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Oracle, whose shares had been near a seven-year high, posted May quarter results that topped Wall Street estimates on virtually all measures. But the company cautioned that while business is growing, deals are taking longer to grapple than they regard historically as customers are giving them more scrutiny.

"Bit more careful environment. But … we have a big enough pipeline hopefully to get through it all," Oracle President Charles Phillips related on a conference call.

Oracle gave forecasts for its fiscal first quarter, ending in August, roughly in fill with expectations. It saw revenue growing 18 percent to 20 percent, clear income at 17 to 18 cents per share, and earnings excluding items at 26 to 27 cents.

Analysts, on average, were looking on this account that earnings excluding items of 27 cents per share, according to Reuters Estimates.

Pacific Crest Securities algebraist Brendan Barnicle declared Oracle's commentary on trade trends suggested some caution about the economy. He said smaller software maker Red Hat Inc (RHT.N) exhibited a similar tone in its report on Wednesday.

"I think companies are going to tarry to be cautious on the eve their guidance that they give impressive into summer," Barnicle declared.

Chief Financial Officer Safra Catz said the August special location faced tough comparisons with a year ago, whereas software license growth had jumped 35 percent from the year-earlier period.

"We can't predict the economy from one allot to the next," Catz said.

Goldman Sachs analyst Sarah Friar said Oracle's report was strong otherwise than that more investors were cashing in profits in the rear of the fund hit a seven-year high of $23.57 upon the body June 3. The shares fell to $21.80 in after-hours purchase and sale.

A TIME TO INVEST

Friar, noting the selling by short-term investors, saw few catalysts instead of buying the stock over the next few months, but she believes it could rise 20 percent over the next year.

"There are state of things to subsist a trader and there are general condition of affairs to invest," she said. "Oracle is a stock I indigence to invest in."

Friar and other analysts said there was plenty to bring forth existence happy about in Oracle's results for the financial fourth quarter, which ended on May 31 and tends to be its strongest every year.

Net income rose to $2.04 billion, or 39 cents per share, from $1.60 billion, or 31 cents, a year earlier. Profit excluding items was 47 cents a interest, flagellation the average analyst target of 44 cents.

Oracle, led by means of billionaire Larry Ellison, aforesaid sales of new software licenses climbed 27 percent to $3.14 billion.

New software licenses are a key indicator for software makers because customers also wonder food contracts that typically cost 20 percent of the product price per year. Customers may also expand the amount to of workers using a program that they acquire already purchased.

Adjusted revenue rose 24 percent to $7.28 billion, topping Wall Street's forecast of $6.93 billion.

Growth accelerated in the United States, with new software sales up 22 percent against 15 percent in the prior quarter — a performance analysts said was well-established given the weak economy.

"These are strong results and manifest that Oracle's hard-charging sales culture and ever more diversified product line-up is paying off," Edward Jones analyst Andy Meidler said. "We think that software in particular is each realm that should see animation, given its productivity enhancing ability."

In its earnings release Oracle did not disclose the impact its April purchase of BEA Systems had on results. Some analysts said they wish it had broken that out to make clear how much of the earnings surprise was due to the acquisition.

New license sales of Oracle's business management software, which competes with SAP AG (SAPG.DE), bounced back for a weak third part quarter, jumping 36 percent versus a year earlier.

David Garrity, director of research at Dinosaur Research, said no one expected the results to be as strong of the same kind with they were. "Larry is just going to have to buy a bigger boat," he added.

(Additional reporting by Eric Auchard and Duncan Martell in San Francisco; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Braden Reddall)

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Five years after a large package of levy benefits secured the Boeing 787 final assembly plant toward Washington state, lawmakers and effort; labors insiders are seeking a contrary start on the next lofty pitch, presumably the successor to the 737 cover with lines.

If they wait too long-spun, this time the state may lose, said participants in a direction and industry conference Wednesday.

“The expectation with the Dreamliner was that Washington state had to pull a rabbit out of a hat,” state Rep. Jeff Morris, D-Mount Vernon, uttered. “So it’s a good idea to have an earlier start this time.”

Morris was one of a dozen legislators, some sporting airplane lapel pins, who joined lobbyists and trade representatives at the Museum of Flight to sift the challenges facing the state’s aerospace industry and how to maintain, or perhaps restore, its competitiveness.

The conference, hosted by the Aerospace Futures Alliance dealing association, distinguished the first summit of the Governor’s Aerospace Council and the Washington state Legislature Aerospace Taskforce, sum of two units government commissions created to boost this staple of the state economy.

“You have to pay to play,” Tom Captain, a principal with the Deloitte consulting firm, told the form into groups in his assessment of the state aerospace industry’s position. “We did that [for the 787]. Now the imperative is, you have to pay to stay.”

Since winning the 787 Dreamliner bid, Washington is “0 in quest of 5,” Captain uttered, attached major aerospace projects in the U.S., that instead have gone to the Carolinas or other low-cost states. And, even after the Government Accountability Office’s ruling last week in Boeing’s regard with favor, the Air Force tanker contract could be No. 6.

At risk at present, Captain warned, is the almost $7 billion and 13,000 jobs created through production of Boeing’s 737.

Those could disappear if the magnificence cannot ensure that the jet’s replacement stays in Washington.

Boeing officials before-mentioned earlier this year that the target date for delivering the 737’s replacement to airlines would exist closer to 2020 than the previously expected 2015.

With today’s computerized manufacturing processes, airplanes can be built anywhere by anyone, he said. Mere hometown allegiance won’t have existence sufficiency to keep businesses in the state, as lower-cost alternatives in the South and the developing world make a sign.

“We have a disadvantage in completely categories,” Captain reported, especially higher wages and costs of living. “The data says Washington is getting outgunned and is no longer competitive.”

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We’ve seen the founded on government at its worst transversely the past six months. Consider the controversies over contaminated tomatoes and meat, tainted toys, toxic trailers, forge Heparin, aircraft groundings, veterans’ care, missing warheads and unrelenting contract fraud. For every NASA prosperous issue on the external part of Mars, there seems to be a failure back on Earth.

Congress and the presidential candidates have even now to connect the dots: The next president will inherit what Alexander Hamilton called a “government ill executed.”

The evidence starts at the top of government, where the next president will oversee at least 64 discrete titles, including associate deputy secretaries, agent associate undersecretaries and assistant to assistant secretaries. The layering not only increases the distance that information must travel ahead of reaching the president, it also obscures true performance.

In addition, the next president power of determination direct almost 3,000 political executives. Not only will these appointees dilute transparency between the top and bottom of government, but each be required to go through a brutish approval process that permission vitiate the chain of charge. The 60 pages of clearance forms have never been greater quantity complexus or difficult to complete

The president will also oversee a federal work force that is increasingly frustrated and demoralized

The nearest president exercise volition also be amenable for recruiting thousands of new employees. However, many of the most of brilliant parts in one’s teens Americans consider the federal command a career of last place frequented. They understandably wonder whether government mark of respect would give them a chance to make a difference and acquire the skills they need in an unforgiving regulation. They are not saying “show us the standard of value” excepting “exhibit us the work.” And treaty work has not been showing justly lately.

Finally, the nearest president will be in charge of an invisible work force that has grown from some estimated 4.4 million contractors in 1999 to 7.6 million today. As the number of large contracts has increased and competition has declined, it has become approximately impracticable to reward or gripe contractors accountable for their work, whether without interruption the streets of Baghdad or on the space shuttle launchpad.

Tinkering will not fix these problems. A faster hiring case merely hastens the appointed time that frustrated young employees leave; deep cuts in the number of presidential appointees merely shift the layering to civil servants. Although both ideas make sense on their recognize, they will not be in possession of much impact without a complete overhaul of the treaty machine.

The retirement of baby boomers from the federal work force could provide the needed impetus for such an effort. If current projections hold, almost half the federal work force will retire in the coming decade, including many who entered government during the glory days of the 1960s and ’70s, when the call to service was bright.

Viewed as an opportunity, the boomers’ retirements could produce long-overdue reform, particularly if the vacancies were not automatically filled by the next federal employee in row. Evaluating each job as its occupant left would create opportunities to flimsy the government hierarchy and fulfill the ground of meaningful operate for talented young Americans. The same process could easily be used to trim the calculate of contractors.

Whereas the contractor cuts would go immediately to savings, however, most of the civil-service jobs would move to the bottom of the hierarchy, where services are delivered and contracts are managed. The government could hire more food inspectors, passport handlers, revenue agents, discernment analysts, aircraft monitors, Border Patrol officers, drug testers and contract specialists

But nihility will turn up if the presidential candidates continue to treat the cascade of treaty failures as a sequence of unrelated events, not as a prototype of desperate care. There is still time this summer with a view to Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama to strike a legislative deal to start repairing ruling power. What better signal that they dearth to resign on the promises they make?

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2008017534_governop26.html?syndication=rss

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The timing of the lawsuits in California and Illinois at the same time that Countrywide prepared to close the books after nearly 40 years underscored the troop’s dramatic shift over the past 12 months as the pledge and housing markets soured, inducing its slide from the nation’s largest originator and servicer of home loans to easy pickings for a takeover.

Less than an sixty minutes into the special stockholders meeting at Countrywide’s headquarters in Calabasas, Calif., the company announced that 69 percent of outstanding shares were voted in patronize of the deal, which is expected to close July 1.

The outcome was widely expected, even though the deal was second-guessed throughout and plagued by doubts that Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America would pull out or look to renegotiate the original terms — some all-stock deal valued at about $4 billion.

In the end, the import of the deal fell to here and there $2.8 billion as Bank of America’s stock price declined from where it was in January.

Shares of Bank of America slipped a penny to $26.61 on Wednesday. Countrywide shares fell 8 cents, or about 1.7 percent, to $4.58 — that’s a lessen of nearly 90 percent from the stock’s most recent five-year crown of $45.03 in February of last year.

The acquisition is expected to give Bank of America control of 20 percent to 25 percent of the home loan market, something the company hopes command pay off handsomely once the housing market recovers.

Some analysts suggest the banking giant may also benefit another way — using tax write-offs to help offset the cost of the acquisition.

But along with Countrywide’s more convenient assets, Bank of America will in like manner be obliged to take adhering the trove of lawsuits related to Countrywide’s lending practices, amid other headaches.

This includes the pair brought Wednesday in California and Illinois.

Both cases accuse Countrywide of systematically deceiving borrowers in order to get them to accept on risky loans they couldn’t really give, and name Chairman and CEO Angelo Mozilo as a defendant.

The California lawsuit besides names as a defendant David Sambol, the lender’s president and principal person operating officer.

The states the pair look after unspecified damages and for Countrywide to pay requital to borrowers who lost their homes or loans.

Meanwhile, Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire accused Countrywide of cheating the state out of $5 million by under-reporting assessments, adding that she plans to seek restitution. Gregoire too said for the period of a information conference that the lender targeted minority borrowers with discriminatory and pillaging lending practices.

Representatives for Countrywide and Bank of America did not immediately go calls Wednesday.

The lawsuit brought by the agency of the California attorney general’s office stems from information gathered under subpoena after the parade launched a probe last year into the company’s occupation.

In the disorder filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, California Attorney General Jerry Brown asserts that Countrywide violated the state’s unfair business practices and false advertising laws with just near to every action it took to market and originate some of the principally popular — and potentially risky — types of home loans in recent years.

“Defendants viewed borrowers as nothing more than the means for producing more loans, originating loans with little or no regard to borrowers’ long-term qualification to afford them and to sustain homeownership,” the rank claims in the suit.

The lawsuit also contends that Countrywide misled customers about the workings of home-equity loans and some types of adjustable-rate mortgages, including pay-option loans, “hybrid” interest-only loans and low-documentation loans.

These loan types, which many other lenders also offered during the housing boom, featured vile in the first stages payments and the potential conducive to sharp increases hind a few years. They now advantage. for a large portion of the mortgages that have grow delinquent or gone into default in the after year.

The lawsuit alleges that Countrywide obscured the potential risks in the loans, misled consumers about payment terms, prepayment penalties and other obligations, and told borrowers they would be able to refinance before the interest rate forward their loans adjusted.

Similar allegations are made in the lawsuit brought by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who subpoenaed nearly 100,000 documents from the lender last fall.

“Countrywide pushed to sell more and more loans, clearly without regard to the borrower’s efficiency to make their payments,” Madigan said Wednesday. “Much of this comes from Countrywide’s greed and their desire to dominate the marketplace. Unfortunately, this came at a very steep price for homeowners.”

Madigan before-mentioned documents obtained during the state’s investigation showed how Countrywide employees were given incentives to write loans, receiving higher commissions because of the riskier products.

“People none understood the loans in the first place and once they couldn’t afford them, they couldn’t get out of the loans,” she reported. “This was a strategy engineered from the top down.” Associated Press Writers Ashley M. Heher in Chicago and Manuel Valdes in Seattle contributed to this report.

(This rendering CORRECTS Corrects Sambol is chief operating officer sted chief financial magistrate. )

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Dealers were also awaiting a key engage rate judgment by the US Federal Reserve.

In early afternoon trading, London's FTSE 100 index of leading shares was up by 0.44 percent at 5,659.40 points.

Frankfurt's DAX 30 pointer won 0.95 percent to 6,598.00 points and the Paris CAC 40 index gained 1.09 percent to 4,522.70.

The Euro Stoxx 50 alphabetical table of references of lop eurozone shares advanced by 1.18 percent to 3,444.62 points.

The European single currency rose to 1.5588 dollars, as the Federal Reserve appeared set on maintaining US interest rates at 2.0 percent, traders declared.

Meanwhile, Barclays said Asian and Middle Eastern investors were to play leading roles in recapitalising the British bank, that announced a share issue to build up about 4.5 billion pounds (8.9 billion dollars, 5.7 billion euros).

The news catapulted Barclays to the top of the FTSE 100, with its share price surging 7.80 percent in value to 335 pence.

Barclays proclamation also lifted its troubled peers, as HBOS jumped 6.01 percent to 291.25 pence and Royal Bank of Scotland climbed 4.90 percent to 230 pence.

Barclays said the state-run Qatar Investment Authority had agreed to take about a third part of the new shares with an investment worth 1.76 billion pounds, with Singapore's general body of mankind investment group Temasek also pleasing part.

The state-run China Development Bank, a fund representing the interests of Qatar's original minister, and Japanese make one’s transactions Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation last will and testament also buy stakes, according to a recital from Barclays.

Barclays is the latest in a long line of international banking groups to raise new capital through issuing shares in a bid to strengthen finances that have been battered by losses caused by the subprime loan crisis.

Cash-rich Middle Eastern and Asian investors have played an weighty role in some of these recapitalisations, in the United States and in Switzerland.

Prior to Barclays announcement, Japanese share prices ended slightly lower without interruption Wednesday, with the benchmark Nikkei index extending its losing streak to a fifth epoch as investors awaited a US interest rate decision.

Stocks hit a seven-week submissive in the morning for Wall Street had skidded Tuesday on news of a cutting drop in US consumer reliance, but later recovered some of the losses as investors took comfort from strong gains on the Shanghai market, dealers said.

Original text: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080625/bs_afp/stockseurope

HONG KONG —

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Hong Kong plans to launch a new exchange to interchange fuel oil and other produce in an effort to capitalize without interruption the booming market for inexperienced materials in China, officials announced Wednesday.

The Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange testament traffic U.S. dollar oil contracts which time it opens in the first furnish with quarters of 2009, then expand into other goods trading, the bourse said in a statement.

The firing material oil, to be stored along southern China’s border, will be useful for delivery on the mainland or overseas.

Backers say the exchange would be a bridge between China and global investors, helping set prices that superiority reflect the country’s surging require for oil and other raw materials. It would also give traders enlargement to one of the fastest-growing markets for energy.

“There is a huge opportunity for Hong Kong to develop a wares futures market that can cater to the mainland and we are delighted to see the creation of (a commodities exchange) to accommodate these needs,” Hong Kong Financial Secretary John C. Tsang said in a statement.

The exchange be inclined be chaired by Barry Cheung, former Deputy Chairman of Titan Petrochemicals Group., an transportation and oil-storage company. Possible investors and members include Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and other major companies, officials said.

BERLIN Germany plans to augment the number of its troops in Afghanistan by 1,000 this fall, senior defense officials said Tuesday, following requests by Western commanders for more troops to counter a resilient Taliban force.

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The proposed grow would bring the total German commitment to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force to 4,500, Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung and military chieftain Wolfgang Schneiderhan said.

They also recommended extending the deployment of the troops through at least December 2009.

U.S. Gen. James Mattis, NATO’s commander in charge of military modernization, welcomed the notification, observation he hoped that it would spark homogeneous pledges from other countries.

“We are up in compensation for a used by all antagonist there,” Mattis said during a trip to Warsaw. “I am heartened by the agency of Germany’s decision and I hope … there inclination have existence more actions like that.”

NATO’s force in Afghanistan is about 43,000-strong, but commanders have asked for more combat soldiers, particularly for the country’s south, where the insurgency is the most sprightly. About 13,000 U.S. troops operate in a separate U.S.-led co-partnership.

Troops from Canada, Britain, the Netherlands and the U.S. have done the manhood of the fighting against Taliban militants. France, Spain, Germany and Italy are stationed in further peaceful parts of the country.

More than 8,000 people were killed in attacks last year in Afghanistan, making it the most violent year since the 2001 invasion.

CHICAGO —

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The nation’s biggest mortgage lender engaged in “unfair and deceitful” practices to get homeowners to apply for risky mortgages far farther than their means, according to a civil lawsuit Illinois’ counsellor general planned to toothed Wednesday.

The lawsuit against Countrywide Financial Corp. - planned for the same day shareholders were scheduled to vote in continuance the company’s takeover by Bank of America Corp. - stems from information from documents subpoenaed by the state commencement ultimate fall, as the figure of foreclosures nationwide began to skyrocket.

“Countrywide’s conduct has contributed to the high reach the number of of foreclosures in Illinois and caused expressive harm to the public, the market, and scores of Illinois borrowers and homeowners,” according to a draft of the lawsuit provided by the agency of Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office Tuesday evening.

A spokeswoman for the Calabasas, Calif.-based company declined to annotate on the litigation.

Madigan spokeswoman Robyn Ziegler said the suit in law would be filed Wednesday in Cook County Circuit Court. In the complaint, Madigan says that Countrywide offered hypocritical loans with risky features, used misleading sales techniques and encouraged employees and brokers through incentives to sell more high-risk loans.

“Unfair and deceptive advertising, marketing and sales practices were utilized to thrust mortgages, while hiding the real costs and risks to borrowers, including enticing borrowers with low teaser rates, low monthly payments and ‘no closing cost’ loans that failed to make clear and conspicuous,” according to the action, which also names Countrywide Chairman and Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo as a defendant.

Among other things, Madigan wants Countrywide to pay restitution to every one of affected consumers who not to be found their homes or loans. She also asks for 90 days to review any loans that are in or near foreclosure to see allowing that borrowers can pursue affordable options.

Countrywide, like many in the mortgage industry, has suffered under the weight of the subprime fallout for example thousands of customers default on home loans.

Defaults and subsequent foreclosures have been most pronounced steady adjustable-rate mortgages made to borrowers with past credit problems. The subprime loans typically require a lower monthly payment in the leading two or three years in advance of resetting to higher interest rates and much larger payments.

As the nation’s largest pledge lender and servicer, Countrywide has been under scrutiny by means of federal and state authorities. It moreover faces numerous other lawsuits kin to its lending practices.

Countrywide agreed in January to sell itself to Bank of America Corp. for around $4 billion in standing. The deal is now valued at around $2.8 billion, reflective a decline in Bank of America’s stock price over the last six months.

The acquisition received clearance from the Federal Reserve earlier this month, and Countrywide shareholders are scheduled to vote on it Wednesday morning during a duel at the lender’s headquarters.