WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Bank regulators closed Gateway Bank of St. Louis, in St. Louis, Missouri, and Prosperan Bank, of Oakdale, Minnesota, on Friday, the 118th and 119th U.S. bank to fail this year.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said Gateway Bank of St Louis had &&6;27.7 million in assets and &&6;27.9 million in deposits. The bank&&9;s sole office will reopen on Saturday as a branch of Central Bank of Kansas City, Missouri, which assumed Gateway&&9;s assets bad credit payday advance.

The FDIC entered into an agreement with Alerus Financial NA, of Grand Forks, North Dakota, to assume all of Prosperan&&9;s &&6;175.6 million in deposits and about &&6;173.9 million of its &&6;199.5 million in assets.

(Reporting by Charles Abbott; editing by Carol Bishopric)

U.S. regulators close Gateway Bank, Prosperan Bank

SAN FRANCISCO – The Gymboree Corp. on Thursday said its third-quarter sales at stores open at least a year fell 4 percent, but the children's retailer nevertheless raised its profit forecast for the period.

The figure is an important gauge of retail health, because it measures performance at existing stores, rather than newly opened ones.

Net sales for the quarter ended Oct. 31 rose 2 percent, to $265.6 million, from $261.3 million a year ago.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, on average, were expecting sales for the quarter of $273 business cards.5 million

Gymboree now expects third-quarter profit between $1.10 and $1.13 per share, up from its prior forecast of between $1.05 and $1.10 per share. Analysts project a profit of $1.10 per share.

The company plans to report full third-quarter results on Nov. 18.

Gymboree shares fell $2.36, or 5.4 percent, to $41.17 in morning trading.

Gymboree 3rd-qtr sales comparison falls 4 percent

Hot News: Dow, S&P 500 open up on data optimism

HONG KONG &S212; Asian stock markets fell on Thursday as worries about the global economic recovery had investors eagerly awaiting the U.S. monthly jobs report that is due on Friday.

The Nikkei 225 stock average in Tokyo lost 1.2 percent with Canon and other exporters slipping as investors, prompted by a slightly stronger yen, locked in profits before the release of U.S. jobs data.

But Nissan Motor rose 1.1 percent after the automaker revised its annual outlook to a profit from a loss on Wednesday as soaring sales in China helped drive quarterly earnings beyond market expectations.

The benchmark Nikkei lost 113.63 points to 9,730.68 in late morning trading and appeared headed for its lowest close in a month. The broader Topix shed 0.7 percent to 874.78.

As expected, the Federal Reserve reiterated its intent to keep U.S. interest rates low on Wednesday. Though Wall Street rallied in response, it soon lost steam, with investors turning their eyes to jobs data to be published Friday.

&S220;A lot of investors are likely to be stay on the sidelines ahead of the jobs data, given that the September figures were worse than expected, and this is likely to keep stocks weak until then,&S221; said Nagayuki Yamagishi, a strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities.

Seoul shares turned lower after a brief rebound the day before, weighed down by caution over the pace of an economic recovery and as the firmer won hammered exporters like LG Electronics.

Investors are on the lookout for fresh economic data to restore confidence in stocks as they awaited the U.S. monthly jobs data and the Bank of Korea&S217;s monthly rate-setting meeting next week online pay day loans.

&S220;Investors are looking at the first batch of fourth-quarter indicators now that we are unsure about whether markets will remain solid in November or not,&S221; said Kim Seung-han, a market analyst at HI Investment & Securities.

The Korea Composite Stock Price Index dropped 1.1 percent to 1,563.07 points.

Shares in LG Electronics, the maker of mobile phones and flat-screen TVs, dropped 2.3 percent. Samsung Electronics shed 1.6 percent, after it told the Korea Exchange that it would make a $1.3 billion down payment to Qualcomm under a new licensing agreement.

Australian shares extended losses to be 0.5 percent lower on Thursday, with banks and miners mixed amid a market consolidation after strong gains between March and October.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index fell 20.8 points to 4,519.3.

Major sectors like banks and miners saw mixed fortunes as the market continues its broad consolidation after posting strong gains between March and October.

Hong Kong stocks fell 0.4 percent, tracking losses in other Asian markets, although the Chinese property developer Evergrande Real Estate rose in its trading debut. Evergrande traded at 4 Hong Kong dollars versus its IPO price 3.50 dollars.

Shanghai stock markets rose 0.3 percent. The Taiex in Taipei edged up 0.07 percent amid concerns over shrinking trade volumes, but computer memory chip makers like Nanya Tech surged on positive October sales and an upbeat fourth-quarter outlook.

Reuters

Stock Markets Drop in Asia

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

(Reuters) – U.S. companies hurt by the global credit crisis are continuing to hold more cash, even as the economy begins to show signs of improvement, the Wall Street Journal said, citing its analysis of company filings.

In the second quarter, the 500 largest non-financial U.S. companies by total assets held about &&6;994 billion in cash and short-term investments, or 9.8 percent of their assets, according to the paper&&9;s analysis of corporate filings.

In contrast, the companies held &&6;846 billion, or 7.9 percent of assets, a year ago, the paper said.

The trend seems to have continued in the third quarter, despite an improving economy, the paper said faxless payday advance.

The 248 companies that have reported third-quarter results so far saw their cash holdings go up by a percentage point sequentially to 11.1 percent of assets, the paper said.

Companies such as Alcoa Inc (AA.N), Google Inc (GOOG.O), PepsiCo Inc (PEP.N) and Texas Instruments Inc (TXN.N) reported big third-quarter increases in cash holdings, the paper said.

(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

U.S. companies holding more cash: report

LONDON (AFP) – Britain&&9;s government is to create three new high street banks from bailed out lenders Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group and Northern Rock, according to media reports.

The huge shake-up comes as the government seeks to recoup taxpayers&&9; cash used to prop up the banks during the world financial crisis and increase competition.

Lloyds is 43 percent owned by the state and RBS 70 percent, while Northern Rock was nationalised outright.

The government could confirm the move, to come in by 2015, on Tuesday, reports said.

The new banks would be retail-focused, concentrating on deposits and mortagages.

RBS and Lloyds are also reportedly set to sell off some parts of their businesses, including around 300 branches for RBS low rate payday loans.

EU regulators last week approved the state aid contained in plans to break up and sell Northern Rock.

All three banks received huge government bailouts at the height of the global economic storm but regulatory authorities are concerned about such state-backed banks having an unfair advantage over those that were not helped.

The Sunday Telegraph reported that no current owner of a British retail bank would be allowed to take on the new institutions so buyers could come from the US, Australia and the Middle East.

Britain to create three new retail banks: reports

WASHINGTON (AP) &<51; A politically connected financial firm and two of its executives were indicted Thursday for what prosecutors say was a bid-rigging scheme in the municipal bond business.

The charges in the nine-count indictment filed Thursday in Manhattan federal court against CDR Financial Products are the first resulting from the Justice Department&S217;s inquiry of the municipal bonds industry. CDR, based in Beverly Hills, Calif., has also come under scrutiny for its ties to Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico.

The indictment accuses two CDR executives and one former executive from the firm of engaging in bid-rigging conspiracies in which CDR was hired by public entities that issue municipal bonds to act as their broker and conduct a supposedly competitive bidding process.

&S220;This case is fundamentally about collusion, the illegal rigging of a purportedly competitive bidding process,&S221; said Joseph Demarest, head of the FBI&S217;s New York office.

The result of the scam, Mr. Demarest said, was less money for the states, cities and counties that hired CDR.

CDR is also known as Rubin/Chambers, Dunhill Insurance Services Inc.

Prosecutors said that CDR&S217;s company&S217;s owner and president, David Rubin, vice president Evan Zarefksy and former chief financial officer Zevi Wolmark took part in two wire fraud schemes. The three are also charged with obstructing the Internal Revenue Service faxless pay day loans.

Because such bonds are tax-exempt, the competitive bidding process is regulated by the I.R.S.

Prosecutors said the company secretly manipulated the bidding process to enrich themselves and the bidding companies at the expense of the municipalities, the I.R.S. or both.

Under the scheme, CDR would arrange in advance which company would win a particular bid for bond business and arrange kickbacks to CDR in the form of inflated fees, authorities said.

In one 2006 state bond deal, one of the bidders agreed to pay CDR a $475,000 kickback, according to the indictment.

The municipal bond business is huge: In 2007 and 2008, about $800 billion worth of municipal bonds were issued across the country.

If convicted of the most serious charge against them, the three men face a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.

Mr. Rubin&S217;s lawyer Donald Etra said the government had &S220;no basis&S221; for the charges.

&S220;The bottom line is that David Rubin has done nothing wrong,&S221; Mr. Etra said. &S220;He&S217;s a brilliant businessman and a prominent philanthropist.&S221;

Lawyers for the other two men could not immediately be located.

3 Accused of Bid-Rigging in Municipal Bonds Sales

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury Department is in talks with GMAC Financial Services Inc about a possible additional cash infusion to the company, an Obama administration official confirmed on Tuesday night.

The official declined to say how much additional money was under discussion for GMAC, which already has received &&6;12.5 billion of taxpayer funds high risk personal loans.

GMAC is the traditional lender to General Motors Co and is taking over the auto loan business of Chrysler.

(Reporting by Glenn Somerville; Editing by Eric Walsh and Carol Bishopric)

Treasury talks to GMAC about more cash

Filed at 2:36 a.m. ET

TOKYO, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Honda Motor Co (NYSE:HMC) , the world's seventh-biggest car maker, nearly tripled its annual profit forecasts as second-quarter earnings fell less than forecast, thanks to government stimulus schemes around the world that boosted sales.

Honda has weathered the industry turmoil, which drove two U.S. automakers to bankruptcy this year, better than many as its profitable and dominant motorcycle business cushioned the blow.

Sales by the maker of Honda Civic cars have turned up thanks to government sales incentives such as the United States' cash-for-clunkers programme. That has helped Honda and others gradually lift production levels from a nadir earlier this year.

Honda said on Tuesday its operating profit for July-September fell 56 percent to 65.54 billion yen ($712 million) from 148.85 billion yen in the second quarter last year as sales volumes fell and the yen strengthened against the dollar.

The result beat an estimate of 42 billion yen in a poll of five analysts by Thomson Reuters (NYSE:TRI) (TSX:TRI) I/B/E/S.

Net profit, which includes its earnings from the red-hot Chinese market, was 54.04 billion yen, against 123.32 billion yen last year.

For the full year to March 31, 2010, Honda nearly tripled its operating profit outlook to 190 billion yen from 70 billion yen.

The seventh biggest car maker by first-half sales also nearly tripled its net forecast to 155 billion yen from 55 billion yen absolutely free credit report.

That topped consensus forecasts from 21 brokerages for Honda's operating profit for the full year to March 2010 to hit 139 billion yen, with net profit of 113 billion yen.

Rivals Toyota Motor Corp (NYSE:TM) and Nissan Motor Co (NASDAQ:NSANY) are also expected to report improved second-quarter earnings next week, but Honda is seen making the most profit by far for the full year, partly due to its more flexible operations, fewer exports from Japan and a slim car line-up.

While market forecasts suggest earnings will continue to improve for Honda next year, auto executives are concerned about volatile currency moves and repercussions on demand when government stimulus measures around the world end.

Honda's sales in Japan, for one, have been powered by generous tax reductions on hybrids such as its new Insight model, and executives have said sales could suffer when the incentives run their course.

Shares of Honda gained 3.9 percent during the second quarter, outperforming Tokyo's transport sector subindex, which was flat.

Honda ended down 1.9 percent at 2,845 yen on Tuesday before the results were announced, against the transport sector's 1.7 percent fall.

Honda Raises Forecast as Stimulus Fuels Sales

Hot News: Carl Icahn quits Yahoo board, commends CEO

OTTAWA &<51; When English-speaking Canadians watch the television news, most of them choose among the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CTV or Global Television. But the prime minister, Stephen Harper, said in a speech last week that he preferred another choice: American news.

&S220;I don&S217;t like to watch Canadian news,&S221; Mr. Harper told the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Toronto on Wednesday, adding that he doesn&S217;t like to see himself analyzed. &S220;So my hobby is to watch politics elsewhere.&S221;

Of course, a statement like that plays into Canada&S217;s inferiority complex. While some people, including other members of the Conservative Party, suggested later that Mr. Harper might have been joking, his spokesman, Dimitri Soudas, confirmed that the prime minister avoided Canadian news broadcasts, but not all Canadian programming.

&S220;He definitely enjoys watching a good hockey game,&S221; Mr. Soudas said.

&S220;It&S217;s completely bizarre,&S221; said Bob Rae, a prominent member of Parliament for the opposition Liberal Party. &S220;Imagine if Sarkozy said: &S216;I don&S217;t watch the French news, just the BBC&S217; or Obama said he only watches Canadian news.&S221;

Peter Mansbridge, host of the CBC&S217;s flagship news program, &S220;The National,&S221; noted that a past prime minister, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, used to say he avoided Canadian media &S220;because he didn&S217;t care what they said free credit reports.&S221;

Nevertheless, Mr. Mansbridge seemed a little baffled.

&S220;It&S217;s a strange signal to send to the public at a time when Canadian networks, aside from covering this country, which U.S. networks don&S217;t, also spend considerable resources, and some of their correspondents literally risk their lives, to bring the Canadian perspective on international stories home from places that some U.S. networks ignore,&S221; Mr. Mansbridge wrote in an e-mail message.

Still, there is one regular viewer inside the official residence. Mr. Mansbridge said that Laureen Harper, the prime minister&S217;s wife, has told &S220;The National&S221; not only that she is a viewer but also that she &S220;even downloads the podcast of our regular Thursday night political panel and then often briefs her husband on what was discussed.&S221;

For News, Canada’s Leader Looks South of the Border

TOKYO (Reuters) – The Japanese government has decided to put a state-backed turnaround body in charge of the revitalisation of Japan Airlines (9205.T), the Nikkei business daily said on Sunday, underlining the government&&9;s deeper involvement in the process.

Liabilities at JAL would exceed its assets by as much as &&6;8.8 billion if Asia&&9;s largest airline by revenues were liquidated, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said on Friday, underscoring the depth of the problems facing the airline as it seeks aid from banks and the state to avoid bankruptcy.

The state body, the Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corporation of Japan (ETIC), invests in and buys debt of companies with strained balance sheets and dispatches turnaround specialists to assist them in restructuring.

JAL is now set to slash its debt under the government&&9;s guidance and come up with a drastic restructuring scheme, the Nikkei said. The decision to put JAL under ETIC&&9;s supervision will be announced as early as this week, the paper said.

The ETIC, established earlier this month, will operate like an investment fund and will initially have the ability to procure up to 1 auto loans for people with bad credit.6 trillion yen (&&6;17 billion) in state-guaranteed funding in the current fiscal year to March 2010.

No officials at the ETIC were immediately available for comment.

A task force led by turnaround specialists, which reports to Transport Minister Seiji Maehara, has been seeking a bridge loan of about 180 billion yen and a total capital boost of 300 billion yen from both the government and the private sector, the source said.

The government, working with the ETIC, will look into a new and more in-depth turnaround scheme for the airline, while paying heed to the task force&&9;s existing plans, the Nikkei said.

JAL is headed for its fourth annual loss in five years, weighed down by roughly &&6;15 billion in debt and a bloated cost base that makes it less efficient than domestic rival All Nippon Airways Co (9202.T).

(&&6;1 = 92.04 Yen)

(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Sugita Katyal)

Govt-backed body to oversee JAL turnaround: Nikkei

HONG KONG, Oct. 23 (Xinhua) -- A survey on Friday showed 30 percent of business owners in Hong Kong expect a profitable fourth quarter, the most optimism seen since the financial turmoil erupted in the third quarter of last year.

The quarterly business tendency survey by the Hong Kong government's Census and Statistics Department found 30 percent respondents expect their business situation to be better in the fourth quarter over the third, with 17 percent forecasting it to worsen.

The proportion of respondents expecting their business situation in the fourth quarter to be better than the preceding quarter grew to 30 percent, as compared with 11 percent and 20 percent in the second and third quarter.

The retail sector has the most favorable outlook, followed by the financing and insurance sector. However, 38 percent of respondents in the construction sector expect business to fall.

Consistent with the expectations on the overall business situation, respondents in most of the surveyed sectors expect an increase in volume of business or output in the fourth quarter new car loans. Significantly more respondents in the retail sector, and financing and insurance sector, expect their volume of business to increase, as against those expecting it to decrease.

Respondents in most surveyed sectors have a favorable employment outlook for the fourth quarter. Yet more respondents in the import-export trade, and the wholesale and information and communications sectors, expect employment to fall.

More respondents in the real estate, retail, accommodation and food services, and transportation, storage and courier services sectors expect their selling price or service charge to rise, than those expecting it to go down. More respondents in the construction sector expect their tender price to decline, than those expecting it to rise.

HK business forecast better for Q4: survey

WASHINGTON &<51; The House Financial Services Committee voted on Thursday to create an agency to protect consumers from predatory lending, deceptive credit card terms and other abuses.

By a 39-to-29 vote, the panel moved regulatory legislation a crucial step forward on what was likely to be a long road toward final passage by the full Congress. President Obama, who has put financial regulation high on his domestic agenda, has said he wants a bill on his desk before the end of the year.

Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who heads the committee, said after the vote that he was optimistic of final passage either late this year or early in 2010. Mr. Frank said he was confident that the pillars of the legislation would remain intact.

&S220;No bill I&S217;ve ever had to share with anyone else has been everything I liked,&S221; Mr. Frank said, predicting that action in the House would create momentum in the Senate.

The House panel also approved, by voice vote, a provision to impose new regulations for credit cards by Dec. 1, instead of mid-February, after Democratic members complained that lenders had been raising interest rates in anticipation of the legislation.

Mr. Obama immediately issued a statement lauding the committee action. &S220;This bill has now passed a major hurdle, and this step sends an important signal to the American people that we will not stand by and allow big financial firms and their lobbyists to mobilize against change,&S221; the president said.

&S220;They are doing what they always do &<51; descending on Congress, using every bit of influence they have to maintain the status quo that has maximized their profits at the expense of American consumers, despite the fact that recently those same American consumers bailed them out as a consequence of the bad decisions that they made.&S221;

Later, the White House issued a statement calling passage of the bill by year&S217;s end essential. &S220;And we think a central part of regulatory reform is a consumer finance protection agency that looks out for, in all of this, normal, everyday consumers,&S221; said Robert Gibbs, the president&S217;s chief spokesman pay day advance.

Mr. Gibbs said he understood that Senators Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut and Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the chairman and ranking Republican, respectively, of the Senate Banking Committee, were working &S220;quickly and expeditiously to ensure financial regulatory reform is something that happens and is written into law.&S221;

The House committee vote on creating a consumer financial protection agency was mostly along party lines. Two Democrats voted against the measure (Travis Childers of Mississippi and Walt Minnick of Idaho) and one Republican voted for it (Michael N. Castle of Delaware).

The vote came a day after the committee voted to give the federal government the power to block states from regulating large national banks in some circumstances. That vote came after committee members reached a compromise on how much authority state regulators should have.

The Obama administration opposed any efforts by the federal government to pre-empt state officials from imposing more rigorous banking standards. A group of Democrats with close ties to the banking industry sought a complete federal pre-emption, which would have the effect of sharply limiting any state regulation of banks.

Under the compromise offered by two House Democrats, Melvin Watt of North Carolina and Dennis Moore of Kansas, and approved by voice vote, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates national banks, would be able to override the states, but only if it found that the state law &S220;significantly&S221; interfered with federal regulatory policies.

On another issue that has been hotly debated for months, the House Agriculture Committee on Wednesday approved a measure to regulate derivatives, the arcane financial instruments that have been linked to the current financial crisis. The Financial Services Committee approved a similar measure last week. (The agriculture panel has jurisdiction because many derivatives involve trading in farm commodities.)

Vote Backs a Financial Oversight Body

Hot News: SEC mulls ways to shed light on dark pools

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

LONDON (AFP) – London stocks ended down on Tuesday as news of a 0.6 percent fall in wholesale prices across the Atlantic shook the market.

The FTSE 100 index dropped 0.72 percent to 5,243.40 points.

Barclays was the most traded stock with traders exchanging 168 million shares, followed by Royal Bank of Scotland which saw 164 million units switch hands.

Retailer Sainsbury was the session&&9;s star performer gaining 17.7 pence -- or 5.36 percent -- to finish at 347.8.

Pearson added 36.5 pence -- or 4.44 percent -- to stand at 858 american family insurance.5.

The top casualties were Autonomy Corp, falling 138 pence -- or 8.65 percent -- to finish at 1457. Barclays was down 18.3 pence -- or 4.79 percent -- to end at 363.75.

Sterling gained ground against both the euro and the dollar.

At 15:58, sterling was trading at $1.6427, up from $1.6423 at Monday&&9;s close. The pound climbed against the euro, rising to 1.1003, up from 1.0959 over the same period.

FTSE 100 down