American Express profit rises as corporate spending picks up

By Aman Shah

(Reuters) - American Express Co posted a better-than-expected 9 percent rise in quarterly profit as spending by corporate card users began to pick up after more than a year of sluggish growth.

A relatively affluent customer base has helped to insulate American Express from tepid consumer spending that has led to an overall decline in credit card usage in the United States.

The company, which has fewer defaulting customers than rival credit card issuers, said on Wednesday that it had not suffered any direct impact from the U.S. government shutdown.

"They largely cater to a consumer base who would likely be less sensitive to the fallout from what's going on in Washington DC," said Sameer Gokhale, an analyst at Janney Capital Markets.

For the third quarter ended September 30, American Express said spending on its cards rose 9 percent after adjusting for foreign currency translations -- the biggest jump in five quarters.

The company, which lends directly to consumers and competes with Visa Inc and MasterCard Inc to process credit card transactions, said its U.S.-billed business rose 8 percent to $158.2 billion.

Chief Financial Officer Jeff Campbell said he was encouraged by the reversal of a trend that had seen growth in corporate card spending lose momentum since the second quarter of 2012.

Speaking on his first post-earnings conference call since taking over from Daniel Henry, Campbell also said it was important that a deal be reached soon to resolve the U.S. budget impasse.

"The alternative is an outcome that would erode consumer confidence and jeopardize a still-uncertain economic recovery," he said.

U.S. lawmakers are set to vote late Wednesday on a bipartisan Senate deal to break the fiscal impasse in Washington and avert a historic debt default, hours before the government's borrowing authority is set to run out.

CREDIT QUALITY IMPROVES

American Express has the lowest delinquency rate among the biggest credit card issuers, which include JPMorgan Chase, Discover Financial, Capital One, Bank of America and Citigroup.

Its net-lending write-off rate for the quarter dropped to a low of 1.7 percent, compared with 1.9 percent in the year-earlier period, indicating that more customers were keeping up with card payments.

Net profit rose to $1.37 billion, or $1.25 per share, for the quarter ended September 30, above analysts' expectations of $1.22 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Total revenue, net of interest expense, rose 6 percent to $8.30 billion, beating average Wall Street estimates for the first time in five quarters.

Shares of American Express, which has a market valuation of $81.2 billion, have risen about 30 percent this year, outperforming a 19 percent rise on the broader S&P 500 Index.

They were up marginally in extended trading after closing at $76.32 on Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Editing by Anthony Kurian and Robin Paxton)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/american-express-profit-rises-8-5-percent-201259287--sector.html
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Firefighters serenade Judi Dench in London

British actors Steve Coogan, left, and Judi Dench, second from left, arrive with British director Stephen Frears, second from right, for the screening of Philomena, as part of the 57th BFI London Film Festival, at a central London cinema, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013. (Photo by Joel Ryan/Invision/AP)

British actors Steve Coogan, left, and Judi Dench, second from left, arrive with British director Stephen Frears, second from right, for the screening of Philomena, as part of the 57th BFI London Film Festival, at a central London cinema, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013. (Photo by Joel Ryan/Invision/AP)

British actors Steve Coogan and Dame Judi Dench pose together during the red carpet arrivals for the screening of Philomena, as part of the 57th BFI London Film Festival, at a central London cinema, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013. (Photo by Joel Ryan/Invision/AP)

British actress Dame Judi Dench, left, arrives with David Mills on the red carpet for the screening of Philomena, as part of the 57th BFI London Film Festival, at a central London cinema, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013. (Photo by Joel Ryan/Invision/AP)

LONDON (AP) — Judi Dench has been serenaded by firefighters as she arrived for the London premiere of her latest film.

Dench walked the red carpet in Leicester Square Wednesday for the London Film Festival screening of "Philomena."

The movie tells the true story of an Irishwoman's quest to track down the son she was forced to give up for adoption 50 years earlier.

Members of the Fire Brigades Union, drinking at a pub after a protest march against pension cuts, spotted the 78-year-old star, chanted "We love you Judi" and broke into a rendition of Beatles song "Hey Jude."

The Stephen Frears-directed film also stars Steve Coogan as Martin Sixsmith, a journalist who helped Lee in her search and wrote a book about her story.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-10-16-Britain-Judi%20Dench/id-36ea702998774907a08a5977da18f7eb
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Nestle may be hinting at Android 4.4 KitKat launch on October 28th

We know that Google is fond of puzzles, and it may be using a few of them to tease the launch of Android 4.4 KitKat. Nestle's @KitKat Twitter account has posted two musical references (embedded after the break) that suggest the OS could appear on October 28th. The first, "everybody dance now," clearly points to C+C Music Factory -- originally known as The 28th Street Crew. The second hint may be an allusion to Michael Jackson's This Is It movie, which reached stores on (you guessed it) October 28th. Don't plan your schedule around that day, however, as there are a few reasons to doubt the timing. C+C Music Factory released its "Gonna Make You Sweat" single on October 18th, and the album version of This Is It reached the US on October 26th; if these are teasers of any sort, they're not being obvious. Still, we're fast approaching the October 29th anniversary of the launches for both Android 4.2 and the Nexus 4 -- no matter what, Google is due for both new software and the hardware to match.

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/16/nestle-may-be-hinting-at-android-4-4-kitkat-launch-on-october-28/?ncid=rss_truncated
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JPMorgan pays $100M, admits fault in London trades

FILE - This Oct. 15, 2008, file photo, shows the exterior view of JPMorgan Chase offices in San Francisco. In a settlement announced Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013, JPMorgan Chase & Co., has agreed to pay a $100 million penalty and admitted that it “recklessly” distorted prices during a series of London trades that ultimately cost the bank $6 billion in losses. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)

FILE - This Oct. 15, 2008, file photo, shows the exterior view of JPMorgan Chase offices in San Francisco. In a settlement announced Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013, JPMorgan Chase & Co., has agreed to pay a $100 million penalty and admitted that it “recklessly” distorted prices during a series of London trades that ultimately cost the bank $6 billion in losses. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — JPMorgan Chase & Co. has agreed to pay a $100 million penalty and admitted that its traders acted "recklessly" during a series of London trades that ultimately cost the bank $6 billion.

The settlement announced Wednesday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission comes less than a month after JPMorgan, the nation's largest bank, agreed to pay $920 million and admit fault in a deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission and other U.S. and British regulators.

The stunning trading losses that surfaced in April 2012 shook the financial world and damaged JPMorgan's reputation. The CFTC deal differs from the previous agreement because JPMorgan is formally acknowledging that its traders recklessly distorted prices to reduce the banks' losses at the expense of other market participants. In the SEC agreement, JPMorgan admitted only that it failed to supervise those traders.

The bank "recklessly disregarded the fundamental precept on which market participants rely: that prices are established based on legitimate forces of supply and demand," the CFTC said in a news release.

According to the agency, JPMorgan traders in London sold off $7 billion in derivatives tied to a price index of corporate bonds in one day — including $4.6 billion worth in a three-hour span.

Derivatives are investments whose value is based on some other investment, such as oil and currencies. JPMorgan was betting that the price of the index would drop. When the traders sold their derivatives, the price of the index plunged.

That was a "staggering volume" and the most ever traded by the bank in one day, according to the CFTC. The traders realized that the huge volume of the derivatives they had amassed could affect the market, and they decided to do so, the agency said.

The agreement marks the first time the CFTC used a new legal authority from the 2010 financial overhaul law that is designed to prohibit reckless market conduct.

Enforcement Director David Meister said the agency now is "better armed than ever to protect the market."

New York-based JPMorgan, in a statement, said "We are pleased to be able to put behind us another aspect of the ... trading matter by the resolution of the CFTC investigation."

In addition to paying the $100 million, JPMorgan agreed in the settlement to continue to take steps to tighten its oversight of derivatives trading with an eye to reducing risk.

The Justice Department has been investigating JPMorgan for possible criminal violations in connection with the London trades. One of the traders involved, Bruno Iksil, was known as the "London Whale" for the outsize bets he made that could roil markets.

JPMorgan was one of the few financial institutions to come through the 2008 financial crisis without suffering major losses. The trading loss raised concern about continued risk-taking by Wall Street banks five years after the financial crisis plunged the country into the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The fallout ensnared JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who initially dismissed news reports of the huge bets by the London operation as a "tempest in a teapot." He later acknowledged the magnitude of the losses, admitted to Congress that the bank failed in its oversight and took a multi-million-dollar pay cut.

Federal prosecutors in New York filed criminal charges in August against JPMorgan traders Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout. Martin-Artajo supervised the bank's trading strategy in London, and Grout, his subordinate, was in charge of recording the value of the investments each day. They were charged with conspiracy to falsify books and records, commit wire fraud and falsify filings to the SEC.

Both traders, through their lawyers, have denied any wrongdoing. No charges have been brought against Iksil. Prosecutors say he tried to raise questions about how his colleagues were recording the trades.

The settlement with the CFTC comes at a time when JPMorgan is in talks with the Justice Department to resolve unrelated claims dating back to the 2008 financial crisis. The payout could be as much as $11 billion to resolve claims over its sales of mortgage-backed securities in the run-up to the crisis.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-10-16-JPMorgan-Trading%20Loss/id-d10ef5bb08dd4988b789cb04f999277c
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Wall Street ends lower, futures fall after Fitch rating move

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures fell on Tuesday after Fitch Ratings placed the country's 'AAA' rating on rating watch negative, citing the impasse in Washington over raising the debt ceiling.

"Although Fitch continues to believe that the debt ceiling will be raised soon, the political brinkmanship and reduced financing flexibility could increase the risk of a U.S. default," the rating agency wrote in a statement.

S&P 500 futures fell 9.6 points while Dow Jones industrial average futures sank 60 points and Nasdaq 100 futures fell 7.5 points.

(Reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/stock-futures-dip-citi-earnings-115931637--finance.html
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Aviate: An Android App Launcher That Changes to Fit Your Day

App launchers typify the Android phone experience: don't like the way your home screen looks? Tinker around with it! But while plenty of launchers offer deep visual customization, in the end they're all basically elaborate paint jobs. Aviate, launching in beta today, doesn't give you as many tweaks for your home screen, but it makes your phone morph with your daily activity.

Aviate gives you five different home screens—Morning, Going Somewhere, Work, Restaurants, and Nighttime—that pop up automatically based on time and your activity (or when manually chosen by swiping right from the home screen). Each screen populates with the information and apps Aviate considers relevant: weather report, the day's calendar, and news apps in the morning; navigation apps when you're on the move; Alarm Clock and Do Not Disturb (and in my case, Kindle) when it's late and you're at home, and presumably ready for bed. Every screen keeps your top 10 most used apps in a swipe-up drawer.

What Aviate promises is to dress your phone in different outfits throughout the day. At work the look is business professional, with Google Docs and Dropbox apps highlighted, and one-touch buttons for email and calendar, but not a social media button in site. At a restaurant, your home screen slips into something casual, offering up camera and check-in buttons, suggesting apps like Foursquare and OpenTable, and giving you tips and reviews from Yelp.

S

What you'll see swiping to either side of the homescreen (in this case, my work screen)

I took Aviate for a spin overnight to see how it works. It's pretty good about using context clues to suggest apps and activities. Once you've entered your home and work addresses, when it senses you're en route to either it'll give you navigation and traffic updates automatically. It senses when you're near a restaurant or shop and gives you a custom screen that's usually relevant—though when I went to a coffee shop in my neighborhood it swore I was at Victoria's Secret next door. The Google Reviews it offered me weren't very relevant to my coffee.

Aside from curating your apps based on what you're doing, Aviate organizes your full app list in two ways: Collections, one swipe left from the home screen, which groups your apps by category (social, work, music, etc.), or an alphabetized list one swipe further left. You can drag and drop apps that didn't automatically appear on one of the home screens, or add widgets if that's your kind of thing.

You can't, however, make major rearrangements—unlike "customize everything" app launchers, Aviate keeps your choices pretty tightly confined within the five home screens. Android users who love to crawl around under the hood might find this disappointing. This is a set-it-and-forget-it launcher: Once you've got it optimized, there's really not much else to fiddle with.

If you've got lots of apps, but you don't like digging through them all to find the ones you usually use at work, on the train, or on the town, Aviate's dynamic system and low-clutter design might be what you're looking for. Private beta opens up today, and the folks at Aviate are offering 500 downloads for Gizmodo readers with the redemption code GIZMODO. [Google Play]

Related

What Is an App Launcher?

You wouldn't initially think it, but your phone's home screen is itself an app. It's an app that launches other apps—an app launcher,… Read…

Source: http://gizmodo.com/aviate-an-android-app-launcher-that-changes-to-fit-you-1445466763
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Wal-Mart predicts sales will grow faster next year

By Jessica Wohl

(Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc expects slightly stronger sales growth next year as it makes changes such as opening more smaller U.S. stores and shutting 50 poorly performing stores in Brazil and China, executives said on Tuesday.

The world's largest retailer sees a "tough" and "unpredictable" economy around the world, Chief Executive Officer Mike Duke said, a week after the International Monetary Fund trimmed its outlook for global growth.

Wal-Mart expects its overall sales to rise to $475 billion to $480 billion this fiscal year, a gain of about 1.9 percent to 3 percent over last year's $466.11 billion. For fiscal 2015, which begins in February, it is targeting 3 percent to 5 percent growth, Chief Financial Officer Charles Holley said at the company's meeting with investors and analysts in Arkansas. The meeting was also webcast.

Positive economic signs such as a declining unemployment rate, along with Wal-Mart's efforts such as better merchandising plans, new stores and ecommerce plans, makes the company confident it can grow sales faster next year, Holley said.

Still, U.S. customers remain under pressures from higher income taxes, gas and food prices, plus the government shutdown, and they are trying to stick to budgets.

Wal-Mart is not waiting for the holiday season to get aggressive on pricing. Walmart U.S., its largest business by far, is promoting low prices on everything from Kraft's Velveeta cheese and PepsiCo Inc's Doritos chips to Procter & Gamble Co's Pampers diapers and Bounty paper towels this month, while Sam's Club will have another discount booklet for members starting on October 30, as both chains try to boost sales early in the fourth quarter.

More than 1 million people have already signed up for holiday layaway, which allows Walmart U.S. shoppers to put items on hold and pay for them over time. Four of the top five items on layaway are devices including Google Inc Nexus tablets, HP's HP 2000 laptop, the Hisense Sero 7 tablet and Fuhu Inc's nabi 2 Kids' tablets, Holley told reporters.

FURLOUGH IMPACT

Walmart U.S. feels pretty good about its profit but is not satisfied with its sales, Simon said.

Same-store sales at Walmart U.S. unexpectedly fell 0.3 percent in the 13-week period that ended in late July. Same-store sales at the bottom 10 percent of its large U.S. supercenters were down 7.5 percent in that period, he added.

Walmart U.S. said it is testing using its supercenter stores as "cross docks" to supply nearby smaller stores, a move that could help it keep goods in stock and cut costs. The system is set to roll out in the first of three unnamed markets in March.

Using the back room of a supercenter as a "little mini warehouse" for daily deliveries to smaller stores would eliminate the need to send 53-foot trucks from distribution centers to smaller stores, Walmart U.S. CEO Bill Simon said.

"I think it's a fundamental shift in their real estate strategy" to look at things market-by-market rather than store-by-store and is a "sophisticated development," said Stewart Samuel, program director at IGD, who attended Tuesday's meeting.

Those types of efforts, plus continued investment in ecommerce, should pay off over time, Samuel said. Wal-Mart, which is opening more ecommerce fulfillment centers and filling some orders from stores, expects $13 billion in ecommerce sales in fiscal 2015, up from $10 billion or more this year.

Thousands of federal workers have been furloughed in the impasse over the U.S. budget and Walmart U.S. CEO Bill Simon said that if people were not getting paid, they were not shopping as much. Sam's Club CEO Rosalind Brewer said that just over 40,000 people came to shop at its warehouse clubs after the chain waived its usual fee for those who could not access military commissaries closed in the shutdown.

Wal-Mart shares ended the day down 31 cents, or 0.42 percent, at $74.37. Through Monday, the shares were up 10 percent this year, underperforming the 19.7 percent gain in the S&P 500 <.spx>.

SLOWING INTERNATIONAL GROWTH

Bentonville, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart is still committed to trying to grow operating expenses at a slower rate than sales. Overall, capital spending is set to be $12 billion to $13 billion this year and $11.8 billion to $12.8 billion next year.

The company is closing about 50 under-performing stores out of hundreds it has in the major emerging markets of Brazil and China, said Walmart International Chief Executive Doug McMillon. The company said the stores set to close represent about 2 percent to 3 percent of its sales in each of those markets, although it is still opening new stores as well.

For the first time, Walmart U.S. plans to open more smaller-format stores than supercenters. Walmart U.S. plans to open 235 to 265 stores in fiscal year 2015, about 120 to 150 of them small stores. It is planning for about 245 openings this year, slightly above an earlier forecast.

Wal-Mart now plans to open 34 million square feet of new store space this year, down from its original forecast of 36 million to 40 million square feet. For next year, it targeted 33 million to 37 million in new store space, with more than half of the space being added in Walmart U.S., which will open more smaller stores than larger ones. The pace of growth internationally may continue to slow.

(Reporting by Jessica Wohl in Chicago; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick, John Wallace, Andre Grenon and Krista Hughes)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/wal-mart-says-u-government-shutdown-customers-minds-132111163--business.html
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