can interfere.

Consuelo C. Bova, chief executive of ForTheFit.com, an online clothing retailer, brought on her first unpaid intern last February to do marketing and public relations. Ms. Bova said she was so impressed with the intern, a University of Central Florida junior, that she hired her as a part-time assistant after the internship ended in April. In August, Ms. Bova interviewed candidates to fill another intern opening &<51; this time a paid position.

&S220;Those I have interviewed to date have been, at worst, merely qualified and capable of doing the job, and at best, exciting, enthusiastic, experienced and capable of delivering high-quality work for our company,&S221; Ms. Bova said.

Hiring Is Rising in One Area: Low-Paid Interns

BARCELONA (Reuters) – Vivendi could exit from U.S. media group NBCU Universal as it has no intention to be part of the future joint venture being discussed by Comcast and General Electric, its chief financial officer said on Thursday.

Philippe Capron also told the Morgan Stanley Media & Telecoms conference that selling its 20 percent stake in NBCU would give Vivendi "additional financial headroom" after it gained control of Brazil&&9;s telecoms operator GVT last week.

"We are not interested in staying onboard a new GE-Comcast ownership of NBCU ... we will exit and it will give us more headroom," Capron said, adding "We are not there yet."

Capron later told Reuters on the sideline of the conference: "We have never been closer to the end of this story."

But Vivendi&&9;s board had made no decision on the matter, he said.

When asked if negotiations over NBCU were about the price, he said: "It often is."

General Electric, which owns 80 percent of NBCU, and Comcast Corp have agreed on the structure of the board for the proposed joint venture with NBC Universal, a person familiar with the matter said last week payday loans.

Any deal between GE and Comcast would depend on Vivendi selling its NBCU stake.

Each year between mid-November and mid-December, Vivendi has to decide whether to exercise its put option to sell the stake.

This year, Vivendi is eager to dispose of the stake and is determined to get good value for it, sources have said.

Last week, Vivendi snatched Brazilian telecom group GVT from under Telefonica&&9;s nose in a dramatic and high-priced purchase.

Vivendi&&9;s bid values GVT at 7.2 billion reais, or about &&6;4.8 billion against Telefonica&&9;s offer of &&6;4 billion.

Faced with a more costly acquisition pricetag, Vivendi was however more likely to now sell its holding in U.S. media group NBCU to help fund the deal, some analysts have said.

(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon and Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter)

Vivendi eyes NBC Universal exit: CFO

WASHINGTON – The bankruptcy of a key lender that helps retailers stock their shelves is adding to the industry's worries ahead of the critical holiday shopping season.

CIT Group Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Sunday in New York after months of struggling to avoid collapse. The company provides badly needed credit to thousands of small and mid-sized businesses, and is a critical part of the flow of capital in the retail sector.

CIT stressed that its lending operations will continue to operate as it proceeds through bankruptcy with the hope of shedding $10 billion in debt. Chairman and CEO Jeffrey M. Peek said the company's prepackaged reorganization plan "will allow CIT to continue to provide funding to our small business and middle market customers, two sectors that remain vitally important to the U.S. economy."

But retail groups and analysts warn that the case will likely add to the instability in the retail sector. CIT is an important source of capital, working with 2,000 vendors that supply merchandise to more than 300,000 stores. About 60 percent of the apparel industry depends on CIT for financing.

In the last few weeks, the nation's stores have begun filling their floors with holiday merchandise, but they still need a reliable source of lending to prevent shipping disruptions and to restock after the holidays. Even one day that vendors are cut off from much-needed financing could create a bottleneck, resulting in shipments of merchandise left on docks or in vendors' warehouses.

CIT expects to emerge from bankruptcy by the end of the year, but a dragged-out case or any glitches could further disrupt the already tight credit markets for retailers, said Joe Alouf, a partner with Eaglepoint Advisors, a crisis management company that is partly owned by Kurt Salmon Associates.

"CIT is the 600-pound gorilla in the industry," Alouf said.

Craig Sherman, vice president of government affairs at the National Retail Federation, thinks the industry "dodged a bullet on the holiday season" for the most part, because most merchandise is in stores' distribution centers. However, he said CIT's woes could throw a wrench in ordering for the important 2010 spring season. NRF officials say that as stores prepare for a rebound in consumer spending next year, access to credit is very important.

Harold Reichwald, co-chair of law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips' banking group, said that CIT's case will likely force the company's customers to look elsewhere for financing.

"If I was a small businessman, I would say to myself, 'I have to find alternatives,'" Reichwald said. "In this marketplace, there isn't a lot of alternatives."

CIT's Chapter 11 filing is one of the biggest in U.S. corporate history, following Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual, WorldCom and General Motors payday advance loan. The bankruptcy filing shows $71 billion in finance and leasing assets against total debt of $64.9 billion. The move wipes out current holders of its common and preferred stock, meaning the U.S. government will likely lose the $2.3 billion in taxpayer funds it sunk into CIT last year to prop up the company.

The government could have lost billions more, however, had it not declined to hand over more aid to the company earlier this year. Treasury Department spokesman Andrew Williams said Sunday that the government will be closely monitoring the bankruptcy proceedings, but acknowledged that "recovery to preferred and common equityholders will be minimal."

CIT had been trying to fend off disaster for several months and narrowly avoided collapse in July. It had struggled to find funding as sources it previously relied on, such as short-term debt, evaporated during the credit crisis. The company pulled back sharply on lending to businesses as it tried to preserve cash. According to its most recent quarterly earnings report, the company originated just $4.4 billion worth of new business during the first six months of 2009, compared with $11.3 billion in the first half of 2008.

The company received $4.5 billion in credit from its own lenders and bondholders last week, reportedly made a deal with Goldman Sachs to lower debt payments and negotiated a $1 billion line of credit from billionaire investor and bondholder Carl Icahn. But the company failed to persuade bondholders to support a debt-exchange offer, a step that would have trimmed at least $5.7 billion from its debt burden and given CIT more time to pay off what it owes.

Ever since CIT's troubles flared up last summer, the retail industry has carefully monitored the lender, with many vendors scrambling to find alternative financing at rivals like Rosenthal & Rosenthal. But finding a replacement hasn't been easy because competitors can only take on so many more clients. Moreover, while large publicly traded companies with sales of more than $2 billion have found the credit market loosening up in recent months, small and medium-based companies have largely found themselves shut out, Alouf said.

The big question is how long CIT will remain under court protection. A prepackaged bankruptcy, which has the support of major bondholders, speeds up the process of restructuring CIT's debt and could help it exit court protection in a matter of months. A swift exit by the holidays could alleviate some retailers' worries.

___

D'Innocenzio reported from New York.

Retail faces uncertainty as CIT enters bankruptcy

WASHINGTON (Reuters) &<51; Michigan again had the highest unemployment rate of all states in September at 15.3 percent, followed by Nevada and Rhode Island, which set records, the Labor Department said Wednesday.

Nevada, at 13.3 percent, and Rhode Island, at 13 percent, were followed by California, at 12.2 percent. Florida also hit its highest rate since records began 33 years ago, 11 percent.

Fifteen states and Puerto Rico now have unemployment rates above 10 percent &<51; meaning more than one person in 10 looking for a job is not working there.

Still, the Labor Department said, unemployment rates were little changed on the month in most states, and dropped in 19 states.

The federal car-buying incentive program known as cash for clunkers helped slow the exodus of work in Michigan, which is the heart of American automobile manufacturing, the state&S217;s employment department said.

Manufacturing jobs have increased in the state for three consecutive months, according to the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth, while the monthly increases in the state&S217;s unemployment rate have shrunk.

Still, the work force picture was not as rosy in terms of jobs numbers in a majority of states.

Nonfarm payroll employment decreased in 43 states and the District of Columbia in September. Only seven states gained jobs, and the largest increase &<51; 4,400 in Indiana &<51; was small when compared with the biggest drop of 81,700 in New York.

Texas shed 44,700 positions, California 39,300, Wisconsin 21,700 and Michigan 21,500 no fax no teletrack payday loan. The nation&S217;s capital, Washington, experienced the largest percentage drop, 1.4 percent.

Since September 2008, all states and the District of Columbia have lost jobs, with California shedding the most, 732,700.

In Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota and California, the unemployment rate dropped from August, but so did the number of jobs.

While Wisconsin found encouragement in its jobless rate falling to 7.7 percent in the state&S217;s fourth monthly decrease, Ohio read a different story in the discrepancy.

&S220;Ohio&S217;s unemployment rate declined in September as more Ohioans dropped out of the labor force,&S221; said Douglas Lumpkin, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services director, about the decline to 10.1 percent, from 10.8 percent in August.

Laid-off workers can become so discouraged about the prospects of new jobs that they give up looking and are not counted as part of the labor force. At the same time, with the downturn in housing and automobile manufacturing, analysts have begun to worry about structural unemployment creeping into the economy.

The unemployment rate increased the most in any state in Illinois, to 10.5 percent, the highest since October 1983.

Illinois lost 14,200 jobs, the 20th month that payrolls in the state had shrunk, resulting in the smallest number of jobs in the state in 14 years.

Michigan Again Reports Highest Jobless Rate

I HAVE always professed to dislike the grandly named George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston.

For years, I associated that airport with two annoyances: One, the incessant repetition on loudspeakers of a grating security announcement that warns passengers that they face arrest for making &S220;inappropriate comments&S221; about security. And two, the mad dash I usually have to perform between terminals to make my connection on Continental, the airline I fly most often to and from that airport, Continental&S217;s main hub.

Evidently nothing can be done about the irritating security announcements except to stick your fingers in your ears and loudly sing, &S220;La, la, la,&S221; which I presume is not an inappropriate comment.

But not long ago, thanks to the reduction in schedules being made by all airlines, I had a layover of almost three hours at the Houston airport. For the first time, I was able to actually experience the place.

For lunch, I had decent ribs at Harlon&S217;s Bar-B-Q. I had my shoes shined. Then I wandered over to the next terminal, past an expanse of nice shops and restaurants, and entered a Continental Presidents Club, where I had free Wi-Fi to check e-mail messages, browse the news and write some posts. On the way to my gate, I bought a book I had been planning to read.

It was one of those &S220;duh&S221; revelations, I recently told Greg Principato, the president of Airports Council International North America, the trade group representing airports. As it turns out, I like the Houston airport just fine, security announcements aside. My previous negative assessment, I realized, came solely from the fact that all I knew about the place was that 20-minute dash from one terminal to another.

Mr. Principato said that was not an uncommon reaction.

&S220;For years, airports have been sort of behind the eight ball in public perception. When you have a lost bag, or your flight is canceled, or the screener doesn&S217;t treat you right, whatever happens, you tend to say, &S216;Oh, I hate that airport,&S217;&<60;&S221; he said.

It seems to me that the only thing about air travel that has actually improved over the last 15 years is the airport, or at least most airports.

&S220;Part of the stress of the airport experience is running from Point A to Point B after an airline drops you on one concourse and expects you to be at another one in 20 minutes online payday loans. So you never get a chance to kind of smell the roses along the way,&S221; said Joan Ryzner, the senior vice president for retail at HMSHost, which manages shops and restaurants in airports.

Now I&S217;m not going to argue that spending extra time in an airport is desirable. It is, however, inevitable as airlines cut schedules and reduce customer service in the terminal and in the air.

In recent years, moreover, the airport more often steps in to assist passengers who are inconvenienced by airlines. While there is a perception that airlines are increasingly indifferent to customer opinion, airports are almost always owned and managed locally. As such, they see a need to fill in gaps left by deteriorating airline service, Mr. Principato said.

&S220;There was no meeting where airlines and airports got together and the airlines said, &S216;We can&S217;t do this stuff any more, you have to do it.&S217; It just happened over a period of time,&S221; he said.

Nerves have frayed between airports and airlines over the issue of so-called stranded passengers, people who are held on parked planes for three hours and more without food or water, while toilets malfunction and cabin ventilation deteriorates.

Though the responsibility lies with the airlines, Mr. Principato said, many local airport authorities have developed contingency plans to deal with these events. Some airport officials even intervene, in some cases taking the initiative to get food, including pizza deliveries, to passengers on a stranded airplane.

&S220;The airport is there, it&S217;s part of the community,&S221; Mr. Principato said. &S220;The folks who run the airport feel that, and they can&S217;t turn their backs. They need to step up to the plate.&S221;

&S220;Of course there are limits,&S221; he added. &S220;As I testified in Congress, we are not looking for the authority to go out and get a plane and bring it back in against an airline&S217;s wishes. And we&S217;re certainly not going to go out and pound on the locked airplane door and go, &S216;Let me in! I got pizza!&S217;&<60;&S221;

On the Road: Airports Step Up When Airlines Fall Short

TOKYO (Reuters) &<51; Japan Airlines pleaded on Thursday for a government bailout, but the new transport minister withheld support on concerns that the carrier&S217;s cost-cutting plans would not go far enough.

The request by the chief executive of Japan Airlines, Haruka Nishimatsu, for a capital injection from the state came as the carrier&S217;s shares tumbled 16 percent to a record low, hit by media reports that lenders might seek to break up the company and that the company had asked for a bailout.

Japan Airlines, weighed down by $15 billion of debt and headed for its second consecutive annual loss, is being wooed by Delta Air Lines and a rival group led by American Airlines, which are offering capital in return for closer business ties.

Japan Airlines has been scrambling to put together a restructuring plan to submit to the government this month, a condition of a state guarantee on a billion-dollar loan earlier this year.

The likelihood of further state support has been thrown into doubt by a change in government in August that brought the Democratic Party to power, ending the rule of the Liberal Democratic Party, which had supported state help for the airline.

The transport minister, Seiji Maehara, met with Mr. Nishimatsu on Thursday. He reiterated that he did not want the airline to go bankrupt but said he was not ready to approve a request for the state to prop up the carrier by buying shares.

Mr. Maehara said he wanted to finish restructuring plans by the end of October payday loans for bad credit.

Japan Airlines is seeking about $2.7 billion through a mixture of equity and debt to meet its financing needs through the financial year-end in March. Bankers have said they will not lend more to the company unless there is deeper state involvement, either through loan guarantees or a capital increase.

Mr. Nishimatsu, talking to reporters after meeting Mr. Maehara, said Japan Airlines needed government help but did not give an exact amount.

&S220;Considering debt repayments planned ahead, we thought asking for the public fund injection would make the most sense,&S221; he told reporters, adding that the company was not considering a breakup. &S220;If we were a manufacturer, then that could have been a choice. But for us, an airline company, that&S217;s not an option.&S221;

Yoshihisa Miyamoto, an analyst at Okasan Securities, said investors were becoming increasingly skeptical about Japan Airlines&S217; future.

&S220;It won&S217;t be able to stay alive as it is,&S221; Mr. Miyamoto said. &S220;It&S217;s got to sharply downsize operations or sell off businesses in bits and pieces to other companies. Our image of JAL as Japan&S217;s national carrier no longer exists.&S221;

Japan Appears Reluctant as Airline Seeks a Bailout

BEIJING, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- China's major state-owned enterprises (SOEs) under the supervision of the central government reported a 30-percent fall in net profit last year, the country's state assets supervisor said over the weekend.

A total of 141 SOEs under the supervision of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council reported a net profit of 696.18 billion yuan (101.96 billion U.S. dollars) last year, down 30.8 percent from a year ago, the commission said in an online statement.

Yet, total assets of the 141 SOEs rose for the fifth consecutive year since 2004. Assets of the 141 state firms were worth 5.56 trillion yuan at the end of 2008, up 8.6 percent from the previous year.

Net profit of centrally administered SOEs had been rising for four years in a row from 2004 to 2007, but it fell last year as the global financial crisis struck no fax cash advance.

The commission said 83 out of the total 141 were able to report a year-on-year growth in net profit last year.

These 141 SOEs also turned in taxes worth 1.04 trillion yuan last year, up 18.6 percent from a year ago.

The total assets of centrally administered SOEs were augmented by 2.6 trillion yuan in the past five years, or at an annualized average of 13.7 percent from 2004 to 2008. Special Report: Global Financial Crisis

China's major SOEs report 30% fall in profit last year

The United States stock market has just completed its best six months since 1933. From March 9 to Sept. 9, the Standard &&8; Poor&S217;s 500-stock index leaped by 53 percent.

But the gain over that period, which began when stocks reached their nadir in March, was not enough to offset the losses recorded in the previous six months. Not since 1932 had the market suffered a half-year period as bad as that one.

Investors clearly found it difficult to determine whether the Great Recession would turn into Great Depression II.

Amazingly, however, the American stock market was one of the least volatile markets in the world in the last year. It was among the best markets when it was plunging, and among the worst when it was soaring. Over all, it ranked near the bottom among international markets.

Whatever else you might want to say about the virtues of international diversification, in this cycle it has done little to balance the risks of investing in any one market. When the markets went down, they nearly all went down. When the markets rose, they soared together.

If history is a guide, the strong recovery may be an indication that better prices are still ahead. Since World War II, there have been eight periods before the current market when the S.&&8; P. 500 managed to rise at least 30 percent over a half-year period &<51; in 1963, 1971, 1975, 1980, 1982-83, 1991, 1997 and 1999. A year later, the index had made further gains in seven of them.

The exception was 1980, when the economy went into a double-dip recession and dashed the hopes of investors who had bet on a continued rise in stock prices.

Before that, the record was less impressive. Soaring prices in 1929 presaged the Great Depression, and a sharp rebound in 1930 proved to be a suckers&S217; rally. But big gains in 1932-33 and 1935 were followed by additional gains. Prices were little changed a year after large gains in 1938 and 1943.

The accompanying graphic demonstrates the truth of an old adage: If you lose 50 percent of your money, and then gain 50 percent, you have not come close to breaking even.

Italy provides one of the best examples of that. Over the six-month period ending on Wednesday, the FTSE/MIB index of Italian stocks rose 81 percent in euros payday loans. With the euro also strong against the dollar during that period, the Italian index more than doubled, rising 109 percent from the perspective of a dollar-based investor.

But an investor who put money in the Italian stock market exactly one year before, on Sept. 9, 2008, suffered a decline of 55 percent in euros, or 60 percent in dollars, during the next six months. The Italian market, like the American market, hit bottom on March 9 of this year.

The net impact: For the 12 months, the Italian market was down 17 percent, whether measured in euros or in dollars.

The accompanying graphic shows the performance of major stock market indexes in each of the 19 countries in the Group of 20, as well as of a European-wide index that is shown because the European Union is the final member of the Group of 20, whose leaders will meet later this month in Pittsburgh, to discuss efforts to fight the world financial crisis.

For the entire year, the best performances were turned in by emerging markets, which are back in favor with investors hopeful of a resumption of global growth. China, whose market had plunged earlier than most, was the only one to rise during the six-month period through March 9, and was the best performer for the entire year. Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa also showed gains for the 12 months, while the Indian market broke even and the South Korean market nearly did the same.

For the entire year, the largest declines were in Saudi Arabia and Russia, oil producers that suffered from lower oil prices brought on by the global slowdown.

The similarity in international performance can also be seen within markets. During the most recent six months, the three best-performing sectors in the S.&&8; P. 500, and in the S.&&8; P. Europe 350, were financials, industrials and materials. During the previous six months, they were the worst-performing sectors in both indexes.

Floyd Norris comments on finance and economics in his blog at nytimes.com/norris.

Off the Charts: Globally, It’s Markets See, Markets Do

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Asian stocks drifted lower after initially hitting a one-year high on Wednesday and the dollar hovered near a one-year low, with investors taking a breather from moving money into riskier assets in the hope that the global recovery is strengthening.

The dollar has been battered this week as market participants have favored high-yielding investments and emerging markets, steering funds away from the safe-haven U.S. currency. Gold&&9;s surge above &&6;1,000 has also raised worries that money is being shifted out of the dollar.

The Australian dollar slipped after Australian retail sales surprisingly dropped in July and housing lending cooled. That raised doubts about how soon the central bank would start raising interest rates.

"There has been sufficient strength in recent data and in comment from policymakers for a shift to a tightening bias at the October meeting," said Patrick Bennett, Asia FX and rates strategist at Societe Generale, referring to the Reserve Bank of Australia.

"What is appropriately being called into question is the timing and extent of the action that follows."

Asia is at the forefront of unwinding ultra-loose monetary policies put in place to stem the shock from the financial crisis. With the growth revival in some countries proving unexpectedly strong, some policymakers worry that cheap money is fuelling asset bubbles.

Australia and South Korea are among the countries seen closest to pulling the trigger on higher rates, with investors focusing on a Bank of Korea meeting on Thursday for clues on how quickly a rate hike could come.

South Korean authorities are among the most concerned about a property price bubble. A report on Wednesday showed household mortgage lending slowed in August after tighter controls.

Portfolio managers have been undaunted by the prospect of monetary policy being normalized, with the process expected to be a drawn out one as officials remain cautious about the recovery&&9;s staying power.

The MSCI index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan ( free 3-in-1 credit report.MIAPJ0000PUS) dipped 0.1 percent and gave up early gains that pushed the benchmark to a one-year peak.

So far this year the MSCI APXJ is up 53 percent, outpacing the nearly 23 percent rise in world shares and 10.5 percent increase in the MSCI index of Japanese shares.

Losses were mild across the region, with Japan&&9;s Nikkei average (.N225) dipping 0.3 percent and South Korea&&9;s KOSPI (.KS11) shedding 0.5 percent.

Technology shares remain among the best performing in Asia.

Hynix Semiconductor (000660.KS) rose nearly 1 percent after Merrill Lynch upgraded its rating on the world&&9;s No. 2 memory chip maker to "buy" from "underperform" and tripled its target price to 30,000 won.

In currencies, the dollar was little changed and held near a one-year low against a basket of currencies at 77.268 (.DXY). The euro was flat at &&6;1.4490 after having jumping as high as &&6;1.4535 the previous day.

The dollar&&9;s slide, which analysts partly blamed on model funds dumping the currency due to the break higher in gold prices, has taken it through chart levels that suggest a deeper drop may be in store.

The dollar index has fallen through the 61.8 percent retracement of its rally from a record low hit in March 2008 to its highs reached in March this year, putting it on track to revisit the record low.

Gold rose &&6;5.50 an ounce to &&6;1000.70 and hovered just below the high of &&6;1007.45 hit on Tuesday, putting it on course to target the record high of &&6;1030 hit in March 2008 when the dollar hit its all-time lows.

Safe-haven government bonds edged up on the dip in stocks.

Korean government bond futures were up 11 ticks at 109.98 after hitting a five-week high of 110 in early trade despite the mounting expectations for a rate hike later in the year.

(Additional reporting by Charlotte Cooper in Tokyo; Editing by Jan Dahinten)

Asia stocks dip from 1-year high, dollar battered

LONDON (Reuters) – The G20 will promise this weekend to keep economic support packages in place until recovery is certain and seek to reassure financial markets they have credible plans to withdraw the stimulus when appropriate.

Finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 developed and emerging nations are meeting in London to discuss the economic outlook, curbs on bank bonuses, tighter financial regulation and reform of international institutions.

Since their leaders met in April in the midst of the worst global recession since the Great Depression, prospects for the world economy have improved with growth returning in a number of countries and stock markets powering ahead.

But policymakers are cautious about declaring victory yet.

"Unwinding the stimulus too soon runs a real risk of derailing the recovery, with potentially significant implications for growth and unemployment," said International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn at a conference in Berlin on Friday.

G7 sources have told Reuters that the G20&&9;s communique, due on Saturday, will likely maintain the pledge to keep policy accommodative for as long as was needed.

"The biggest risk is to think that the job&&9;s done -- that recovery is guaranteed. No country can be complacent -- we&&9;ve got to see this through," British finance minister and meeting host Alistair Darling said late on Thursday.

Still, with interest rates at record lows and trillions of dollars thrown into their economies to fight the crisis, policymakers are also keen to show they have exit strategies in place lest financial markets take fright that inflation will rocket and public finances fall apart.

"Now is not the time to exit. But I would like to make it clear that the ECB has a strategy, and we stand ready to put it into action when the appropriate time comes," said European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said in Frankfurt.

BONUS CURBS

With unemployment still likely to rise for a while and eat into incumbent government poll ratings, the politicians are also looking for someone to blame and will stress that banks cannot return to business as normal paydayloans.

France, Germany and Britain on Thursday put forward joint proposals to change the bonus culture at banks that many say was the root of the current crisis. These include deferrals and subjecting payments to clawback but fall short of the tax being advocated by some charities.

Ministers who are laying the groundwork for a leaders&&9; summit in Pittsburgh later this month will also look at enhanced regulation of systemically important banks and ways in which these institutions can be wound up if needed without shaking the financial system.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is pressing the G20 to back tough new international standards for bank capital and liquidity. The U.S. Treasury said on Thursday a comprehensive agreement should be reached by the end of 2010, with countries implementing the standards by the end of 2012.

Other issues on the table are ensuring the IMF gets the full resources promised to it at April&&9;s London summit when leaders pledged a mammoth &&6;1.1 trillion increase in the lender&&9;s firepower.

Dinner on Friday will discuss how the IMF and the World Bank can be reformed to reflect better the emergence of the new economic powers.

Representatives from Brazil, Russia, India and China will meet on the sidelines of the meeting and Geithner is expected to join them.

U.S. President Barack Obama&&9;s administration also wants to make climate change a big issue for the Pittsburgh summit and will call on fellow G20 members to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies and increase oil market transparency.

(Additional reporting by Noah Barkin in Berlin, Krista Hughes in Frankfurt, writing by Sumeet Desai, editing by Mike Peacock)

G20 to pledge stimulus until economic recovery certain