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More is likely to be learned Tuesday afternoon about what dealing with negative publicity about the iPhone 4 will cost Apple Inc.

But when the Cupertino company reports earnings after the market closes, it is once again expected to surpass its guidance for revenue and profit.

When it reported its first quarter earnings in April, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) projected second quarter revenue would be between $13 billion and $13.4 billion and earnings would be between $2.28 and $2.39.

Analysts on average are forecasting a 50 percent jump in revenue to $14.6 billion and earnings of $3.07 per share.

CEO Steve Jobs said more will be revealed about what it will cost the company to provide free cases to resolve the signal reception problems on the iPhone 4 that have become known as "Antennagate." Analysts are projecting that may chip one or two pennies per share off earnings projections.

But Jobs said Friday that 3 million on the new smartphones had been snatched up and the second quarter sales of the iPhone, which accounts for about 40 percent of Apple revenue, are expected to be strong. In the end, supply problems are likely to have more to do with whether the sales come in at the pessimistic end of analyst projections, about 8 million units, or the optimists' end, about 9 million.

The other important product lines are expected to show sales of about 3.3 million iPads, 10 million iPods and more than 3 million Macs.

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The number of Americans filing for initial unemployment insurance dropped to the lowest level in nearly two years last week, according to a government report released Thursday.

There were 429,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week ended July 10, the lowest level since Aug. 23 2008 and down 29,000 from a revised 458,000 in the previous week, the Labor Department said.

The number of claims was much lower than expected. A consensus estimate of economists surveyed by Briefing.com expected 450,000 claims.

"We’ve been waiting for the day that this number creeps toward 400,000, and it looks like that’s finally where we’re headed," said Craig Thomas, senior economist at PNC Financial Services.

"We’ve come a long way from the peaks of last year, and while we stalled out at the beginning of this year, it looks like now we’re creating jobs at a pace that will actually put a dent in the unemployment rate," he added.

The 4-week moving average of initial claims, which is calculated to smooth out volatility, was 455,250, down 11,750 from the previous week’s revised average of 467,000.

Continuing claims: The number of people filing continuing claims rose to 4,681,000 in the week ended July 3, the most recent data available. That was up 247,000 from the preceding week’s revised 4,434,000 claims payday loans for self employed.

Economists surveyed by Briefing.com expected ongoing claims to edge lower to 4,400,000 from the unrevised 4,413,000 in the previous week.

The 4-week moving average for ongoing claims rose by 22,000 to 4,581,250 from the preceding week’s revised 4,559,250.

But Thomas said the increase in continuing claims should be taken with a grain of salt.

"Continuing claims really haven’t been range-bound in the way that initial claims have been, and it’s fairly clear that in the long run, continuing claims are on a downward slope," said Thomas. "We got a one week jump upward, but it looks like just a blip, and not enough of a blip to suggest anything other than statistical noise."

Outlook: Thomas said he expects claims to continue to fall as the economy recovers and more jobs are created.

"We have some problems to work through in the near term, like fewer home sales," said Thomas. "But in the longer term, inventories are very lean and productivity is slowing, indicating that companies are needing workers." 

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The N.C. Department of Commerce has approved grants totaling $187,754 to cover the cost of training workers at 12 businesses in Mecklenburg County.

The funds will be used to train 467 workers. Seven of the businesses have fewer than 100 employees.

“Now, more than ever, small businesses need our help and support,” says Deborah Gibson, executive director of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Workforce Development Board, which submitted the grant applications. “Ensuring they have a skilled work force increases the likelihood they can grow and stimulate the creation of new jobs payday loans for bad credit.”

The board manages and administers the state’s incumbent workforce development program. It also provides employment and training services to the unemployed.

Businesses interested in pursuing funding in the next round of training grants can learn how at an orientation session on the morning of Tuesday, Aug. 10 at the Harris Campus of Central Piedmont Community College. Registration for the program is required. Information is available at www.charlotteworks.org.

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As the World Cup final in South Africa approaches Sunday, one area sports researcher said Nashville leaders are doing the right thing by trying to lure games to the city if the U.S. scores the tournament in 2018 or 2022.

“In my opinion it would definitely be a plus for Nashville as a city in general, and as a sports market in particular, to be able to host first round games,” said Don Roy, sports business studies coordinator at Middle Tennessee State University.

The Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau is hosting a World Cup final watch part Sunday at LP Field. Read more here.

Roy recently released his annual “sports affinity survey,” which measures how much Middle Tennesseans like sports and particular teams. Major League Soccer saw some of the biggest increases in affinity this year, jumping from a score of 12 to a score of 20.

Football remains king in Middle Tennessee, however. The NFL scored an affinity score of 67, a five-point drop from last year, and NCAA football decreased by 7 points to 70 no fax payday advance.

The NHL scored an 8-point gain to 42, but the Nashville Predators, curiously, suffered a one-point drop to 45. Roy guessed hockey overall benefited from increased exposure during the Winter Olympics this year, but wasn’t sure why the Predators missed out on the gains. He said public questioning of the team’s financial situation this past season may have contributed.

The Predators affinity score of 45 compares to 79 for Nashville’s other professional franchise, the Tennessee Titans. Roy said the Predators have done a good job of molding fans in a nontraditional hockey market, but have more work to do to be successful.

“They are in a position to be viable,” Roy said.

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Herndon-based Deltek Inc. has completed its previously announced offer to buy Denmark-based Maconomy A/S for approximately $73 million in cash.

Deltek, which develops enterprise management software, said Tuesday that 94 percent of Maconomy’s outstanding shares were tendered and the company will promptly pay 20.50 Danish Kroner, or approximately $3.40, per share, in cash for them low fee payday loans.

Deltek said it expects to initiate a mandatory redemption under Danish law to acquire the remaining outstanding shares of Maconomy (NASDAQ OMX: MACO) in the coming weeks.

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Genzyme Corp. has filed a patent infringement suit against Impax Laboratories Inc. focused on the kidney dialysis drug Renvela.

The Hayward-based generic drug maker (NASDAQ: IPXL) said Genzyme filed the suit Thursday in U.S. District Court in Maryland for the 2.4-gram and 0.8-gram versions of sevelamer carbonate tablets, which are used to control serum phosphorus in chronic kidney disease patients on dialysis.

According to drug-sales tracker IMS Health, Renvela had U.S. sales of $200 million in the 12 months ended March 31.

Genzyme’s (NASDAQ; GENZ) patent on Renvela and another dialysis product, Renagel, expire in 2013.

Genzyme’s suit formally initiates the patent challenge process under the Hatch-Waxman Act, Impax said. Without such a challenge, the Food and Drug Administration could not approve Impax’s abbreviated new drug application, or ANDA.

If a patent is successfully challenged, the first generic drug maker to allege that the patent is invalid or not infringed is entitled to a 180-day period of market exclusivity over manufacturers of other generics cash advance now.

Lupin Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc. are among the generic drug makers hoping to sell lower-cost versions of Renvela.

Impax last year had filed its application with the Food and Drug Administration for generic 400-milligram and 800-milligram sevelamer hydrochloride tablets and 800-milligram sevelamer carbonate tablets.

Genzyme, based in Cambridge, Mass., initially filed a patent infringement suit regarding Renagel in March 2009 and regarding Renvela in April 2009. Impax responded that two key Genzyme patents are invalid or not being infringed by Impax’s proposed generics.

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It’s a brave new world for the derivatives market. Or is it?

Congress’ efforts to reshape this murky corner of the nation’s financial system may have little impact on the Wall Street firms that dabble in these complex financial investments.

As part of the financial regulatory reform bill hammered out early Friday, financial firms will still be allowed to hold onto those businesses that engage in buying and selling less risky derivatives products like foreign exchange and interest rate swaps.

Only riskier products, including the kind of credit default swaps that helped sink insurance giant AIG as well as certain commodity derivatives, and those traded by agriculture companies and airlines to mitigate risk, would have to be spun off into other businesses.

"You don’t say ‘Boy, not being able to do agricultural swaps is going to impair JPMorgan’s core business,’ " said Benjamin Grimes, a securities analyst at the Westborough, Mass.-based wealth management firm Grimes and Company Inc.

Those types of derivatives tend to make up a far smaller part of their derivatives business. At Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500), for example, the lion’s share of derivatives contracts are for interest rate swaps, or investment products that are bought and sold by businesses to hedge themselves against a change in the direction of interest rates no teletrack payday loans.

Investors seemed unfazed by the bill Friday. Shares of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley (MS, Fortune 500) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) each gained nearly 2% in midday trading.

But there still could be an impact on the derivatives operations of banks. As part of the proposed bill, financial firms would be required to put many of these derivatives onto clearinghouses and exchanges. Banks have resisted the idea since greater transparency would ultimately mean lower profits for them.

"It may make it less attractive to hedge risk," said Robert Park, president and CEO of Fincad, a Vancouver-based software firm which develops derivatives pricing models. "That is regrettable."

Financial trade organizations frowned on the new rules as well. The American Bankers Association said it remained "strongly opposed" to the legislation, in a statement issued Friday.

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, which represents the interests of hundreds of financial services firms, called the bill "tough", adding it would have "profound effects" on both financial services companies and financial markets. 

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The recession has driven down the volume of transactions and hindered the ability of many companies to pull off deals. Lower profits, a gulf between buyers and sellers when assessing a company’s value, greater difficulty in getting financing and lenders’ demands for more equity up front are the main factors in this decline.

What we accountants and business consultants call "the expectation value gap" has widened because of the recession. Put another way, the credit crunch and amount of equity money a transaction requires is driving down company valuations and increasing the gap between what a buyer is willing to pay and what a seller is willing to accept. As a result, the number of completed M&A transactions has fallen sharply. This has led to changes in the structure of transactions due to changes in the value of deals.

Most of the transactions getting done these days are "asset purchases" rather than "stock purchases," primarily for tax reasons and the fact that buyers of distressed companies are reluctant to take on liability with a new entity.

Regardless, there remains a trend of companies joining a larger firm to spread the cost of technology, marketing and other services over a larger volume of business. And whenever the U.S. economy plunges, investment in the United States by foreign companies usually increases.
In any event, there is good news for fiscally sound companies. Tremendous values exist for the discerning buyer. Some construction and real estate companies view the economic downturn opportunistically. For sound companies, now is the time to strengthen capabilities and gain market share through strategic acquisitions and the addition of talented employees.

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President Obama has called for greater market transparency and oversight to help propel the global economic recovery in a letter to leaders of the Group of 20 Nations ahead of their June 26 summit in Toronto.

"Our highest priority in Toronto must be to safeguard and strengthen the recovery," wrote Obama, in his G-20 letter released by the White House on Friday. "We worked exceptionally hard to restore growth; we cannot let it falter or lose strength now. This means that we should reaffirm our unity of purpose to provide the policy support necessary to keep economic growth strong.

Obama provided a list of suggested policy changes, including the implementation of more stringent capital and liquidity requirements as well as stronger oversight of derivatives markets and "more transparency and disclosure to promote market integrity and reduce market manipulation."

In addition, the president said the G-20 needs a "more effective framework for winding down large global firms."

The president pointed out that both houses of U.S. Congress have passed financial reform legislation. They are currently working on reconciling the bills in a move toward final approval.

He also highlighted one of his greatest macroeconomic concerns: the "continued heavy reliance on exports by some countries with already large external surpluses."

Obama also warned that all G-20 nations - including the United States - need to control their national debt. But he added that nations must balance fiscal responsibility with the concern that withdrawing economic stimulus too soon could jeopardize economic recovery.

"We must be flexible in adjusting the pace of consolidation and learn from the consequential mistakes of the past when stimulus was too quickly withdrawn and resulted in renewed economic hardships and recession," Obama wrote.

The G-20, an international group of finance ministers and central bank governors, was established in 1999 after the 1997 Asian financial crisis. The group aims to stabilize the global markets by uniting international economies. 

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Recession? Financial meltdown? You couldn’t tell it by the local employment levels at St. Louis’ four major brokerage firms.

Scottrade, Wells Fargo Advisors, Edward Jones and Stifel Financial Corp. saw business slow as investors fled stocks in late 2008 and early 2009. But local employment held up, making the major brokerages into an oasis of stability in the worst job market in nearly three decades.

Brokerage jobs on Jefferson Avenue held at about 5,000 as the signs on the building changed from Wachovia Securities to Wells Fargo Advisors last year. That’s about the same level of employment as in 2007, when the sign read A.G. Edwards.

At Edward Jones, based in Des Peres, the head count rose to 5,370 as of January from 5,164 two years ago. There are 1,357 workers at Scottrade, headquartered in Town and Country, compared to 1,022 two years back.

Stifel, parent of the Stifel Nicolaus & Co. brokerage, has 986 local employees compared to 480 in 2005.

The local players held on while big national firms, such as Merrill Lynch and UBS, stumbled. Stifel this year bought up 54 UBS offices.

The local firms are very different from each other: Scottrade is a discounter; Edward Jones has a unique strategy built around single-broker offices; Stifel is a stand-alone full service brokerage. The firm now known as Wells Fargo Advisors was sold twice in the past two years and ended up as the retail brokerage arm of a giant West Coast bank.

All four came through the recession largely because they stuck to the basic business of a brokerage — selling stocks, bonds and mutual funds — mainly to individual clients. They didn’t do a lot of risky trading for their own company accounts, and they didn’t go head over heels in debt.

"We’re not talking about Merrill Lynch and the New York guys who live by boom and bust. We’re talking stable and thrifty," said Juli Niemann, a long-time observer of the St. Louis brokerage scene and now an analyst at Smith Moore & Co.

Brokerages are typically slow to lay off skilled people during bad times, because it’s hard to hire them back when business picks up, said Niemann. But the bigger national brokerages and investment banks had to send herds of people out the door as their earnings collapsed under huge investment losses.

The Jefferson Avenue operation did get caught up in the meltdown, by virtue of a sick parent company. After buying A.G. Edwards, Wachovia made St. Louis the headquarters for its combined retail brokerage operation, which became the second-largest in the country.

Wachovia then nearly went broke, weighed down by investments in failing mortgages and other lending disasters. Regulators helped finance its sale to Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo didn’t have its own brokerage operation, so it left the St. Louis business largely intact.

"A.G. Edwards latched on to one of the subprime kings," said Ron Kruszewski, CEO at Stifel. "We did not get involved at all in that mess, and neither did Edward Jones. That tsunami benefits firms like us and Scottrade."

Although the employment level held steady, there was considerable churn among employees during the transition from Edwards to Wachovia to Wells. Wachovia and Stifel got into a legal fight after several Wachovia brokers switched to Stifel. Stifel so far has been winning before arbitration panels.

The crash of 2008 set Stifel on a buying spree. As a firm with lots of capital, it was positioned to buy the remnants of weaker firms. That meant growth in the St. Louis headquarters downtown on Broadway.

The presence of the big brokerages, as well as smaller players and local offices of national firms, gives St. Louis a brokerage with a big group of people who know brokerage administration, IT and investment strategy.

Bank trust departments and financial companies such as MasterCard International and CitiMortgage in St. Charles deepen the region’s pool of expertise in money management.

"It’s good for all of us; it grows the talent pool," says Jane Wulf, chief administrative officer at Scottrade. "I think we all hire from each other, but it’s not huge. We may get a few Jones people or Wells people here."

It helps other businesses as well.

As a discount broker with a big online presence, Scottrade is technology driven and Niemann says technology changes account for much of the hiring.

Wells Fargo flies stock brokers from around the country to St. Louis for training — enough to fill 30,000 hotel room nights a year. "Being centrally located allows us to bring financial advisers here pretty easily," says J. Craig Addison, human resources director for Wells Fargo Advisors.

The loss of the American Airlines hub at Lambert Field has made getting here more complicated, with fewer direct flights. But "it hasn’t proven to be an issue," says Addison.

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