World important news by Tiana

Scotiabank CEO concerned about Basel implementaion

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 22:50:46 +0300

* Wants to take advantage of opportunitiesTORONTO, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Bank of Nova Scotia Chief Executive Rick Waugh says he welcomes tighter bank regulations, but harbors concerns about whether new Basel III rules will be applied evenly.”My major concern is a level playing field,” Waugh said in an investor presentation by the bank in Toronto on Monday. Scotiabank is Canada’s third-largest lender.The new global rules for tighter capital and liquidity restraints have drawn criticism from some CEOs - most famously JP Morgan Chase head Jamie Dimon, who called the rules “anti-American” - but have generally been well received by Canadian banks.”I’m all for supervision, regulation, high capital levels, better liquidity, better funding,” Waugh said.He said the new rules have not forced the bank to alter its business model in any “fundamental” way, but said the uncertainty around how the rules will be implemented globally is troubling.”Are the Americans going to go to Basel III? Are the trading rules that are being implemented, are they going to be executed in the same time frame in the United States and Europe?” he said.The new rules - agreed on by global regulators but to be applied by national bodies - will place restrictions on lending and trading that will likely reduce banks’ profitability.Scotiabank, like Canada’s other lenders, did not require a bailout during the financial crisis, and the bank has continued making acquisitions as struggling institutions in the United States and Europe sell subsidiaries to bolster their capital positions.Waugh suggested that could continue.”We’ve demonstrated we’ve been able to do a reasonable job of coming through this. I want to take advantage in a prudent disciplined way of the opportunities, so I want a level playing field,” he said.Scotiabank’s shares were down 40 Canadian cents, oe 0.8 percent, at C$51.84 on the Toronto Stock Exchange amid a broad-based selloff.

Divorce stress meets recession mess, and women struggle

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 17:45:51 +0300

When Carol Meerschaert of Paoli, Pennsylvania divorced 10 years ago, she experienced first-hand how starting over as a single mom also means managing the money without any help. Her kids were 7, 10 and 14, and even though she had income as a dietician, âit certainly was very challenging,â Meerschaert recalls. She moved into a smaller home, paid her own mortgage and, in time, funded college tuition for her eldest daughter. âShe had to drop out of school for a year a school she loved,â Meerschaert says. âI went back to school, too, to get an MBA so I could make more money.â She never lost her house, or her nerve. But other woman arenât so lucky. Experts say alarming numbers of women emerge from divorce lacking even the most basic money management skills, to the point where many begin single life as financially illiterate. Meanwhile, the serpentine economy of 2011 has only placed added strain on unhappy couples and divorced women. A new study by the University of VirginiaÂs National Marriage Project found that divorce rates have followed the fall and rise of the nationÂs troubled economy during the last four years. Between 2008 and 2009, divorce rates dropped significantly as families experienced unemployment and mortgage stress. In 2008, the divorce rate fell 24 percent, and in 2009, 57 percent. The rate is on the rise, however, as the nation slowly recovers from the recession. âThe current economic climate has certainly added more complications to the divorce process,â says Linda Lea Viken, president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. Viken cites a new survey where 85 percent of the organizationâs members reported a jump in divorce settlement difficulties since 2008 due to housing debt.Â That, in turn has impacted child custody cases due to relocation issues, 53 percent of members reported. Whatâs more, todayâs divorced women experience ruder financial awakenings than in generations past, experts say. Massive credit card debt often emerges in the divorce proceedings Â indicating that despite the Great Recession, many couples have lived far beyond their means. ÂThree of the top five causes for divorce are often financial: job loss, housing problems and credit card debt,Â says Chris Bixby, a senior financial planner and vice president with Key Private Bank in Burlington, Vermont. He recalls a formerly well-off client whose ex-husband strapped her with a $23,000 debt on her credit cards from a failed business venture. She never saw it coming. Soon she was cleaning houses to make ends meet. ÂWe started with the basics,Â Bixby says. ÂThe first step to getting out of debt is to avoid going deeper into debt.Â By cutting back on the free spending she was used to in marriage, BixbyÂs client slashed 80 percent of her debt in 18 months. Still, Âthe economic downturn has made divorce more complex than ever,Â says Lee Block, a twice-divorced woman and mother of two, who now writes the Post-Divorce Chronicles and serves as a divorce coach. Block (pictured at right) says many of her clients now try to work things out Â but not because of love. ÂIâm actually in the position of trying to help people get back together because they canât afford to getÂ divorced,Â Block says. ÂIt could be a question of ÂHow are we going to live together amicably?Â Or it could be, ÂHow do we stay together for the meantime and not kill each other?Â Â Block also describes a scenario that sounds positively 1960s: ÂI see women who donÂt know how to pay a bill, and it shocks me. TheyÂre in their 50s and 60s and donât know how to write a check, or get their own credit cards, or start a bank account. TheyÂve been taken care of their whole lives by their husbands.Â And yet, nine out of 10 women will be responsible for their finances at some point, due largely to divorce or the death of a spouse, says Jeffrey M. Verdon, a lawyer in Irvine, California who conducts ÂFor Women OnlyÂ estate planning seminars. Like Block, Verdon points out that women in their 50s and 60s are especially at risk. But the financial services sector often overlooks these women.Â âThe industry has not done a very good jobÂ reaching out, he says.Â ÂIf you look at their ads in magazines on TV, theyÂre generally associated with a couple. I donât see any firms gearing their services to single women, and itâs a big mistake.Â As a primary piece of advice, Verdon and others suggest that divorcing women talk to friends to see who manages their money. ÂI tell my clients to go find the wealthiest person in their community that they know, and ask whoâs advising them,Â he says. ÂDivorcing women have to be careful, in that when theyâre looking for advice, theyâre also open to fraudsters. So the best place to start is the family attorney, the family CPA, or a CPA and attorney who represent someone else in their family.â ÂIdeally, a person would bring their financial planner into the divorce process as soon as possible,Â says Jennifer Immel, a senior wealth planner from PNC Wealth Management in Naples, Florida. Even financially savvy women can find divorce draining, so a good planner will restore fiscal sense amidst the stress. A clear-headed reckoning of household expenses, for example, can impact a settlement in the ex-wifeÂs favor. So while her marriage of almost 20 years ended on a sad note, Meerschaert now has that MBA , along with three grown kids who look destined to script a happy financial ending: ÂHopefully theyâll grow up top be money-savvy people. They wonât go into credit card debt. I want my kids to see that if you work hard, and make the trade-offs, you can end up much happier.â

Divorce stress meets recession mess, and women struggle

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 17:45:47 +0300

UPDATE 1-Tight race seen as Liberia gears for vote results

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 16:00:57 +0300

* Voting in second poll since war hailed free and fairBy Richard Valdmanis and Alphonso TowehMONROVIA, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Liberia is to release a first batch of official results on Thursday from its hotly contested presidential election, in which Nobel laureate Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is seeking a second term.An unofficial partial tally released on Thursday by a local media association, the Liberia Media Center (LMC), showed Johnson-Sirleaf had an edge over her main rival Winston Tubman, with 44 percent to his 36 percent of some 380,000 votes counted.Ex-rebel leader Prince Johnson is in third place with 12 percent, according to the LMC figures, which it says are a tally of results posted by the National Election Commission at individual polling stations around the country. That could make him a possible kingmaker in any second-round runoff.”If there is a run-off, I will get to my constituencies to ask them which way to go. Based on what they will tell me, I will then make a decision, but for now, I cannot say anything. We represent a huge group of people,” Prince Johnson told Reuters on Thursday.The vote is seen as a test of Liberia’s progress since the 1989-2003 civil war killed nearly a quarter of a million people and left infrastructure in ruins. If smooth, the election could pave the way to billions of dollars in investment in Liberia’s mining, energy and agriculture sectors.”We are all waiting for the results, and from my perspective, I think they will be accepted,” said Amadou Kante, a resident of the Sinkor neighbourhood in the capital Monrovia.Around 1.8 million Liberians registered for Tuesday’s election, the second since the fighting and the first to be organized locally. If no candidate wins an outright majority, the two front-runners from a field of 16 will go into a run-off vote scheduled for early November.Official preliminary figures will be released by the National Election Commission later on Thursday. Many voters were tuned to radio or television stations as the LMC’s unofficial tally came through.”I think for now, the election process was calm and from what we are looking at, there may be a second round. But this is elections, anything can happen,” said Omeja Jimmie, a student of the African Methodist University in Monrovia.Voting on Tuesday passed off peacefully in Monrovia. Observer groups said they had received no reports of trouble elsewhere in the country of four million people, but have expressed concern that the results could be a flashpoint.”The mission is of the view that there were no major irregularities and incidents of violence. It estimated that on the whole, the elections of October 11, 2011 were conducted under acceptable conditions of freedom of voters and transparency of the process,” said Attahiru Jega, head of the observer mission from West African bloc ECOWAS.Johnson-Sirleaf got a pre-poll boost with her award of the Nobel Peace Prize last Friday, but rivals have said Liberians will judge her on her success in fighting poverty in a country with an average annual income of $300 a head.A dispute over the results of the 2005 election that brought Johnson-Sirleaf to power as Africa’s first freely elected female head of state triggered several days of rioting.

GLOBAL MARKETS-Stocks, euro rally on fund progress, momentum

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 00:02:14 +0300

* Steepest 7-day rally by the S&P 500 since March 2009* Euro gains against U.S. dollar, yenBy Barani Krishnan and Rodrigo CamposNEW YORK, Oct 12 (Reuters) - World stocks advanced for a sixth straight day on Wednesday and the euro rose against the U.S. dollar after the final nation in the euro zone reached a deal to strengthen a regional bailout fund, boosting investor confidence.On Wall Street, the benchmark S&P 500 stock index compiled a gain of 9.8 percent over the past seven sessions, its steepest advance since mid-March 2009.”It feels as though the market is experiencing the possibility of a melt-up,” said Hank Smith, chief investment officer of Haverford Trust Co in Philadelphia.”A lot of people who have been afraid of some of these big, macro risks are thinking: maybe we should get back in because this has been a rough year and it would be really rough if we missed a big fourth quarter,” he said.Another market moving up was oil where Brent crude rose for a sixth session to $110.82 a barrel, extending its gain to more than 11 percent in that period.Investor appetite for risk heightened after lawmakers in Slovakia struck a deal to ratify more powers for the euro zone’s rescue fund, effectively ending for now a crisis for the euro which also weighed on equities and other risky assets.Slovakia is the last country in the 17-member currency zone left to approve the revamped European Financial Stability Facility.”Europeans feel very comfortable that a plan has been put in place with respect to their banks and Greece, and the EFSF is going to solve the problem for now,” said Peter Boockvar, equity strategist at Miller Tabak & Co in New York.Investors are also looking to the European Union to announce a bank recapitalization plan designed to cushion the impact any default by Greece could have on the region’s banks.The Dow Jones industrial average added 102.55 points, or 0.90 percent, to 11,518.85. The S&P 500 was up 11.71 points, or 0.98 percent, to 1,207.25. The Nasdaq Composite rose 21.70 points, or 0.84 percent, to 2,604.73.The euro’s strong gains also were helped by data showing strong industrial output in the region during August.The single currency rose 1.1 percent against the dollar to $1.37869. It touched a high of $1.38340 on the EBS trading platform, its strongest since Sept. 16.The euro also rallied against the yen , up 1.9 percent, peaking at 107.04 yen.Rising for the sixth session in a row, the MSCI world equity index gained 1.4 percent. U.S. dollar-denominated Nikkei futures gained 0.6 percent.Government bond prices fell, with 10-year U.S. Treasury notes in a dismal auction, as fewer investors sought safe haven and appetite for risk grew. Gold also lost its safety appeal, trading around $1,679 an ounce, off its intraday high above $1,691.U.S. bonds extended losses after the Treasury auctioned $21 billion in 10-year notes. The benchmark Treasury note fell 15/32 in price, to yield 2.22 percent, up from 2.208 percent at Tuesday’s close.