Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts

Markets subdued as Dow remains in focus






LONDON (AP) — Markets were subdued Monday following a stellar finish to last week, when many stock indexes around the world hit multiyear highs following encouraging U.S. economic figures.


U.S. stocks are particularly in focus as the Dow jones industrial average closed above 14,000 on Friday for the first time in over five years. It’s now not far off its all-time high.






Hopes over the U.S. economy have helped fuel the optimism across financial markets this year, which has also seen the euro pick up a head of steam and oil prices approach the $ 100 a barrel mark.


However, with a dearth of scheduled economic news Monday, many think markets will struggle for direction and some investors may use the opportunity to book some gains.


“In recent weeks the mantra seems to have been very much one of buying regardless, but now that the major indices have retested those levels not seen since 2007, now may well be the time to take something of a reality check,” said Fawad Razaqzada, market strategist at GFT Markets.


In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 0.3 percent at 6,325 while Germany’s DAX fell 0.2 percent to 7,821. The CAC-40 in France was also 0.2 percent lower at 3,766.


Wall Street was poised for very modest gains at the open, with both Dow futures and the broader S&P 500 futures up 0.1 percent.


The focus won’t just remain on the U.S. this week. European matters will garner attention, not least in Italy, where the upcoming election is proving to be a closer race than many people had thought. Spain is also generating concern as the government is increasingly embroiled in a corruption scandal. Both countries are seen to have made progress in their struggles over their public finances.


The European Central Bank is meeting this week as well. Though no change in policy is expected, many investors will be interested to hear what its president, Mario Draghi, thinks about the strength of the euro. Though its advance in recent weeks is a sign of optimism over the currency’s future following a seeming easing in financial market worries over Europe’s debt crisis, it potentially makes life more difficult for the eurozone’s exporters and that could delay a recovery from recession.


On Monday, the euro edged 0.4 percent lower at $ 13583.


Earlier in Asia, Japanese stocks continued to gain ground alongside the falling yen, which is expected to help the country’s big exporters. The Nikkei 225 closed 0.6 percent higher at 11,260.35.


The yen has been falling over the past few weeks as the new government focuses on getting a moribund economy going again. As part of that drive it has asked the Bank of Japan to do more and that’s probably going to mean an expansion of the money supply.


“The ongoing shift to more aggressive monetary easing by the BoJ has helped accelerate the sell off for yen,” said Lee Hardman, currency strategist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ.


The dollar was up a further 0.4 percent against the yen on Monday, to 93.16 yen.


Elsewhere, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.2 percent to 23,685.01 while South Korea’s Kospi edged down 0.2 percent to 1,953.21.


Oil prices drifted lower with the benchmark New York rate down 46 cents at $ 97.31 a barrel.


Economy News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Restive Cities Threaten Egypt’s Suez Canal






Attempting to quell unrest, President Mohamed Mursi declared a state of emergency in Port Said, Ismailia, and Suez. The cities straddle an important source of hard currency, but canal traffic has so far escaped disruption.


317b9  econ suezmap06 950 Restive Cities Threaten Egypts Suez Canal

Graphic by Bloomberg Businessweek; Data: Suez Canal Authority, UN Conference on Trade and Development







Businessweek.com — Top News





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S.Africa’s rand recovers against dollar, eyes 8.85






JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa‘s rand was on track for a second day of gains against the dollar on Friday, eyeing 8.85 as investors that had sold the currency due to a gloomy economic outlook readjust their positions.


Government bonds took their cue from the stronger currency, with the yield on the heavily-traded benchmark 2026 bond shedding 5 basis points to 7.295 percent.






The yield for the short-dated paper due in 2015 was down 3.5 basis points at 5.325 percent.


The rand traded up 0.85 percent at 8.8756 to the dollar by 1552 41 GMT, after ending Thursday’s session in New York at 8.9545. This was a 3 percent rise from Monday’s four-year low of 9.16.


Friday’s gains were the second strongest, after the Polish zloty, recorded against the dollar among 20 emerging market currencies tracked by Reuters.


The rand is however still down more than 5 percent against the dollar since the start of 2013, having taken a pounding in January as labour strikes in the key mining sector took some of the shine out of South Africa’s high-yielding assets.


“The potential exists for the correction to extend back towards 8.8500 as offshore (accounts) unwind some long dollar-rand positions and bonds once again,” Tradition Analytics said in a market note.


Economy News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Markets higher as investors await US jobs report






LONDON (AP) — Some rare good economic news from Europe pushed stock markets higher on Friday as investors awaited a key U.S. employment report that is expected to show steady, if unremarkable, job growth.


The unemployment rate in the 17-country eurozone was at a lower-than-expected 11.7 percent in December, unchanged from the previous month’s rate, which was revised down from 11.8 percent, a record high. Inflation was also steady, suggesting the recession ravaging the currency union is it abating.






“With eurozone economic activity seemingly bottoming out last October and business confidence picking up, the pressure on labour markets has eased,” said Howard Archer, chief European economist at HIS Global Insight.


“Nevertheless, business confidence is still relatively low in most countries and eurozone economic activity is unlikely to be strong enough to prevent further rises in unemployment over the coming months.”


Germany’s DAX advanced 0.6 percent to 7,823.62 in early trading while France’s CAC-40 added 0.9 percent to 3,765.58. Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.6 percent to 6,314.44.


Wall Street was expected to rise on the open, with Dow Jones industrial futures up 0.5 percent to 13,860 and the broader S&P 500 futures adding 0.4 percent to 1,498.70. Although the Dow Jones industrial average finished lower on Thursday, the index logged its best January since 1994 by finishing 5.8 percent higher for the month. The Standard & Poor’s 500 finished the month 5 percent higher, its best start to the year since 1997.


Looking ahead, investors will focus on the U.S. jobs report, which often sets the tone in stock markets for days. Economists forecast the world’s largest economy added 155,000 jobs in January and that the unemployment rate stayed at 7.8 percent for a third straight month. That would help the economy grow after it shrank at an annual rate of 0.1 percent in the final quarter of 2012.


The figure will be particularly important in forming expectations of the recovery after GDP figures earlier this week showed a surprise 0.1 percent annualized contraction in the U.S. economy. A week jobs report on Friday would provide a big blow to investor sentiment.


The U.S. will also issue reports on the manufacturing sector and consumer sentiment.


Earlier in Asia, stocks were mixed after manufacturing data from China fell short of expectations. Industrial production is still growing, but at a slower pace, according to the government-sanctioned China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing. Its manufacturing index for January fell to 50.4 from 50.6 in December on a 100-point scale in which numbers above 50 indicate expansion.


Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell marginally to 23,721.84. South Korea’s Kospi dropped 0.2 percent to 1,957.79. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.9 percent to 4,921.10. The ASX closed at 4,879 on Thursday, capping its best January since 1995, Lucas said.


Japan’s Nikkei 225, meanwhile, was once again energized by the yen’s continued descent against the dollar. The index rose 0.5 percent to 11,191.34.


Benchmark oil for March delivery was down 13 cents to $ 97.39 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 45 cents to close at $ 97.49 a barrel on the Nymex on Thursday.


In currencies, euro rose to $ 1.3667 from $ 1.3574 late Thursday in New York. The dollar rose to 92.18 yen from 91.38 yen.


___


Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.


Economy News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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‘Major failures’ over rail deal









Lousie Ellman MP: “There were major failures by civil servants and ministers”



The fiasco over the collapse of the West Coast Main Line franchise deal was the result of “irresponsible decisions”, an MPs’ committee has said.


The transport committee blamed “major failures” at the Department for Transport (DfT) and the civil service.


But its report was not unanimous, with several committee members choosing not to blame ministers.


In October, the government scrapped its decision to award the £5bn franchise to FirstGroup.


The reversal will cost taxpayers almost £50m, it has been estimated.


“This episode revealed substantial problems of governance, assurance, policy and resources inside the Department for Transport,” said Louise Ellman, chairwoman of the committee.


“Embarking on an ambitious – perhaps unachievable – reform of franchising, in haste, on the UK’s most complex piece of railway, was an irresponsible decision for which ministers were ultimately responsible.


“This was compounded by major failures by civil servants, some of whom misled ministers.”


Continue reading the main story

Ministers asked the right, penetrating questions during the process but were given inaccurate responses by officials”



End Quote Karen Lumley, Karl McCartney, and Iain Stewart Committee members


A DfT spokesman responded: “Independent experts concluded the collapse of the West Coast franchise programme was caused by a number of failures including inadequate planning and weak governance structure, but not systematic failings in the department.


“The examination of emails from key officials found no evidence that this was anything other than simple human error.


“We are putting in place measures that will prevent this embarrassing episode from happening again.”


Also on Thursday, the DfT announced what it would be doing about the processes of awarding three other franchises, which were put on hold after the problems emerged with the West Coast Main Line franchise.


The competition for the Great Western franchise, which connects London to Bristol and Cardiff, has been scrapped.


The department is in talks with the existing operator FirstGroup about extending its franchise for two years. It will announce what it plans to do in the longer term later this year.


The other two competitions – Essex Thameside and the combined Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern franchise – will resume their bidding processes, with revised invitations to tender being issued to the existing short-listed bidders in the summer.


The existing operators will have their contracts to run those franchises extended for no more than two years, in order to allow those processes to be completed.


‘Inaccurate responses’


The mistakes in the West Coast process came to light after rival bidder Virgin Trains launched a legal challenge against the decision. Virgin will continue running the service until November 2014, when a new long-term franchise will begin.


In December, the National Audit Office calculated a “significant cost to the taxpayer”.


It said costs for staff, advisers, lawyers and the two reviews into the fiasco added up to £8.9m, on top of the estimated £40m it will take to reimburse firms for the cost of their bids.


But three members of the transport select committee – Karen Lumley, Karl McCartney, and Iain Stewart – said that they disagreed with the report, which was passed by a majority vote.


An independent report last year by Sam Laidlaw – chief executive of Centrica, the owner of British Gas – found there was a “damning failure” by the DfT that led to ministers – who had not been told about flaws in the bidding process – awarding the contract after being given inaccurate reports.


“We believe the evidence in the Laidlaw Report shows that ministers asked the right, penetrating questions during the process but were given inaccurate responses by officials,” they said.


“We do not believe that it is was ‘irresponsible’ to run the new franchise process first on the WCML as the department has shown itself perfectly capable of managing other complex projects in this period,” they added.


Three DfT civil servants, who were suspended after the scrapping of the bid, have returned to work, and one official has launched legal action against the department on the basis that her role in the process has been “inaccurately” portrayed.


In the report, Ms Ellman said: “Many of the problems with the franchise competition, detailed in the Laidlaw report, reflect very badly on civil servants at the DfT.


“However, ministers approved a complex – perhaps unworkable – franchising policy at the same time as overseeing major cuts to the department’s resources. This was a recipe for failure which the DfT must learn from urgently.”


She called on the DfT to explain why ministers and senior officials were “misled” about how subordinated loan facilities were calculated, if necessary after disciplinary proceedings against staff have concluded.


Ms Ellman’s constituency on Merseyside is served by the rail line.


About 31 million passengers travel on the West Coast Main Line between London and Scotland every year.


BBC News – Business





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UK petrol market ‘working well’







A study of the UK petrol and diesel market by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has said little action is needed.






“The evidence gathered by the OFT suggests that at a national level, competition is working well in the UK road fuel sector,” its report said.


It found the UK has some of Europe’s cheapest fuel prices before tax.


It said there was very little evidence that petrol and diesel prices rise quickly when oil prices go up, but are slow to fall when prices drop.


“We recognise that there has been widespread mistrust in how this market is operating,” said OFT chief executive Clive Maxwell.


“However, our analysis suggests that competition is working well, and rises in pump prices over last decade or so have largely been down to increases in tax and the cost of crude oil.”


But the OFT found that fuel was significantly more expensive at service stations and was concerned that motorists were not able to see the prices until they had left the motorway.


The report asked the Department for Transport to introduce new signs on motorways to display prices.


It also said that while it did not plan to do any more work on the national fuel market, it might still take action in some local markets if there was “persuasive evidence of anti-competitive behaviour”.


Independent retailers had complained that oil companies and supermarkets had been using their scale to give themselves an unfair advantage, but the regulator found no evidence of this.


‘Drivers’ misery’


The investigation into the £32bn sector was launched in September last year.


Since September it has been hearing evidence from trade bodies, government and regulatory organisations, consumer bodies and motoring groups.


“This report will give only limited comfort to the UK’s 35 million drivers who continue to pay near record prices at the pumps, but the OFT does identify the true cause of drivers’ misery – the chancellor and crude oil prices,” said Prof Stephen Glaister, director of the RAC Foundation.


“About 60% of the pump price is accounted for by fuel duty and VAT and we would now call on retailers to provide a breakdown on till receipts to show exactly what the proportion the Exchequer is creaming off.”


“Some will find it hard to believe, but the report does make clear that the fuel market is helping keep prices lower and supermarkets have actually helped competition.”


Quentin Willson, spokesman for the pressure group FairFuelUK, said he was shocked.


“Every motorist and business in Britain instinctively knows that ‘something’s not right’,” he said.


“The OFT appears to have failed to address the key issues of : why diesel is more expensive than unleaded in the UK when this is not the case in Europe, why falls in the oil price take so long to be reflected at the pump, and why there are such variations in price, often from the same branded forecourts, within the same area.”


The report was welcomed by Chris Hunt, director general of the UK’s Petroleum Industry Association, which represents refiners.


“The UK has had amongst the lowest pre-tax pump prices in the EU for over a decade so the findings come as no surprise,” he said.


BBC News – Business





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Peugeot job cuts halted by court







A court in France has suspended the restructuring plans of Peugeot Citroen, saying the carmaker had failed to consult some of its employees properly.






The plans are controversial in France, as they involve 8,000 job cuts in the country and closure of a Paris factory.


Peugeot said it would continue to negotiate the cuts with unions, despite the Paris appeal court ruling delaying their implementation.


The ruling upheld complaints by workers at parts-supplier subsidiary Faurecia.


The CGT union successfully argued that Peugeot had not fulfilled legal obligations to notify the worker committees at two Faurecia sites that are likely to be affected by the planned closure of the carmaker’s factory at Aulnay, near Paris.


Peugeot had hoped to complete the restructuring by March. It said it would go ahead with planned negotiations with the company’s main workforce in February, and would initiate talks with Faurecia workers as soon as possible.


The French government called on Peugeot last year to scale back its plans.


However, the company, like of all its European rivals, faces a depressed home market. Car sales in the EU fell 8.2% last year from 2011.


BBC News – Business





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Scots cities top house price list







House prices have risen faster in Aberdeen and Inverness than any other UK cities over the past decade, a survey has suggested.






The Bank of Scotland report said average prices rose by 94% in the Granite City between 2002 and 2012.


Inverness saw prices climb by 81%, with Dundee (+73%) and Perth (+70%) also featuring in the top five UK cities.


The bank said Aberdeen had particularly sharp increases because of the importance of the oil sector.


According to the survey, cities recorded higher house price growth than the UK average over the past 10 years.


Prices in cities increased by an average of 38%, from £125,276 in 2002 to £173,322 in 2012. This compared to a 29% rise for the UK as a whole.


Northern Irish cities Lisburn and Belfast had the smallest price rises over the last 10 years, up by just 2% and 3% respectively.


The bank said this largely reflected a substantial decline in house prices across Northern Ireland since 2007.


Ely and Southampton recorded the smallest increases in England, while Stirling (+35%) and Glasgow (+45%) experienced the lowest house price growth among cities in Scotland.



















































Source: Bank of Scotland



Average House Price 2002



Average house price 2012



10-year change (%)



Aberdeen



£92,759



£179,607



94%



Inverness



£86,669



£156,832



81%



Bradford



£60,002



£106,015



77%



Dundee



£69,615



£120,086



73%



Perth



£95,488



£162,259



70%



Hull



£60,515



£101,914



68%



Carlisle



£72,895



£120,557



65%



Durham



£80,802



£133,463



65%



Swansea



£76,110



£120,483



58%



Stoke on Trent



£74,305



£117,131



58%



BBC News – Business





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Apple steps up labor audits, finds underage workers






SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc stepped up audits of working conditions at major suppliers last year, discovering multiple cases of underage workers, discrimination and wage problems.


The iPhone and iPad maker, which relies heavily on Asian-based partners like Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Group to assemble the vast majority of its iPhones and iPads, said on Thursday it conducted 393 audits, up 72 percent from 2011, reviewing sites where over 1.5 million workers make its gadgets.






Apple in recent years has faced accusations of building its profits on the backs of poorly treated and severely underpaid workers in China.


That criticism came to the fore around 2010, after reports of suicides at Foxconn drew attention to the long hours that migrant laborers frequently endure, often for a pittance in wages and in severely cramped living conditions.


Foxconn is the trading name of Hon Hai Precision Industry and employs 1.2 million workers across China.


Under Chief Executive Tim Cook, who took over from Steve Jobs in 2011, Apple has taken new steps to improve its record and boost transparency, including the extensive audits of its sprawling supply chain. Last year, it agreed to separate audits by the independent Fair Labor Association.


In an interview on Thursday, Apple senior vice president of operations Jeff Williams said the company has increased its efforts to solve two of the most challenging issues – ensuring there are no under aged workers in its supply chain and limiting working hours to 60 hours a week.


While child labor reflected a small percentage of the workforce, Apple is now investigating its smaller suppliers – which typically supply parts to larger suppliers and hence face less oversight on such issues – to bring them into compliance, sometimes even firing them.


“We go deep in the supply chain to find it,” Williams said. “And when we do find it, we ensure that the underage workers are taken care of, the suppliers are dealt with.”


In one case, Apple said it terminated its relationship with a component maker Guangdong Real Faith Pingzhou Electronics Co Ltd after discovering 74 cases of underage workers.


Officials at Pingzhou Electronics could not be reached despite three telephone calls from Reuters.


Apple also discovered an employment agency that was forging documents to allow children to illegally work at the supplier.


Apple reported both the supplier and the employment agency to local authorities, the company said in its latest annual report on the conditions in its supply chain.


Apple has audited both small and ancillary suppliers, as well as large ones such as Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co, for working conditions. It found 95 percent of sites audited complied with avoiding underage labor.


Child labor is an issue that is part of the larger supply industry as the component maker that Apple found violated child labor laws supplied parts to more than a hundred different companies, including automotive companies, Williams said, vowing to eradicate under aged labor from the industry.


“I don’t know how long it will take to get there but that’s our goal,” said Williams, who has spent a significant amount of his 14 years at Apple in Asia managing the supply chain.


FOCUS ON STUDENT INTERNS


For 2013, Williams said a key focus for Apple will be student interns and ensuring that suppliers do not abuse the internship system, especially in China where many colleges require students to complete internships as part of their curriculum.


Some companies in China are solving labor shortages by employing students. Last September, city officials of the northeastern Chinese coastal city of Yantai ordered vocational high schools to send students to a large plant run by Foxconn – a key contract manufacture for Apple and other large electronics companies like Hewlett Packard – to overcome a shortage of workers.


Another focus areas has been “bonded labor”, where agencies who help immigrant workers find jobs take a substantial portion of the worker’s pay.


Apple said in the report that it asked suppliers to reimburse $ 6.4 million in excess foreign contract worker fees in 2012, according to the report.


The company said it achieved 92 percent compliance with a maximum 60-hour work week in its supply chain. Where violations were discovered, Apple took action, it said in its report.


Apple also found and stopped discriminatory practices against women workers in 34 supplier facilities that required pregnancy testing and 25 facilities that tested employees for certain medical conditions, the report said.


(Additional reporting by Shanghai newsroom; Editing by Richard Pullin)


Business News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Stock futures signal losses; all eyes on Apple






PARIS (Reuters) – Stock index futures pointed to a lower open on Wall Street on Thursday, with futures for the S&P 500 down 0.22 percent, Dow Jones futures up 0.02 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures down 1.3 percent at 1014 GMT.


Shares of Apple Inc will be in the spotlight after the world’s biggest tech company missed Wall Street’s revenue forecast for the third straight quarter after iPhone sales came in below expectations, fanning fears that its dominance of consumer electronics is slipping.






Shares of the company traded in Frankfurt were down 8 percent early. They sank 10 percent to $ 463 in after-hours trade on Wall Street on Wednesday night, wiping out some $ 50 billion of its market value – nearly equivalent to that of Hewlett-Packard and Dell combined.


A U.S. trade panel that specializes in patent disputes will review a potentially key decision in the patent fight between Samsung Electronics and Apple Inc over smartphones and tablets.


European shares were mostly flat in morning trade, as bullish economic data out of China offset Apple‘s weaker-than-expected figures which fanned earnings worries in the technology sector. <.eu></.eu>


Noble Corp , owner of the world’s third-largest offshore drilling fleet, reported on Wednesday a lower-than-expected quarterly profit as it struggled with maintenance for five high-end rigs, even as demand for its most capable units increased.


Raymond James Financial Inc said quarterly profit rose 27.6 percent, boosted by strong performance from its brokerage and capital markets divisions.


Investors in U.S.-based mutual funds pumped $ 9.32 billion into stock funds in the week ended January 16, the second consecutive week of inflows for such funds, data from the Investment Company Institute showed on Wednesday.


Hard disk drive maker Western Digital Corp‘s second-quarter results beat analysts’ expectations, helped by growth in its enterprise segment. Shipment in the enterprise segment rose about 10 percent from first-quarter levels to 6.63 million units, analyst Nehal Chokshi of Technology Insights Research told Reuters.


Japanese regulators have joined their U.S. counterparts in all but ruling out overcharged batteries as the cause of recent fires on the Boeing Co 787 Dreamliner, which has been grounded for a week with no end in sight.


Amgen Inc on Wednesday projected revenue for 2013 that exceeds Wall Street estimates and said it was on track to deliver on its 2015 forecasts well ahead of schedule.


Pamplona Capital Management, holder of 9.3 percent of Nabors Industries Ltd , has become “increasingly concerned” about the underperformance of the drilling rig contractor’s shares, according to a regulatory filing on Wednesday.


Symantec Corp plans to slash its management ranks and reorganize into 10 business areas, but has decided not to sell off major assets after a strategic review by its new early this month.


SanDisk Corp’s modest revenue outlook disappointed investors looking for a rebound in memory chips widely used in smartphones and tablets, sending its shares lower.


Netflix Inc surprised Wall Street on Wednesday with a quarterly profit after the video subscription service added nearly 4 million customers in the United States and abroad, sending its shares 35 percent higher in after-hours trading.


Among the companies set to report results on Thursday feature Bristol-Myers Squibb , Lockheed Martin , 3M Company , Microsoft , Raytheon , Starbucks , AT&T Inc. , and Xerox Corp. .


On the macro front, investors awaited weekly jobless claims, at 1330 GMT, Markit Manufacturing PMI for January, due at 1358 GMT, and December leading economic indicators, due at 1500 GMT.


The S&P 500 rose for a sixth day on Wednesday after stronger-than-expected profits from IBM and Google but the rally could be halted as Apple‘s after-hours miss sent its shares lower.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 67.12 points or 0.49 percent, to 13,779.33, the S&P 500 <.spx> gained 2.25 points or 0.15 percent, to 1,494.81, and the Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> added 10.49 points or 0.33 percent, to 3,153.67.</.ixic></.spx></.dji>


(Reporting by Blaise Robinson)


Business News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Wanted: People to Serve on the ‘Death Panel’






Republican Representative Phil Roe frequently gives speeches about what he calls the perils of Obamacare. A gynecologist from Tennessee, he’s especially worked up about one part of the law: the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a government-appointed panel intended to help slow the growth of Medicare spending. The 15-person IPAB will propose Medicare cost cuts if the growth in the program’s spending exceeds inflationary targets. But that’s not how Roe sees it. He envisions closed-door meetings where “unelected bureaucrats” make decisions that lead to rationing—a scenario hyped by Sarah Palin and other conservatives who warn the IPAB is really a “death panel” that will sit in judgment over Americans’ health claims, denying costly care to the old and weak. Roe is pushing a bill that would get rid of the board. “This is not something we want to do to our seniors,” he says.


Sounds scary. Except the IPAB doesn’t have anything close to that kind of power. The law makes it clear that the panel has no authority to ration care or cut benefits for Medicare recipients. It can’t touch reimbursements to hospitals until 2020. Instead, it’s expected to find savings by eliminating fraud and reducing payments to private insurance companies that work with Medicare and prescription drug providers. And it can only do that if the government is projected to spend more than it’s supposed to.






Each spring, the Office of the Actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services forecasts how much the programs will cost two years in the future. On April 30, it will issue its per-capita estimate for 2015. The actuary will also release a spending target, based on predictions about the pace of health-care inflation. If the increase in expected Medicare costs exceeds the spending target, the IPAB steps in to propose cuts. It will take a three-fifths Senate supermajority to reject its recommendations, and then legislators must find alternative cuts that achieve the same savings. Senators can’t resort to the usual stalling tactics: The law allows them to debate the IPAB’s proposal for 30 hours max, making it filibuster-proof.


The hyperbole surrounding the board shows why it may not be such a bad idea, at least in theory. For all its avowed concern about runaway entitlement spending, Congress is too scared to do anything about it. Not many politicians in Washington are willing to make enemies of the elderly, who are vocal and vote, or the health-care industry, which receives billions of dollars from Medicare and rewards legislators who keep the cash flowing. “There’s nobody representing taxpayers,” says Robert Berenson, an Urban Institute fellow and former vice chairman of Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, which counsels Congress on Medicare. “There’s a lot of people representing doctors, hospitals, and medical device manufacturers.”


While Republicans fret about power-hungry bureaucrats taking over health care, President Obama appears to be having trouble finding people willing to take a job that in reality has little influence and not much appeal. The White House, which declined requests to comment on its efforts to recruit IPAB members, has yet to name anyone to the board, even though it’s supposed to get to work by the end of April.


The law requires the panel to be made up of prominent doctors, economists, hospital executives, and insurance industry representatives. Candidates are subject to Senate approval, which means they must endure potentially hostile public hearings. “They are going to be held to a high level of scrutiny,” says Senator John Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican and orthopedic surgeon. “We’re going to have tough questions. We’re going to demand answers to know where they stand and then make decisions about each one of them individually.” Barrasso has made it clear where he stands. He’s a co-sponsor of the Health Care Bureaucrats Elimination Act, a bill that would do away with the IPAB.


Board members willing to go through all that must also agree to serve for six years, full time; they have to quit their current jobs because of conflict-of-interest concerns. “They are going to have to lead this Rapunzel-like existence hidden away somewhere in a tower,” says J.D. Kleinke, a health-care economist who’s writing a book on Obamacare. The salary of $ 165,300, though respectable, is far less than top doctors and health-care executives typically make. And the life of an IPAB member may be rather dull, since its powers kick in only if spending is surging. In March, the Congressional Budget Office forecast that Medicare costs aren’t likely to spike for the next decade. Chapin White, a senior researcher at the Center for Studying Health System Change, attributes this to cost-control measures that are already in effect as a result of the Affordable Care Act. “The ACA has definitely pushed the Medicare spending trajectory down,” he says.


That would leave IPAB members with little to do but tinker away on health-care reports the law recommends they write every other year. But Congress can just ignore those. “Who wants to drop their careers to go onto a board that’s going to pay you very little money to say ‘let’s fight fraud’?” asks Dana Goldman, a health-care economist at the University of Southern California. “I think a better approach would be to let them do it part time.”


No wonder Obama has yet to announce his candidates. The drafters of the Affordable Care Act seem to have anticipated such ambivalence. If there’s no IPAB in place by the time its services are needed, the law allows Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to do its job until the panel is up and running. “Everybody is focused on 15 unelected people,” says Berenson. “But the key part of the IPAB is that there’s a trigger mechanism which forces somebody to recommend cuts to stay within the spending target. The activity doesn’t go away.”


The bottom line: Top doctors and highly paid executives aren’t flocking to sit on the IPAB, which requires a six-year commitment and pays $ 165,300.


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South Africa protesters burn tyres, loot shops






JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Thousands of South Africans burnt tyres and vehicles, barricaded streets and looted shops in the industrial town of Sasolburg near Johannesburg on Monday, the worst social unrest this year around the commercial hub of Africa’s biggest economy.


Three police officers were injured when a mob threw stones at them in the town, 90 km (55 miles) south of Johannesburg, Constable Peter Kareli said.






In return, 50 officers fired rubber bullets and stun grenades and deployed water cannons to disperse the rioters, who went on the rampage because of a plan to move local government boundaries, he added.


“These people are attacking us in groups at different locations so it is difficult for us to control them,” he said.


Some of the crowd were armed with knives, machetes and firearms and police had made at least 130 arrests since the violence broke out on Sunday, he added.


Sasolburg is home to the 108,000 barrels-per-day Natref refinery, owned by petrochemicals group Sasol and oil major Total. Kareli said the refinery was not in danger.


Violent protests erupt periodically in South Africa’s predominantly black townships, which have seen little improvement in living standards since the end of apartheid in 1994.


(Reporting by Agnieszka Flak; Editing by Ed Cropley)


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American Airlines Repaints Its Planes, to Much Carping






The downside of creating a classic brand image is that you can never change it without killing a classic brand image. And thereby poking the Internet anger gods.


On Thursday morning, American Airlines (AAMRQ) did both when it unveiled a flashy new paint job for its fleet of aircraft. The brazenly patriotic, hot-rod look supplants the airline’s classic, mid-20th century design—one that once called to mind the golden era of flight but has more recently come to symbolize an industry struggling to adapt. Goodbye to The Aviator. Welcome to Team America: World Police.






Gone is the “Silver Bird” livery introduced in 1967 (below), with its red, white, and blue stripes, the one-word “AmericanAirlines” printed, in Helvetica type, across a polished aluminum fuselage, and the “AA” logo with a deco eagle conceived by the design team of Lella and Massimo Vignelli. The “New American” look will feature a one-word “American” in giant letters next to a new, offset logo, with an American-flag-draped tail.ccb44  0117 AAirlines Old Inline 4051 American Airlines Repaints Its Planes, to Much CarpingPhotograph by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg


Responses have ranged from baffled to withering. Courtesy of Twitter:


“Pity – @AmericanAir trashes a classic modernist icon logo – and ‘fixes’ the only thing that wasn’t broken about that wretched airline” —Joel Spolsky, founder of Stack Overflow


“The new American Airlines logo will be hated by everybody for its sleekness, & new typography for its blandness.” —Rafat Ali, founder of Skift


“American, only US airline with a great logo, changes it to something hideous. Painting their planes cant be far behind.” —Will Doig, international editor of Next City


“Big lettering of new @AmericanAir logo ok, but the rest feels like it is trying too hard to be trendy, unlike the self-assured Vignelli logo.” —Paul Goldberger, architecture critic.


When the prior logo was conceived, it was supposed to convey a sense of professionalism and modernity. The new logo arrives amid turmoil. American went bankrupt in 2011 and is reportedly being courted by US Airways (LCC) for a merger. Virasb Vahidi, American’s chief commercial officer, explained the makeover in a statement: “Our new logo and livery are designed to reflect the passion for progress and the soaring spirit, which is uniquely American. … The new tail, with stripes flying proudly, is a bold reflection of American’s origin and name.”


The Vignellis haven’t responded to requests for comment, but we’d be curious to know their thoughts. “The life of a designer is a life of fight—fight against ugliness,” Massimo Vignelli said in the 2007 documentary Helvetica. It appears that this is one fight they may have lost.


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Why Obama’s Gun Plan Didn’t Target Video Games






When President Obama revealed his proposal to curb gun violence on Wednesday, one industry largely went overlooked: video-game makers. Obama announced an executive order to end an industry-backed freeze on federal research into the linkage between violent behavior and violent content in games, and he recommended that Congress authorize $ 10 million for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to conduct the research. But restrictions on the sale of violent games to minors, or scrutiny of the content of games, weren’t part of the package.


Earlier, it looked as if the administration might make more concrete demands of game makers. At the memorable press conference that the National Rifle Association held after the Newtown shooting, Wayne LaPierre pointed a finger at game developers. “There exists in this country, sadly, a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and sows violence against its own people,” he said. “And then they all have the nerve to call it entertainment.”






Vice President Joe Biden, tasked with coming up with recommendations for the president, appeared to be listening to the NRA’s call. He asked executives from Electronic Arts (EA), ZeniMax Media, Take-Two Interactive (TTWO), Epic Games, and E-Line Media to the White House for a chat. But according to Chris Ferguson, a video-game expert who teaches psychology at Texas A&M and attended the meeting, Biden told the gaming executives he didn’t intend to call on them to change their business practices.


That may be because there isn’t much the White House can do to force them to change. The Supreme Court has already settled the question of whether the government can regulate game sales. In a 2011 decision, the court ruled on free speech grounds that the State of California couldn’t prohibit the sale of violent games to minors. The Court also cited a lack of evidence that playing games leads to violent behavior.


The game makers were wary when they walked in to meet Biden, says Ferguson. “They were in a defensive posture. They wanted to emphasize [the Supreme Court ruling] over and over.”  Cheryl Olson, a public health expert who attended the meeting, says the executives were concerned the president would make an example of them. The editor of Gamasutra, the top website for game makers, warned fellow developers that even going to the meeting would be a mistake. As it turned out, they had nothing to worry about.


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Chinese, U.S. data push shares to 20-month high






LONDON (Reuters) – World shares hit a 20-month high on Friday as encouraging data from the United States and China boosted prospects for the global economy, while the yen hit new lows ahead of next week’s Bank of Japan meeting.


China’s economy grew at a slightly faster-than-expected 7.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012, the latest sign it is pulling out of a post-global financial crisis slowdown that produced its weakest year of economic growth since 1999.






The positive news came on top of strong U.S. labor and housing market reports on Thursday, providing fresh impetus to a recent strong and broad financial market rally.


MSCI’s index of leading world shares <.miwd00000pus> hit its highest level since May 2011 at 552.16 points after Tokyo and Hong Kong stock markets surged and the S&P 500 in New York hit a five-year high.</.miwd00000pus>


Industrial commodities and oil also benefited, with palladium reaching a 16-month high and platinum a three-month high, while Brent crude added 28 cents to stand at $ 111.38 a barrel by 1030 GMT.


“We’ve got good numbers out of China, we had some good numbers out of U.S. yesterday … The general sentiment is pretty good,” said Neil Marsh, strategist at New edge.


“There will probably be some phases of consolidation as we go forward, but the markets remain pretty resilient. More people are putting their cash to work now in riskier assets like equities, and there is no sign of that stopping at the minute.”


European stocks were mostly higher by mid-morning, with London’s FTSE 100 <.ftse> and Paris’s CAC-40 <.fchi> up 0.4 and 0.2 percent, respectively, but Frankfurt’s DAX <.gdaxi> was 0.1 percent in the red <.l><.eu><.n>.</.n></.eu></.l></.gdaxi></.fchi></.ftse>


British retail sales posted a surprise monthly fall in December, dashing hopes that Christmas shoppers would provide a last-minute boost to an economy on the verge of another contraction.


Like much of Europe, consumer spending in Britain has come under pressure from a combination of below-inflation wage growth, worries about the economy and government austerity measures. 䄀 “What is disappointing is that, after about a year of a pick-up in retail activity, the high street seems to have stalled again over the past few months. We’re looking at modest growth in the British economy over 2013,” said Phillip Shaw, an economist at Investec.


YEN SLIDE RESUMES


The strong U.S. data and mounting expectations for more aggressive easing by the Bank of Japan (BOJ) next week lifted the dollar as high as 90.21 yen, its highest since June 2010, and the euro to its peak since May 2011 of 120.73 yen.


The single currency was starting to lose ground against the dollar as midday approached, trading down 0.2 percent at $ 1.3350.


Expectations that the new Japanese government will pursue massive fiscal spending and push for more aggressive BOJ easing to drive Japan out of years of deflation and economic slump have spurred heavy yen selling since November.


Sources told Reuters the BOJ will at its January 21-22 meeting consider removing the 0.1 percent floor on short-term interest rates and commit to open-ended asset buying until the 2 percent inflation target is reached.


“A lot is priced in for next week’s BOJ meeting. If asset purchases by the BOJ were unlimited, that could lead to significantly higher levels in dollar/yen and euro/yen levels,” said Peter Kinsella, currency strategist at Commerzbank. “Levels past 93-95 yen within the next two-three weeks is not unreasonable.”


LTRO ANTICIPATION


U.S. stock futures pointed to a broadly steady restart on Wall Street after the S&P 500 climbed to a five-year high on Thursday.


In bond markets, German two-year government bond yields rose 0.25 percent to near their highest in nearly 10 months, with traders citing growing concerns over potentially large scale early repayments of the ultra-cheap three-year loans the European Central Bank flooded markets with from late 2011.


The ECB will on January 25 publish how much will be repaid in the January 30 first round of repayments. A larger-than-expected return of around 400 billion euros would effectively tighten money market conditions and push up the price banks charge to lend to each other.


“The (German) front-end is being hit by the LTRO story,” one bond trader said. “My view is it’s oversold, but there’s something else at play there, so it’s very difficult to trade against it.”


(Reporting by Marc Jones; Editing by Will Waterman)


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Futures signal mixed Wall Street open






LONDON (Reuters) – U.S. stock futures pointed to a mixed open on Wall Street on Thursday, with futures for the S&P 500 rising 0.1 percent, Dow Jones futures down 0.2 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures falling 0.1 percent.


Airlines scrambled on Thursday to rearrange flights as Europe, Japan and India joined the United States in grounding Boeing Co‘s 787 Dreamliner passenger jets while battery-related problems are investigated.






Earnings reports from major U.S. companies such as Citigroup , Intel , Bank of America and BlackRock , due later in the day, will be scrutinized for hints about the market’s near-term direction.


First-time claims for jobless benefits for the week ended January 12 are due at 1330 GMT. Economists forecast a total of 365,000 new filings, compared with 371,000 in the previous week.


The Commerce Department releases housing starts and permits for December at 1330 GMT. Economists in a Reuters survey forecast a total of 903,000 permits in December, compared with 900,000 in the previous month.


Top executives at Goldman Sachs have been considering deep cuts to staffing levels and pay for at least two years, but feared too many layoffs would leave the firm unprepared for an eventual pickup in business, people familiar with the bank said.


Shares in Dutch telecoms company KPN rose more than 4 percent on Thursday after a report that U.S. peer AT&T is looking at an acquisition in Europe, including KPN and UK carrier Everything Everywhere.


AT&T is considering buying a telecoms company in Europe to offset growth constraints in its home market, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the company’s thinking.


Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd reported a 32 percent rise in fourth-quarter profit as its cutting-edge technology keeps it ahead of rivals in the mobile gadget boom.


Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank releases its January business activity survey at 1500 GMT. Economists forecast a reading of 5.8, versus 4.6 in December.


The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index <.fteu3> was flat in morning trading on Thursday.</.fteu3>


The S&P 500 ended nearly flat on Wednesday as solid earnings from two major banks and a bounceback in Apple shares offset concerns about a lower forecast for global growth in 2013.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 23.66 points, or 0.17 percent, at 13,511.23 on Wednesday. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index <.spx> was up 0.29 points, or 0.02 percent, at 1,472.63. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 6.77 points, or 0.22 percent, at 3,117.54.</.ixic></.spx></.dji>


(Reporting by Atul Prakash; Editing by Catherine Evans)


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German govt cuts 2013 growth forecast to 0.4 pct






BERLIN (AP) — The German government has lowered its growth forecast for the country’s economy, Europe’s biggest, and now says it will expand by only 0.4 percent in 2013.


In October, the government had predicted growth of 1 percent for this year. But the economy hit a weak patch in the fourth quarter amid trouble elsewhere in the euro area.






Economy Minister Philipp Roesler said Wednesday that the economy will pick up after a slow winter and forecast growth of 1.6 percent for 2014.


The government‘s revised forecast comes a day after official data showed that the economy grew by 0.7 percent in 2012 — below the previous year’s figure of 3 percent.


The new 2013 forecast puts the government in line with last month’s projection by Germany’s central bank, the Bundesbank.


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Congress Works Better With Bribes–Er, Pork






“I haven’t seen so much lard,” said Ronald Reagan, “since I handed out blue ribbons at the Iowa State Fair.” It was March 1987, and the president was using his weekly radio address to blast a highway spending bill he’d just vetoed. The next month 13 Republican senators deserted him by voting to help Democrats override the veto. As the late Senator Robert Byrd, a Democrat legendary for bringing money home to West Virginia, told his chamber: “Potholes know no party.”


Congressional pork is hard to define with any precision. One man’s sop is another man’s overpass. But earmarks, the specific instructions that Congress tacks onto its spending bills in order to tell the president exactly where in the country the money they’re approving must be spent, are easy to identify and target. Since the days of Byrd, both Congress and the public have soured on them. After the Republicans took back the House in 2010, Congress banned earmarks outright. In the two years since, it’s done nothing but tie itself up with a supercommittee, a sequester, and continued promises to fix things in the future. Political hacks used to say pork was the political grease that lubricated legislative deals. Only now do we see how true that was. Would it really be so terrible to reintroduce some congressionally sanctioned bribery? That would let members lay claim to the odd million in the interest of striking a deal worth much more.






Tom DeLay, as majority leader for House Republicans in the early 2000s, used the lure of earmarks to enforce party discipline. Democrats in the minority squealed about the practice. When they took power in 2007, they vowed to reform the system, then started attaching members’ names to their earmark requests in 2008 to increase transparency. Perversely, this made earmarks a fat target for the Republicans who’d staked much of the 2010 election on an anti-spending platform.


Since the ban took effect, the appropriations process has “melted down,” says Sean Kelly, a professor at California State University Channel Islands who’s spent his career studying government spending. In dozens of conversations with staffers and members of Congress, he’s found that there’s now less incentive for a politician to serve on an appropriations committee because there’s nothing to hand out. As a result, says Kelly, the committees attract more partisans and fewer pragmatists–to its detriment. “There’s a human element in lawmaking that is real,” says Tom Cole, a six-term House Republican from Oklahoma. Without earmarks, “you’re removing all incentive for people to vote for things that are tough.”


And the ban, says Cole, hasn’t reduced spending. It’s just moved the decision-making power Congress used to have to the executive branch. “You’ve still got earmarks,” he says. “They’re just getting done by unelected bureaucrats.” Kelly says his conversations with congressional staffers confirm this: Offices on Capitol Hill have been calling over to agencies to ask that parcels of already-approved funding go to their districts. “The people who should love earmarks the most are conservatives,” says Kelly. “What this is about is making sure things are adapted to local conditions.”


Late last year, Cole worked with other senior Republicans to return some kind of limited earmarking authority to the House. Says Cole, “You have to spend millions to save billions.” That’s not going to happen. The effort failed, and the House has since passed rules that keep pork off the table.


The bottom line: Politicians and the public have long complained about earmarks, but there was less dysfunction in Washington when they were allowed.


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Record year for Heathrow airport







Heathrow has said that it handled 70 million passengers in 2012, the highest number on record, as the crowded airport saw bigger and fuller planes.






Numbers rose 0.9% from 2011, with 3.2% growth in its staple North Atlantic business, and traffic to the Far East and Brazil boosted by new routes.


December was also a record month at the airport, with China traffic up 23%.


But the growth in passenger numbers during 2012 was balanced by a 1.3% drop in cargo passing through the airport.


Heathrow has been operating close to official full capacity for several years.


Besides the spare capacity freed up by cargo, the airport said that the higher passenger numbers had been due to an increase in the aircraft load factor – a measure of how full planes are – from 75.2% to 75.6%, as well as in average aircraft size from 194.8 seats to 197.4.


It meant that the average plane flying through Heathrow was carrying almost 2% more passengers in 2012 than the year before.


The distribution of traffic across different destinations last year reflected the changing fortunes of various countries’ economies:


  • Passenger numbers to Brazil rose 21.6%, due to an increase in the number of flights

Continue reading the main story

ecab2   65261792 heathrow3 Record year for Heathrow airport


Every time there’s a problem with the weather, Heathrow goes up the pole”



End Quote Peter Budd Head of aviation at Arup


  • East Asia rose 6.2% in the year, in part due to recovery from Japan’s 2011 tsunami, and climbed by 14.8% in December from a year earlier as new routes opened

  • The recession-struck eurozone economies of Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain saw a collective 4.5% drop in traffic in 2012

  • Middle Eastern passenger numbers rebounded 3.4% as the political situation in most of the region stabilised

  • Passenger numbers to India and Africa fell, as routes shifted away from these regions in favour of higher-growth developing economies

“The figures for 2012 show Heathrow is delivering higher passenger numbers despite a tough economic climate,” said Heathrow chief executive Colin Matthews.


“At the same time, passenger satisfaction levels reached record levels.”


The airport is due to complete the reconstruction of Terminal 2 in 2014, which will increase the number of passengers it can handle, but not the number of flights.


Meanwhile, Stansted airport is close to being sold by parent company Heathrow Airports Holdings Ltd – which used to be known as BAA.


Three groups are expected to submit final bids this week for the single-runway airport in Essex.


The favourite is a joint venture between Manchester Airport and the Australian infrastructure investment fund Industry Fund Management.


BAA was told to sell Stansted – as well as Gatwick and either of Glasgow or Edinburgh – in 2009 following an investigation by the Competition Commission.


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As Trip Planning Moves Online, AmEx’s Travel Agents Get Bumped






American Express, responding to the growing acceptance among business travelers of arranging trips online, is laying off thousands of employees as travel planning shifts to the digital world. The 5,400 job cuts announced Jan. 10 will fall heavily on the bank’s travel services division, which caters predominantly to companies that contract with American Express (AXP) to arrange their employees’ business trips. The company will take a $ 400 million charge for the cuts, which will be completed this year.


“The economics, particularly the business travel business, have changed more dramatically over the years than any part of our business,” American Express Chief Executive Kenneth Chenault said on a conference call Thursday night. “We have moved more things online, and that will continue.” The migration of travel planning online will also help the company “serve a growing customer base with lower staffing level,” he said.






One major reason for the shift from the age of telephone bookings to a Web future is the greater control companies can gain in managing—er, reducing—the amount they spend when workers hit the road. Sixty percent of some 1,500 corporate travel planners said new online tools gave them more control over travel policy than in the past, according to a July 2012 survey (PDF) by the Global Business Travel Association Foundation and Egencia, the corporate travel unit of Expedia (EXPE). The same survey found that three-quarters of travelers use online-booking tools as part of their work travel.


Most of the industry’s new online travel offerings can be customized to a client’s travel policies, including preset limits on spending for certain categories, while integrating expense reporting. The new digital products also let travelers book and change flights and hotels from their mobile devices while en route. That business has expanded rapidly in recent years for traditional travel agents and corporate travel departments as well as online players such as Priceline (PCLN), Sabre Holdings, Expedia, and upstarts like Concur Technologies (CNQR). (American Express owns nearly 14 percent of Concur.)


American Express is responding to those same kinds of trends, says spokeswoman Diana Postemsky. “We’re trying to advance these product and service offerings in a way that is aligned to the way our customers want to interact with us,” she says.


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