AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Shares in Dutch luxury carmaker Spyker soared on Monday after the company made a new bid for General Motors&&9;s Swedish car brand Saab.

The partly Russian owned Spyker said on Sunday it had lodged a renewed fast-track offer to buy Saab from GM just two days after last-ditch talks with GM over a rescue of the loss-making Swedish manufacturer collapsed. The offer from Spyker Cars expires at 2200 GMT (5 p.m. EST) on Monday.

Shares in Spyker Cars rose as much as 34.5 percent and were up 26.9 percent at 2.17 euros by 1051 GMT (5:51 a.m. EST) in Amsterdam as its renewed approach to Saab raised hopes the small Dutch firm may exponentially expand operations and perhaps become profitable.

"The stock&&9;s value is close to nothing but if they succeed to buy Saab, invest, and turn the company around then the shares can become valuable," said a Dutch analyst who declined to be named.

Abandoning the 60-year-old Swedish auto brand would eliminate 3,400 jobs in Sweden and hit 1,100 Saab dealers, but General Motors said on Sunday it would evaluate several new expressions of interest for Saab.

Spyker, which Russian banking tycoon Vladimir Antonov holds an almost 30 percent stake in, said on Sunday it submitted a renewed offer including an 11-point proposal addressing issues that arose during the due diligence process.

Russian state-controlled Sberbank and Canada&&9;s Magna tried to buy a stake in GM&&9;s Opel unit until GM decided to keep it last month business cards. Russia is keen to obtain Western technology to re-energize its local car industry.

"We&&9;re very confident we have put forward a proposal that can convince GM in time," Spyker Cars Chief Executive Victor Muller told Reuters in a telephone interview on Sunday.

"The jury&&9;s still out. We will see what happens next."

The new offer eliminates the need for a European Investment Bank (EIB) loan approval prior to year end, which would allow the deal to be concluded within GM&&9;s deadline of December 31.

"We can&&9;t comment on this deal as this is something between Spyker and General Motors," said Eric Geers, spokesman for Saab Automobile.

Paul Akerlund, local union leader at Saab in Trollhattan, said: "It&&9;s positive. It shows that there is a genuine interest in buying (Saab), but now the ball is in GM&&9;s court and I don&&9;t know how GM views this. That remains to be seen."

Spyker, maker of the C8 Aileron and D8 luxury sport-utility vehicle, got rescue financing in 2007 from Abu Dhabi&&9;s sovereign fund Mubadala, which holds 23 percent of the company, while Spyker Chief Executive Victor Muller owns 10 percent.

(Reporting by Gilbert Kreijger and Aaron Gray-Block in Amsterdam and Nick Vinocur in Stockholm)

Spyker shares soar as GM mulls new offer for Saab

FRANKFURT (MarketWatch) -- Dubai World, the conglomerate whose debt woes are roiling global financial markets, is by its own description Dubai's "flag bearer in global investments."

Dubai, one of the seven emirates comprising the United Arab Emirates, said late Wednesday it would restructure Dubai World and announced a six-month "standstill" on repayments of the conglomerate's debt. The news sent shock waves through global markets. Read more on market reaction.

Dubai World is a sprawling holding company, wholly owned by the city-state's government, with interests in real estate, transportation, logistics and natural resources, according to its Web site.

Dubai World's Nakheel develops residential, retail, commercial and leisure real estate. It is behind projects such as "The World" that have made Dubai synonymous with grandiose and exorbitantly expensive real-estate projects.

"The World," for example, is a development of 300 islands in the shape of the world's continents, being created off the coast of Dubai. The Palm Trilogy refers to three man-made islands shaped like palms.

Dubai Sends Risk Aversion Soaring

Fear of a debt default by Dubai sent European stocks tumbling and the pound down on fears for U.K. bank exposure. The price of gold retreated from its new record high and the dollar rebounded from recent lows, helped by talk of BOJ intervention and suspected SNB moves to halt the franc's rise.

Limitless is also a real estate developer owned by Dubai World, while Leisurecorp is a golf company whose portfolio includes the Chris Evert Tennis Centers and the Jumeirah Golf Estates no fax pay day loan.

In the transportation and logistics sector, DP World is one of the largest marine terminal operators in the world. It had 49 terminals and 12 new developments across 31 countries as of March.

Economic Zones World, a company that develops and manages real estate, is also owned by Dubai World. Its flagship company is the Jebel Ali Free Zone.

In the financial sector, Dubai World owns Istithmar, an alternative investment house. It acquired Barneys New York, the luxury specialty retailer, in 2007. Istithmar's equity investment exceeds $2.6 billion across markets ranging from North America to the Far East.

Dubai Multi Commodities Centre, a subsidiary of Dubai World, is a market place for gold, diamonds, steel, base metals, tea and other commodities.

In the maritime industry, Drydocks World is an international player in ship repair, conversion, new building and other marine-related activities.

Dubai Maritime City is the first ever purpose-built hub for maritime business and commerce. It's located on a man-made peninsula between Port Rashid and the Dubai Dry Docks in the Arabian Gulf.

Dubai Natural Resources World was created as a business unit of Dubai World in 2008. It invests in natural resources, including energy, mining and metals, and agriculture. For example, the company has a joint venture in the oil and gas sector in both Russia and Nigeria.

Dubai World's sprawling empire

Hot News: New-Home Sales Rise, but Factory Orders Slip

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- TomTom shares have lost their sense of direction over the last month, with the stock down by more than a third, as worries about competition and third-quarter earnings lead the stock off route.

TomTom , the Dutch-listed personal satellite navigation firm, has seen its shares swing like a winding road: from a low of 2.12 euros in March, then, after it cut debt by selling discounted shares to investors, rising to 13.35 euros on Sept. 11.

But now the stock is back on its way down, skidding to 6.95 euros a share on Friday, a downturn of 35% from late October levels.

Analysts have focused on two areas in the last few weeks -- results and the threat of increased competition from Internet search engine giant Google .

Taking past performance first, on Oct. 28 TomTom reported that its net income fell 47% in the third quarter of 2009, to 31 million euros, below analyst forecasts for a profit of 36.4 million euros.

Revenue fell 15% to 365 million euros in the quarter, missing a 369 million euro analyst forecast compiled by Dow Jones Newswires.

The company's results were hit by lower selling prices for its key navigation products in the quarter, with average prices to 99 euros, a 27% fall from year-earlier levels and a 12% drop from the second quarter.

"The decline was driven by price decreases across a number of products, partly in anticipation of promotional activities in the fourth quarter. We continue to expect that the rate of [average price] decline for the full year will be slower than in 2008," TomTom said.

Writing about TomTom's third-quarter results, Societe Generale analysts said "sales were slightly disappointing and management did not offer any exciting fourth-quarter outlook. In our view this has tempered a lot of the enthusiasm built over the past months around a recovery in the personal navigation device industry."

Future profits were very much also on the minds of TomTom investors on that day after Google revealed that it has upgraded its smartphone software to include a free navigation feature.

In a blog posting, Google said that it will launch Google Maps Navigation, which provides turn-by-turn directions and can be found within Google's Android operating system.

"Obviously the market for such handsets initially will be limited, but Google is resetting the price benchmark for navigation services at $0.00, which puts TomTom's business model into question," said the analysts at Societe Generale.

They called Google's move an "extremely negative development" for TomTom.

Julian Chillingworth, chief investment officer of Rathbone Unit Trust Management, said he's stayed from buying TomTom. "I am slightly dubious about technology companies with one product offering," he said.

But there are some hope for a u-turn in the stock.

Rival Garmin reported results on Nov paydayloans. 4 and said that its third-quarter profit rose a much-stronger-than-forecast 26% to $215 million.

"Garmin reported a strong increase in the gross and operating margin of its automotive business on the back of solid average selling prices, lower component prices and tight cost control," said analyst Martijn den Drijver at SNS Securities.

Also, Garmin noted that European markets improved markedly in the third quarter compared to the first half of 2009, he said.

"Given that TomTom's largest market is Europe that should be seen as positive as Garmin's market share in Europe has remained steady at 20%," den Drijver at SNS Securities. TomTom has a market share of around 44% in Europe.

Additionally, the average selling price news from Garmin suggests that TomTom's lower third-quarter average price is likely to be a one-off.

"TomTom explained that the ASP was due to earlier than normal promotions and the depreciation of the U.S. dollar," he said.

On valuation metrics, TomTom appears cheaper than Garmin. TomTom trades on 11.2 times estimated 2010 results and 9.0 times 2011 earnings. In contrast, Garmin trades on 12.4 times 2010 earnings and 13.4 times 2011 results, according to FactSet data.

There are questions about how successful Google's move will be as well.

"We do not know yet how fast smart phone manufacturers will adopt the Android operating system," said den Drijver.

He said that Samsung, Sony Ericsson, HTC, Motorola and LG all have some Android models but "these are not major players in the smart phone market, which is dominated by Nokia, Research In Motion and Apple who have a combined market share of over 76%." In addition, consumers can use TomTom's navigational product over Apple's iPhone.

He also said smart phones "continue to be a sub-optimal means of navigation in a car due to the small screen size, low battery life, inferior speaker quality and complicated pricing."

Still, "sentiment-wise, Google's announcement obviously does not help as it implies that maps have become a commodity," he said.

Will James, a fund manager at Standard Life Investments, made a similar point.

"The idea of commoditization has suddenly raised the question about how to monetize maps. Google can leverage their strong position in advertising," said James, whose employer is the group's 17th-largest holder, according to FactSet data.

But he still holds out hopes for the company.

"I think that the market is worrying about something that is quite a long way off," he said. "You can argue a lot of this is in the price. TomTom will continue their penetration into the car market and it will probably bring them closer to Apple."

European Stocks to Watch: TomTom stock loses its way

Already facing a spate of private lawsuits, the legal troubles of the country&S217;s largest credit rating agencies deepened on Friday when the attorney general of Ohio sued Moody&S217;s Investors Service, Standard &&8; Poor&S217;s and Fitch, claiming that they had cost state retirement and pension funds some $457 million by approving high-risk Wall Street securities that went bust in the financial collapse.

The case could test whether the agencies&S217; ratings are constitutionally protected as a form of free speech.

The lawsuit asserts that Moody&S217;s, Standard &&8; Poor&S217;s and Fitch were in league with the banks and other issuers, helping to create an assortment of exotic financial instruments that led to a disastrous bubble in the housing market.

&S220;We believe that the credit rating agencies, in exchange for fees, departed from their objective, neutral role as arbiters,&S221; the attorney general, Richard Cordray, said at a news conference. &S220;At minimum, they were aiding and abetting misconduct by issuers.&S221;

He accused the companies of selling their integrity to the highest bidder.

Steven Weiss, a spokesman for McGraw-Hill, which owns S.&&8; P., said that the lawsuit had no merit and that the company would vigorously defend itself.

&S220;A recent Securities and Exchange Commission examination of our business practices found no evidence that decisions about rating methodologies or models were based on attracting market share,&S221; he said.

Michael Adler, a spokesman for Moody&S217;s, also disputed the claims. &S220;It is unfortunate that the state attorney general, rather than engaging in an objective review and constructive dialogue regarding credit ratings, instead appears to be seeking new scapegoats for investment losses incurred during an unprecedented global market disruption,&S221; he said.

A spokesman for Fitch said the company would not comment because it had not seen the lawsuit.

The litigation adds to a growing stack of lawsuits against the three largest credit rating agencies, which together command an 85 percent share of the market. Since the credit crisis began last year, dozens of investors have sought to recover billions of dollars from worthless or nearly worthless bonds on which the rating agencies had conferred their highest grades.

One of those groups is largest pension fund in the country, the California Public Employees Retirement System, which filed a lawsuit in state court in California in July, claiming that &S220;wildly inaccurate ratings&S221; had led to roughly $1 billion in losses.

And more litigation is likely. As part of a broader financial reform, Congress is considering provisions that make it easier for plaintiffs to sue rating agencies. And the Ohio attorney general&S217;s action raises the possibility of similar filings from other states. California&S217;s attorney general, Jerry Brown, said in September that his office was investigating the rating agencies, with an eye toward determining &S220;how these agencies could get it so wrong and whether they violated California law in the process.&S221;

As a group, the attorneys general have proved formidable opponents, most notably in the landmark litigation and multibillion-dollar settlement against tobacco makers in 1998 faxless payday loan.

To date, however, the rating agencies are undefeated in court, and aside from one modest settlement in a case 10 years ago, no one has forced them to hand over any money. Moody&S217;s, S.&&8; P. and Fitch have successfully argued that their ratings are essentially opinions about the future, and therefore subject to First Amendment protections identical to those of journalists.

But that was before billions of dollars in triple-A rated bonds went bad in the financial crisis that started last year, and before Congress extracted a number of internal e-mail messages from the companies, suggesting that employees were aware they were giving their blessing to bonds that were all but doomed. In one of those messages, an S.&&8; P. analyst said that a deal &S220;could be structured by cows and we&S217;d rate it.&S221;

Recent cases, like the suit filed Friday, are founded on the premise that the companies were aware that investments they said were sturdy were dangerously unsafe. And if analysts knew that they were overstating the quality of the products they rated, and did so because it was a path to profits, the ratings could forfeit First Amendment protections, legal experts say.

&S220;If they hold themselves out to the marketplace as objective when in fact they are influenced by the fees they are receiving, then they are perpetrating a falsehood on the marketplace,&S221; said Rodney A. Smolla, dean of the Washington and Lee University School of Law. &S220;The First Amendment doesn&S217;t extend to the deliberate manipulation of financial markets.&S221;

The 73-page complaint, filed on behalf of Ohio Police and Fire Pension Fund, the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System and other groups, claims that in recent years the rating agencies abandoned their role as impartial referees as they began binging on fees from deals involving mortgage-backed securities.

At the root of the problem, according to the complaint, is the business model of rating agencies, which are paid by the issuers of the securities they are paid to appraise. The lawsuit, and many critics of the companies, have described that arrangement as a glaring conflict of interest.

&S220;Given that the rating agencies did not receive their full fees for a deal unless the deal was completed and the requested rating was provided,&S221; the attorney general&S217;s suit maintains, &S220;they had an acute financial incentive to relax their stated standards of &S216;integrity&S217; and &S216;objectivity&S217; to placate their clients.&S221;

To complicate problems in the system of incentives, the lawsuit states, the methodologies used by the rating agencies were outdated and flawed. By the time those flaws were obvious, nearly half a billion dollars in pension and retirement funds had evaporated in Ohio, revealing the bonds to be &S220;high-risk securities that both issuers and rating agencies knew to be little more than a house of cards,&S221; the complaint states.

Ohio Sues Rating Firms for Losses in Funds

WASHINGTON – The Securities and Exchange Commission must tighten its process for deciding which investment advisers to inspect if it is to avoid colossal breakdowns like the one that allowed Bernard Madoff's multibillion-dollar fraud to go undetected for 16 years, the agency's inspector general says.

A report released Thursday by the office of Inspector General David Kotz proposes new requirements that the SEC's inspections office examine databases and documents related to investment advisers that may be inspected.

The Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations and the SEC's enforcement division should also establish procedures for sharing tips, complaints, disciplinary history and violations regarding investment advisers, Kotz recommends.

The IG's review found that the inspections office never undertook an exam of Madoff's investment business — which was separate from his brokerage operation — even after he was forced by the SEC in August 2006 to finally register the investment business.

The inspector general found that "failures to communicate" within the SEC led to the agency's OCIE never inspecting Madoff's investment business.

It was Kotz's second set of proposals for the OCIE in less than two months easy payday loans. In late September, he recommended that the office establish a specific process for identifying red flags and potential violations of securities laws.

Kotz has detailed how the SEC bungled five investigations of Madoff's brokerage business between June 1992 and last December, when the financier confessed to his sons that he was operating a fraudulent scheme. Top SEC officials have pledged to fix the problems and say they already have made major changes.

Madoff pleaded guilty in March to charges that his secretive investment operation was a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme that destroyed thousands of people's life savings and wrecked charities. He is serving a 150-year sentence in federal prison in North Carolina.

Kotz asked OCIE, the enforcement division and the division that oversees investment companies to submit a corrective action plan within 45 days to address the recommendations. The three entities, plus the office of SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro, told Kotz that they agree with his recommendations.

SEC told to improve ways it chooses probe targets

BEIJING (Reuters) – China should keep the yuan stable, in part because that is beneficial for a global economic recovery, a Commerce Ministry spokesman said on Monday.

The yuan&&9;s exchange rate has little to do with its trade imbalance, spokesman Yao Jian told a news conference.

He added that it was unfair to urge just one country to increase the value of its currency, as other currencies fall in value.

Yao was speaking shortly after International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said a stronger yuan is part of the reforms that Beijing needs to implement to increase domestic consumption and help ease global imbalances fast cash.

(Reporting by Aileen Wang and Jason Subler; Editing by Ken Wills)

China should keep yuan stable: commerce ministry

After pulling off two consecutive quarterly profits, Citigroup posted a loss in the third quarter as spiraling consumer losses overwhelmed its strong trading results.

The banking giant said that it had a loss to stockholders of 27 cents a share or $3.2 billion, compared with a loss of $2.9 billion, or 61 cents a share, in the third quarter a year ago. The bank reported a profit from continuing operations of $101 million.

The results included $8 billion in credit losses and come as Vikram S. Pandit has been struggling to turn around the troubled bank, in which taxpayers own a 34 percent stake.

Mr. Pandit, the chief executive, has been trying to shrink the bank&S217;s balance sheet and whip its businesses into shape amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. All the while, he is also trying to find a way to repay part the $45 billion in federal aid and get out from the under the government&S217;s thumb. Citigroup&S217;s resultson Thursday came on the coattails of its trading operations, which cranked out good results from its bond and currency businesses. Still, its credit card and mortgage businesses are hemorrhaging money. And the bank added another $802 million to reserves as it braces for several more quarters of losses.

Revenue increased about 25 percent, to $20.39 billion from $16.25 billion.

&S220;This was an important quarter for us. The completion of the exchange offers and the significant actions taken during the last few quarters have created a strong foundation short term personal loans. With strong capital, strong liquidity and a strong franchise, we are looking forward,&S221; Mr. Pandit said. &S220;We continue to execute steadily against our plan, and sustainable profitability remains our primary goal in the near term. While consumer credit trends are improving in international markets, the U.S. consumer credit environment remains challenging.&S221;

In addition, Citigroup broke its results into two segments for the second consecutive quarter. Citicorp, its core consumer and corporate banking operation, had $2.2 billion profit in the third quarter. Citi Holdings, which contains the money-losing businesses and toxic assets the bank plans to sell, showed a $1.9 billion quarterly loss. It was weighed down by the heavy losses tied to private-label credit cards, mortgages, and consumer loans.

Citigroup&S217;s numbers follow the strong showings by JPMorgan Chase, whose higher-than-expected $3.6 billion profit on Wednesday ignited the stock market, and Goldman Sachs, which reported a profit of $3.19 billion earlier Thursday. Although consumer loan losses throughout the industry remain high, there are signs that they might start moderating.

Citigroup’s Struggles Continue in Third Quarter

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks could hit more speed bumps this week if the start of the third-quarter earnings season offers little evidence that the economic recovery is gaining strength.

With second-quarter earnings primarily boosted by cost-cutting, investors want to see if the latest quarterly results will show an improvement in revenues. That&&9;s a priority for investors because revenue growth is deemed a crucial indicator of consumer and corporate spending.

Aluminum company Alcoa Inc (AA.N), a Dow component, is scheduled to post quarterly results on Wednesday after the market&&9;s close, marking the unofficial kickoff of the latest earnings parade.

The other marquee names on this week&&9;s brief earnings calendar are PepsiCo (PEP.N), Yum Brands Inc (YUM.N), Costco Wholesale Corp (COST.O) and Monsanto Co (MON.N).

Investors are clamoring for more solid signs of economic stability after the Standard & Poor&&9;s 500 (.SPX) has climbed 51.5 percent from a 12-year closing low on March 9.

SHOW US THE MONEY

By that score, the latest quarterly earnings are a high-stakes endeavor, with investors saying to Corporate America: "Show us the money."

William Rutherford, president and chief investment officer of Rutherford Investment Management in Portland, Oregon, said that "earnings have to be good enough to justify the run-up we&&9;ve had.

"We haven&&9;t got all the problems solved by any means," he added. "We&&9;re still going to see bumps along the way."

Indeed, a string of surprisingly weak economic reports in recent days gave investors a cold reminder that the recovery will not be without hitches, even with the massive stimulus from the government.

On Friday, dour news came from the government&&9;s nonfarm payrolls report showing that U.S. employers shed far more jobs in September than expected. The jobs data put the stock market&&9;s bulls on the defensive. And this week could be just as daunting if there are few positive surprises.

The benchmark S&P 500 suffered its second straight weekly drop on Friday, and it is down 4.3 percent from its September 22 close, its highest finish since the current rally began.

"The next big thing we&&9;re going to talk about is earnings," said Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer&&9;s Investment Research in Cincinnati, Ohio savings account payday loans. "Usually after the first couple of days, you get a feel as to what the overall trend is going to be."

Thomson Reuters data show that third-quarter earnings are forecast to drop 24.7 percent from a year earlier, a projection that gives companies a low hurdle to overcome following a surprisingly improved second quarter.

MERGER WATCH AND BERNANKE

More takeover deals could also dictate this week&&9;s market action -- if there are any, according to analysts.

A flurry of takeovers over the last two weeks has dominated the headlines as companies jostle to bolster their revenue streams in an uncertain economy.

"With many companies&&9; growth challenged, we are seeing the tip of the iceberg in M&A," said Scott Billeaudeau, portfolio manager at Fifth Third Asset Management in Minneapolis.

Notable deals in the past week included Xerox Corp&&9;s (XRX.N) planned purchase of Affiliated Computer Services Inc

(ACS.N).

On Thursday, Mexican brewer and bottler FEMSA said it was in talks with several companies about a possible deal involving its beer business.

This week&&9;s economic calendar is light. But on Monday, the spotlight will be on the Institute for Supply Management&&9;s September index of activity in the vast U.S. services sector.

According to a Reuters poll of economists, the ISM non-manufacturing index, or services index, is forecast to have rebounded to 50.0, the dividing line between contraction and growth, after hitting 48.4 in August.

Investors also will pay attention to monthly sales reports, due on Thursday, from major retailers to assess how consumers are faring as the job market remains weak.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will be on center stage as he is scheduled to give a speech on the U.S. central bank&&9;s balance sheet before a Fed conference in Washington on Thursday. The next day, Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kohn will speak on monetary policy and the financial crisis at the same conference.

(Editing by Jan Paschal )

Wall Street Week Ahead: Stocks may hit earnings speed bumps

The American economy shed another 263,000 jobs in September and the unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent, reinforcing a broad assumption that many more months of lean times lie ahead for working people.

The latest snapshot of the nation&S217;s job market released by the Labor Department on Friday amplified the notion that the recession has probably ended, as a technical matter. Though the job market continued to worsen, the pace of deterioration remained markedly slower than earlier in the year, when roughly 700,000 jobs a month were disappearing.

Yet the report added to the sentiment that the economic expansion, which is probably under way, will be weak and tentative, with scarce paychecks and anxiety remaining prominent features of American life well into next year.

&S220;This is a weak report,&S221; said Stuart G. Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group in Pittsburgh. &S220;The rate of job loss has tapered off, but we still haven&S217;t reached the point where businesses are willing to hire.&S221;

The continuing hard times in the job market seem likely to increase pressure on the Obama administration and Congress to consider another dose of federal stimulus spending, even as the government grapples with deficits projected by some economists to exceed $10 trillion over the next decade.

Capturing particular notice was a preliminary revision to the assumptions that the Labor Department used in a survey of private employers. The department disclosed that, in March 2009, the economy held 824,000 fewer jobs than it previously believed, making an already bleak picture worse.

For millions of unemployed people, the change merely confirmed something many have come to grasp intimately, through the discouraging process of seeking work.

&S220;There&S217;s nothing out there,&S221; said Jerry Lamirande, a technology systems engineer in Amarillo, Tex., who has been out of work since April 2008.

During the technology boom of the late 1990s, Mr. Lamirande, now 62, worked for I.B.M. and made about $130,000 a year. After a layoff seven years ago, he has been paid about $70,000 a year as a consultant working under temporary contracts.

Since his last job, he and his wife have lived on her salary as a public school teacher and on hardship withdrawals from his retirement account. He has searched nationwide for his next contract, willing to relocate for work.

&S220;I have no choice,&S221; he said. &S220;I&S217;ve got to go where the opportunities are. The problem is, there aren&S217;t many opportunities.&S221;

With each passing month, he worries that he is slipping from even being qualified for meager openings that now attract 14 and 15 applicants each.

&S220;You&S217;ve got new technology that you&S217;re not learning about,&S221; he said. &S220;The longer you&S217;re out, the worse it gets.&S221;

The latest report lent further credence to the sense that opportunities were indeed diminishing, and in nearly every field. The unemployment rate continued to inch toward double digits, a level last seen in June 1983. The so-called underemployment rate (which adds in people whose hours have cut and those working part time for lack of full-time positions) reached 17 percent, its highest point since the government began tracking such data in 1994.

Health care remained a rare bright spot, adding 19,000 jobs in September, but construction jobs slipped by 64,000, manufacturing declined by 51,000 and retail lost another 39,000 jobs. Government jobs slipped by 53,000, in what experts viewed as an ominous sign of worsening state and local coffers.

&S220;That&S217;s the budget crunch hitting,&S221; said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. &S220;We&S217;re still losing jobs at a very rapid pace. We&S217;re still looking at an economy with a lot of weakness.&S221;

Most economists &<51; Mr cash advance no faxing. Baker included &<51; assume the economy expanded at an annual pace of about 3 percent from July to September. But debate focuses on the vigor and staying power of the recovery.

More optimistic views anticipate a robust bounce-back from what now stands as the longest, deepest recession since the Great Depression. But most economists expect a sustained slog through stubbornly high rates of joblessness &<51; a situation that seemed more probable after Friday&S217;s report.

The expected growth in recent months is largely the result of businesses cutting inventories at a slower pace after the panic that accompanied the financial crisis. As some enterprises &<51; particularly factories in the Midwest &<51; begin to rebuild stocks, the impacts could wash through the economy for another few months, adding jobs and moderating the overall decline.

After that, however, the underlying weakness of the economy will probably reassert itself, experts say. After many years of borrowing against homes and cashing in stock portfolios to spend in excess of incomes, many Americans are tapped out. With the era of easy money seemingly over, austerity and saving have replaced spending and investment in millions of households, putting the brakes on overall economic activity.

&S220;There&S217;s basically zero evidence in this report for the story of a robust recovery,&S221; Mr. Hoffman said.

As many Americans transition from living on home equity loans to sustaining themselves on paychecks, weekly pay continues to effectively shrink: Over the last year, average hourly earnings for rank-and-file workers &<51; some 80 percent of the labor force &<51; have increased 2.5 percent. But average hourly earnings have expanded by only 0.7 percent, less than the increase in the cost of living, because so many employers have slashed working hours.

That trend held in September, with the average workweek edging down by a tenth of an hour, to 33 hours.

For those out of work, the job market looks harsher now that any point in the recession. The number of people who have been jobless for more than six months increased by 450,000 in September, reaching 5.4 million.

&S220;We have a truly massive crisis of long-term unemployment,&S221; said Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project in a statement, adding that nearly 400,000 jobless people had exhausted their unemployment benefits by the end of September. &S220;Today&S217;s employment report is a marching order for Congress to pass unemployment benefit extensions to all states, quickly.&S221;

The first signs of improvement will probably be seen among temporary workers, say experts, as companies that have been hunkering down in the face of uncertain prospects take tentative measures to expand.

But temporary help services lost another 1,700 jobs in September, according to the report. Many employers are still waiting for firm evidence of growth before adding to their payrolls.

&S220;Companies are extremely cautious,&S221; said Roy Krause, chief executive of Speherion, a recruiting and staffing company based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. &S220;This recession was so painful that many companies are not anxious to take on more costs.&S221;

All of which translates into continued apprehension in many households.

In Elizabeth, N.J., Stephanie Wheeler, 56, has drained her savings down to $800 in the year since she lost her job at a data processing company.

&S220;It&S217;s terrifying,&S221; she said. &S220;I have an apartment. I&S217;ve been here for eight years. I don&S217;t know what&S217;s going to happen. I&S217;m petrified of being set out on the street.&S221;

Jack Healy contributed reporting.

Jobs Report Highlights Uncertainty of U.S. Recovery

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Singapore&&9;s largest sovereign wealth fund GIC said on Tuesday it had halved its stake in Citigroup (C.N) to below 5 percent, making a profit of &&6;1.6 billion as global equity markets rebound.

The stake sale came after Singapore&&9;s smaller fund Temasek Holdings lost an estimated over &&6;4 billion in Bank of America-Merrill Lynch (BAC.N) and Barclays (BARC.L) in hasty exits around the start of 2009.

Analysts said GIC, also known as the Government of Singapore Investment Corp, took advantage of a rally in world stocks to take some money off the table and the sale suggested the fund may have some concerns about the outlook for global banks.

"Perhaps timings wise GIC benefited from the rally," said Song Seng Wun, an economist at CIMB.

"The sale also reflects underlying concerns that although global institutions may have seen their darkest days, there could still be uncertainty ahead as OECD countries in particular could see patchy growth as a result of the recession," he said.

From late 2007, GIC plowed billions of dollars into Citigroup and UBS (UBSN.VX) and like other sovereign funds, had suffered initial losses in battered global banks as the financial crisis hit companies no fax needed payday loans.

Ng Kok Song, group chief investment officer of GIC, which manages an estimated &&6;200 billion-plus in assets, said the fund realized a profit of &&6;1.6 billion from the sale of Citigroup shares.

The Singapore investor had a profit including unrealized gains of about &&6;3.2 billion based on Citigroup&&9;s closing price of &&6;4.43 on Sept 21, he said.

On Sept 11, GIC exchanged its &&6;6.88 billion holding of Citigroup convertible preferred stock into ordinary shares at &&6;3.25 a share as part of a rescue package, gaining in the process an over-9 percent stake in the U.S. bank.

"A stake below 5 percent reflects GIC&&9;s goals and desire to be a portfolio investor," it said in a statement. "GIC will continue its investment in Citigroup as we are confident of its long-term prospects." (Reporting by Kevin Lim and Saeed Azhar; Editing by Anshuman Daga)

GIC trims Citi stake to below 5 percent

HELSINKI, Sept. 12 (Xinhua) -- The result of a new survey gathering a number of Finnish economists' opinions showed that the recession in Finland will end and the Finnish economy is believed to start to recover before the end of this year, the Finnish Broadcasting Company reported on Saturday.

According to the survey result, eight of ten economists interviewed by the Finnish Broadcasting Company felt that an upward trend of Finland's economy would appear during this year, probably in the fourth quarter.

The economists made the optimistic forecast assuming that Finland's export will benefit from euro zone's favorable situation, when German and French national output has turned to grow during the second quarter.

Besides that, the economists in Finland have also seen signs of recovery in increased activity in the retail sector and more orders coming in to the industrial sector cash advance payday loan.

According to these experts, however, there is still a great deal of uncertainty. The growth in unemployment will prevent households from consumption spending, and demand for Finnish exports will only pick up when global business investment needs strengthen.

Although growth seems to have appeared on the horizon, the unemployment picture will remain gloomy next year, as Finland's domestic service sector will react more slowly to the change in economic direction.

The experts said that the unemployment rate in Finland will surpass ten percent during next year. Currently the jobless rate in the country is near nine percent.

Finland's economy expected to turn to grow this year

Cheers echoed through Morgan Stanley when John J. Mack returned to save the soul of the bank, the bluest of Wall Street&S217;s blue-bloods, in the summer of 2005.

Four years on, Mr. Mack &<51; his bank and reputation smarting from the financial crisis &<51; is bequeathing Morgan Stanley to a relative newcomer: James P. Gorman, the quiet power behind a new push to lure ordinary investors to the bank&S217;s blossoming brokerage business.

The appointment, announced on Thursday, ends months of speculation over who will succeed Mr. Mack as head of what was, until recently, one of the most prestigious and successful banks on Wall Street. Unanswered are the many questions still swirling over Mr. Mack&S217;s legacy &<51; and, now, over Mr. Gorman, his handpicked successor.

Mr. Gorman, 51, will become chief executive on Jan. 1; Mr. Mack, 64, will remain chairman. The handoff is far smoother than the one that occurred when Mr. Mack returned in triumph after a shocking boardroom coup.

But the bitter, internal feud that opened the door for Mr. Mack was nothing compared to the turmoil that followed. Mr. Mack presided over an era of unprecedented profits &<51; and then record losses. Only a year ago, Morgan Stanley nearly foundered like Lehman Brothers. It was saved, like so much of Wall Street, by a multibillion-dollar bailout and other government aid.

Wall Street has rendered a harsh judgment on Mr. Mack&S217;s stewardship. On his watch, Morgan Stanley&S217;s share price lost nearly a third of its value, while the stock of its archrival, Goldman Sachs, has gained. After skating so close to the edge, Mr. Mack retreated from the high-risk businesses that almost cost him his bank. To many, Morgan Stanley seemed to lose its old swagger.

To Morgan Stanley insiders, the diminished role for Mr. Mack, who spent all but a few years of his career at the bank, is not only a changing of the guard but the end of an era. He and Mr. Gorman will hold a town hall-style meeting at Morgan Stanley&S217;s Manhattan headquarters on Friday.

&S220;It will be emotional,&S221; said one senior executive.

Mr. Gorman will come to the job with a far different pedigree than Mr. Mack. A lanky, cerebral Australian-born executive who dislikes being called Jim, Mr. Gorman is currently co-president in charge of Morgan Stanley&S217;s global wealth management. He joined Morgan Stanley less than four years ago, from Merrill Lynch, where he ran the global private client business. Before that he was a senior partner at McKinsey &&8; Company.

For much of the last year, Mr. Gorman and another executive, Walid A. Chammah, who runs the investment banking and capital markets operations, had been vying for the top job. Mr. Mack seemed to have favored Mr. Gorman, whom he had hired and promoted through the ranks.

Mr. Chammah, a flamboyant man with a penchant for smart suits and monogrammed shirts, also ruled himself out by insisting on staying in London, where he lives in South Kensington Payday Loan for Bad Credit. He will become chairman of Morgan Stanley International.

After a dismal second quarter because of problems in Mr. Chammah&S217;s half of the bank, the scale tipped decisively in Mr. Gorman&S217;s favor. While questions remained over Mr. Mack&S217;s charismatic but sometimes unstructured management style, the board had been impressed by Mr. Gorman&S217;s ability to switch quickly between jobs and learn fast, important in a vast conglomerate like Morgan, and especially appreciated his presentations to the board on the long-term future of the firm.

For Mr. Gorman, the good news came Monday evening, over dinner and drinks with Mr. Mack at Ilili, an upscale Lebanese restaurant in the Flatiron district in Manhattan (Mr. Mack is of Lebanese descent). After a 10 a.m. conference call on Thursday with board members, the deal was done. The vote for Mr. Gorman was unanimous.

In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Mack characterized the succession as orderly. He said the process of finding a successor had been under way for about 18 months when he first told the board he wanted to step down when his contract ended next year and before he turned 65. He will turn 65 in November. The bank hired a recruiter to draw up a list of outside candidates, but none of them were interviewed.

Still, Mr. Mack and other executives said he had faced resistance to his decision to step down, describing a conversation with S. Parker Gilbert, former chairman and a man who represents old school Morgan Stanley. He had been one of the so-called Group of Eight who had agitated to oust Mr. Mack&S217;s predecessor, Philip J. Purcell, and brought Mr. Mack back to the firm.

&S220;I want you to stay longer,&S221; Mr. Parker said. &S220;I am confident you can enjoy the fruits of your work.&S221; But Mr. Mack answered: &S220;Parker, after getting through the financial crisis and the way this firm was pushed around financially and the fear&S221; of going under, he said he had decided he wanted to go.

Mr. Mack will most likely remain a force behind Mr. Gorman. The two men will still have offices next to each other. Mr. Gorman, for his part, said Mr. Mack&S217;s legacy was secure. &S220;John came back and stabilized the company and brought back the pride,&S221; he said. &S220;He made the right calls at the right time in an incredibly stressful situation,&S221; he said.

While Mr. Gorman lacks Mr. Mack&S217;s flash and is far less known in financial circles, people who know him said he was up to the job.

R. Glenn Hubbard, dean of Columbia Business School, who has known Mr. Gorman since his days at Merrill Lynch, said he was a &S220;strategic thinker&S221; and his qualities made him &S220;a good recipe for success.&S221; He described Mr. Gorman as a &S220;terrific pick.&S221; Mr. Gorman sits on the school&S217;s board.

Morgan Stanley Announces New Chief

Auto parts supplier Visteon Corp. has asked a Delaware bankruptcy judge for permission to cut health and life insurance benefits for thousands of current and former workers.

Judge Christopher Sontchi said Friday that he needs time to consider the evidence and arguments.

While the Van Buren Township, Mich.-based company acknowledged that cutting off the benefits would cause hardship for some people, it claims the benefits are one of its largest liabilities and keeping them in place would make it tough for the company to reorganize.

Here's where the bankruptcy cases of other auto suppliers currently stand:

DELPHI CORP.: The Troy, Mich.-based supplier, which filed for Chapter 11 protection in October 2005, won permission in March to stop providing health care and insurance benefits to its salaried retirees. More recently, Delphi received court approval to emerge from bankruptcy protection by handing control of the company over to its lenders in exchange for debt forgiveness. The company is expected to emerge from court protection by Sept. 30.

LEAR CORP.: Lear Corp. filed for bankruptcy court protection in New York in July. Its next hearing is set Aug. 25.

Auto suppliers under bankruptcy protection

Hot News: Wal-Mart, Kohls beat forecasts, see new normal

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Stocks fell on Monday, but were off their session lows, as investors booked profits following a four-week rally that took the broad S&P 500 index to a 10-month high on Friday.

The drop comes ahead of an abundance of economic data due this week, including the Federal Reserve&&9;s statement on interest rates and the economy, as well as government figures for monthly retail sales.

Materials companies&&9; stocks took a hit, with the S&P materials index (.GSPM) down 1.6 percent as a rise in the U.S. dollar curbed investors&&9; appetite for commodities priced in the greenback.

AK Steel Holding (AKS.N) fell 4.7 percent to &&6;20.31 while Nucor (NUE.N) lost 4.1 percent to &&6;47.10.

"A number of natural resource names were perhaps overextended. We are seeing a pullback in commodity-related stocks," said Joe Arsenio, president of Arsenio Capital Management in Larkspur, California.

He said that there was also some profit taking after the market&&9;s steep rise in the past weeks.

"There&&9;s been quite a bit of money coming in off the sidelines that supported the rally, and it&&9;s possible that some of those flows are just diminishing a bit since we&&9;ve had this tremendous advance," he said.

The Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) lost 32.12 points, or 0.34 percent, to close at 9,337.95. The Standard & Poor&&9;s 500 Index (.SPX) fell 3.38 points, or 0.33 percent, to 1,007.10. The Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC) dropped 8.01 points, or 0.40 percent, to 1,992.24.

The retail group was a weak performer in Monday&&9;s session, with Best Buy (BBY cash till payday advance.N) down 5.3 percent at &&6;37.66 after Goldman Sachs downgraded the electronics retailer to "neutral."

The S&P Retail index (.RLX) dropped 2 percent.

On Nasdaq, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIMM.O) (RIM.TO) was one of the top drags, down 4.9 percent at &&6;73.34. The stock was down for a third-straight session after UBS downgraded it to "neutral" from "buy" on concerns that Verizon Wireless, one of RIM&&9;s largest customers, may launch an iPhone.

On the upside, McDonald&&9;s reported stronger-than-expected July sales, sending the Dow component&&9;s stock up 1.9 percent to &&6;56.27 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Fellow Dow component Merck & Co (MRK.N) rose 1.7 percent to &&6;30.60 after the drugmaker&&9;s stock was reinstated by Goldman Sachs with a "buy" rating, and added to its Americas conviction buy list.

The S&P healthcare index (.GSPA) gained 0.75 percent.

Volume was low on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1.09 billion shares changing hands, below last year&&9;s estimated daily average of 1.49 billion. On the Nasdaq about 1.86 billion shares traded, well below last year&&9;s daily average of 2.28 billion.

Declining stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a ratio of 8 to 7, while on the Nasdaq, about 14 stocks fell for every 13 that rose.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Jan Paschal)

Wall St dips after four-week rally

Hot News: Wall Street Starts Slow as It Looks Ahead

The economy is finally improving, but enough potholes lie ahead that the Federal Reserve needs to keep interest rates close to zero, at least until unemployment begins to come down, the Fed&S217;s chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, told Congress on Tuesday.

&S220;On net, the past few months have seen some notable improvements,&S221; Mr. Bernanke said in his semiannual report to the House Financial Services Committee. The pace will pick up next year and accelerate in 2011, he said, but unemployment will remain high, damping down inflation for two more years.

&S220;Job insecurity, together with home values and tight credit, is likely to limit gains in consumer spending,&S221; he said, noting that the unemployment rate has continued to rise steeply. If that were to continue, the current gradual recovery could &S220;prove transient.&S221;

In his testimony, Mr. Bernanke addressed growing concerns in Congress and on Wall Street that a burst of inflation might be the inevitable result of the Fed&S217;s decision to hold down rates indefinitely while pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy to rescue banks and bolster the credit system.

In his answers to committee members&S217; questions and in an op-ed article that was published on Tuesday in The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Bernanke sought to allay that concern by outlining what he described as the Fed&S217;s tools for withdrawing liquidity when the time comes.

&S220;He wanted to indicate that he does not have to execute that strategy yet,&S221; said Nigel Gault, chief domestic economist at IHS Global Insight. &S220;He was telling the committee that the economy was too fragile for the Fed to do that.&S221;

The markets seemed to agree. Yields on Treasury securities, which rise when traders become concerned about inflation, fell after Mr. Bernanke&S217;s appearance.

The Fed chairman and the central bank&S217;s other policy makers argue that inflation is likely to fall, not rise. It will be &S220;lower in 2009 than during 2008 as a whole,&S221; they said in the monetary policy report that they submit semiannually to Congress. That is &S220;in part because of the sizable amount of slack in resource utilization.&S221;

The huge sums of money that the Fed has injected are potentially inflationary as a recovery takes hold. Slack utilization, however, is an offset. With millions of people unemployed or underemployed, and factories operating well below capacity, there is plenty of room, in theory at least, to step up output and avoid inflationary shortages as demand rises.

Mr. Bernanke also signaled that foreclosures on home mortgages might not have peaked, mainly because of the rising unemployment rate. In addition, he said, defaults are rising for commercial real estate, an unwinding that is beginning to require steps to shore up some lenders.

&S220;It is a sector we are paying a lot of attention to,&S221; Mr. Bernanke said, adding that because commercial mortgages are a relatively small market, &S220;I don&S217;t think we need to have an enormous program to stimulate improvement fast payday loan no faxing.&S221;

More broadly, the questions posed by the House committee members reflected a concern that the Fed has acquired too big a role in managing the economy &<51; a role born of the unprecedented measures that Mr. Bernanke took to address the credit crisis. Parrying these concerns, the Fed chairman argued that whatever steps Congress might take to audit or oversee the Fed&S217;s operations, or limit them, it should not interfere with the central bank&S217;s independence in setting interest rates and thus regulating economic activity.

One proposal before Congress would give the Government Accountability Office expanded authority to audit the Fed. That expanded authority did not include &S220;G.A.O. reviews of some highly sensitive areas, notably monetary policy deliberations,&S221; Mr. Bernanke said, approvingly.

Financial markets, he argued in his testimony, would interpret a grant of review authority over monetary policy as a serious weakening of the Fed&S217;s independence and even an effort by Congress &S220;to influence monetary policy decisions.&S221;

Several committee members, among them Representative Ron Paul, Republican of Texas, argued that the ballooning federal debt had to be reduced. The Fed chairman said that he agreed but that the reduction could not really begin until the economy was back on its feet.

&S220;If the fiscal stimulus did not exist, unemployment would be higher,&S221; Mr. Bernanke said, and he suggested that the $787 billion now scheduled to be spent this year and next might not be enough.

Nevertheless, he said in his written testimony, &S220;maintaining the confidence of the public and financial markets requires that policy makers begin planning now for the restoration of fiscal balance.&S221;

The committee members&S217; questions, and Mr. Bernanke&S217;s testimony, dealt with the Fed&S217;s plans to withdraw the liquidity that has been injected into the system over the last year or more to keep credit flowing and huge banks from failing. The concern is that given the amounts involved, inflationary pressures will build up. Responding to that concern, Mr. Bernanke laid out the Fed&S217;s step-by-step plan in his op-ed article and to a lesser extent in his Congressional testimony.

One tool, for example &<51; authorized by Congress last fall &<51; gives the Fed power to raise interest rates on reserves that banks have on deposit at the Fed. If the rates are higher than what the banks can earn by lending their reserves to the public, Mr. Bernanke argued, then the banks will keep the money on deposit at the Fed rather than lend it to the private sector and in doing so encourage potentially inflationary spending.

Fed Aims to Hold Down Interest Rates

Hot News: Temasek Scraps Plan for American Chief