UPI NewsTrack Business 2011/06/30 at 6:49 am
Markets start week with gains
NEW YORK, June 27 (UPI) — US markets climbed Monday after the Commerce Department said incomes rose 0.3 percent in May.
Consumer spending was weak, up 0.1 percent but higher incomes indicated spending could improve in June.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average added 108.98 points or 0.91 percent to 12,043.56. The Standard Poors 500 index rose 11.65 or 0.92 percent to 1,280.10. The Nasdaq composite index rose 35.39 or 1.33 percent to 2,688.28.
On the New York Stock Exchange, 2,087 stocks advanced and 967 declined on a volume of 3.1 billion shares traded.
The 10-year benchmark treasury note lost 18/32 to yield 2.934 percent.
The euro rose to $1.4286 from Fridays $1.4189. Against the yen, the dollar rose to 80.91 yen from Fridays 80.42 yen.
The Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo lost 1.04 percent, 100.40, to 9,578.31.
The FTSE 100 index in London rose 0.43 percent, 24.62, to 5,722.34.
Wen says China will not abandon Europe
LONDON, June 27 (UPI) — Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said China would continue to buy European government debt, despite the expanding crisis.
Trust is more important than currency and gold, Wen told the British Broadcasting Corp.
Wen noted Europes debt crisis is expanding, but he also said, We again bring trust to Europe, the EUobserver reported Monday.
The Xinhua news agency quoted Wen as saying, Firm confidence is still needed when coping with the European sovereign debt crisis, mainly through Europes own efforts.
In a visit to Budapest, Wen, on his second tour of Europe in nine months, agreed to increase lending to Hungary.
He also said he would work towards making the Chinese market more readily available to European businesses.
In Britain, Wen and Prime Minister David Cameron are expected to sign international cooperation deals valued at about $1.6 billion.
Family debt soars with second child
COLUMBIA, Md., June 27 (UPI) — A debt management firm said the second child in a US family is apt to increase the familys credit card debt out of proportion to the first.
CareOne Services of Columbia, Md., found in a study of 120,000 people enrolled in its programs the average credit card debt for families without kids was $13,992 in 2010. With one child, the average debt grew by 3 percent to $14,351, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Monday.
Adding a second child to the mix, however, pushed the average credit card debt to $16,815, up 17 percent over families with one child.
Incomes have been stagnant. But the cost of raising kids continues to rise, said Mike Croxson, president of CareOne.
PJ DiNuzzo, a financial planner at DiNuzzo Investment Advisors, said, As many first-born children can relate to, additional siblings in a family often receive less discipline from parents over time.
That erosion of discipline is replicated in the family budget. It appears parents also exercise less financial discipline, DiNuzzo said.
Parents dont want to cut back on what they are spending on their first child, and they have not planned or made a budget for the second child, Croxson said.
Big tobacco challenges plain packaging
SYDNEY, June 27 (UPI) — A Philip Morris lawsuit against the Australian government over cigarette packaging is meant to stop a policy before it spreads, a law school dean said.
The Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported Monday the company has initiated legal action to stop Australias plain packaging laws that force all cigarette brands into the same olive-green package with the name of the brand printed in plain letters.
The company is protecting their intellectual property and the brand globally in very big markets — China, Indonesia, India, Vietnam and other parts of the world, the Middle East, and parts of Latin America, Sydney University law school Dean Gillian Triggs said.
I think the better part of this global debate is going to be that health policy will trump the rights to intellectual property protection and branding in this case, he said.
So … if they were to lose on the basis that Australia can impose its own health policy in this area, then that is a profound threat to their capacity to market the brand in other jurisdictions.
Philip Morris may be initiating the first of several efforts to overturn the packaging law.
Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon said the law, which will be phased in in January 2012, would stand up to legal challenges.