World Business

Analysts’ opinions on stocks in the news Tuesday

From Standard & Poor’sitting Equity Research

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S&P MAINTAINS HOLD RECOMMENDATION ON SHARES OF STATE STREET CORP (STT; 18.80):

Fourth quarter operating EPS of $1.18, vs. $1.38, is $0.05 above our reckon. STT shares are down sharply today, reflecting a signficant increase in losses in the gathering’s investment and conduit portfolios. Its perceptible book relative length continues to decline, to roughly $10.00 in fourth quarter, vs. $15.40 in third quarter. Although its Tier-1 capital proportion is strong at 20.5%, STT’s 4.4% tangible capital levels are low, in our opinion, and and nothing else 1.05% if its conduit is consolidated. We think STT command ultimately need to raise equity. We cut our target price by $30 to $20, a below-historical 2.0 times tangible volume value. -S. Plesser

S&P DOWNGRADES OPINION ON RESEARCH IN MOTION SHARES TO HOLD FROM BUY (RIMM; 51.11):

While RIMM singly partially recaptured its late 2008 losses, shares are up 33% since November-quarter results reflecting the negative impact of a late produce launch out. RIMM’s guidance for February-quarter indicated to us that the sales pipeline is projected to be robust, but there will be gross margin pressure. While RIMM’session results to date transact not appear to have been hurt through slackened inquire for consumer electronics and the drive firmly together of workforce reductions in the key pecuniary services vertical, we see these as risks. We keep our 12-month target price of $51, based on a p-e of 14 and a p-e-growth of 0.9. -T. Rosenbluth

S&P LOWERS OPINION ON JOHNSON & JOHNSON SHARES TO BUY FROM STRONG BUY (JNJ; 57.17):

Fourth quarter operating EPS of $0.94, vs. $0.88, is $0.01 above our estimate. Revenue fell 4.9% after 3.9% forex hit. Drug sales fell 11% and medical device sales 1.9%, while consumer sales rose 1.2%. After more $0.03-$0.05 dilution from Mentor acquisition, JNJ sees 2009 EPS of $4.45-$4.55, vs. 2008’sitting $4.55. While we note JNJ’sitting lead positions in key healthcare markets, and robust R&D pipeline, we notice 2009 results impacted by means of forex, weak economies, and greater competition. We lower our target worth by $10 to $65, a peer-level p-e of 14.4 times steady our $4.50 2009 estimate, cut $0.22. Dividend yield 3.2%. -H. Saftlas

S&P LOWERS OPINION ON SHARES OF LOGITECH TO SELL FROM HOLD (LOGI; 11.35):

LOGI posts December-quarter EPS of $0.22, vs. $0.71, in the world of sense our estimate of $0.50. Revenue fell 16%, reflecting a downturn in consumer demand for PC peripherals, reluctance by retailers to hold inventory, and negative currency effects. Inventory at LOGI rose 4.9% from September-quarter, 34% from a year ago, and margins narrowed exactly. A restructuring plan is underway that is likely to cut about 550 to 600 staff. Excluding restructuring charges, we lower our EPS estimates to $0.96 from $1.35 because fiscal year 2009 (March), and to $1.00 from $1.55 for fiscal year 2010. We are reducing our 12-month target price to $10 from $17. -T. Smith-CFA

S&P MAINTAINS SELL RECOMMENDATION ON SHARES OF NEW YORK TIMES (NYT; 6.21):

NYT has entered into two private financing agreements as antidote to a total of $250 million in senior unsecured notes due 2015 with detachable warrants. Carlos Slim Helu and his subdivision of an order are the main shareholders of the companies which lent the funds and currently hold 6.9% of NYT’s Class A shares. The notes have a coupon of 14.053%, of which 3% can be paid in complaisant. The deal relieves some pressure on NYT to line up financing ahead of the May 2009 departure of a $400 the masses revolving loan agreement, but at a high cost. We cut our 2009 EPS est $0.07 to $0.46 but keep $4 target price. -L. Braverman, CFA

S&P MAINTAINS HOLD RECOMMENDATION ON ADSS OF BARCLAYS PLC (BCS; 4.29):

BCS says it knows of no justification for the 25% drop in its share price on Friday, Jan. 16, and we note that the ADSs are facing minutely this morning. We believe BCS’s comment may imply that it continues to excellence leveraged loan and similar positions on the basis that it devise ultimately receive stop to par account, the sooner than at the current distressed prices implied by marking to emporium. BCS also expects to report a pretax profit for 2008 well ahead of market according of GBP 5.3 billion; and we project GBP 6.18 billion. We maintain our income estimates and mark price. -D. Chambers

Original text: http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/jan2009/pi20090120_487093.htm?campaign_id=rss_null

Shares of major financial names suffered double-digit percentage losses Tuesday. Wall Street also watched the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th U.S. President

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U.S. stocks were plunging Tuesday afternoon, with major financial issues getting clobbered with double-digit percentage losses. Investors were focusing without ceasing mounting problems in the banking a whole as Barack Obama officially became U.S. President Tuesday. Obama called for using “hope over fear, unity of purpose over be inconsistent and discord” to combat the worst economic crisis before this the Great Depression, says S&P MarketScope.

In his speech, Obama called for a new era of liability. “The new era will be hampered at the outset by the need to raise trillions to stimulate the good husbandry and bail out the banking system,” notes S&P MarketScope.

At 3:10 p.m. ET Tuesday, the 30-stock Dow Jones industrial average was lower by 275.42 points, or 3.33%, at 8,005.80. The broader S&P 500 characteristic fell 38.47 points, or 4.53%, to 811.65. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index shed 73.37 points, or 4.80%, to 1,455.96. Energy and building issues were furthermore lower.

On the New York Stock Exchange, 27 stocks were lower in price during every four that gained. Nasdaq breadth was 23-4 negative. Trading was mitigate.

Investors remain risk-averse. The VIX equity volatility index, the stock emporium’s widely followed “fear gauge”, jumped nearly 20% to 55.55 Tuesday afternoon from Friday’sitting close of 46.11.

There were no significant housekeeping reports scheduled for exoneration Tuesday, by the stock place of traffic’s focus upon the inauguration of Obama. There is much concern about the challenges the new administration faces in stimulating the economy completely of a severe recession, says S&P MarketScope.

The Obama White House released a broad overview of its U.S. economic recovery agenda. The invent looks to jump-start advance via 1) trick the production of alternative energy; 2) modernizing more than 75% of federal buildings, 3)making the immediate investments necessary to make secure medical records are computerized in the reach five years, 4) equipping schools with 21st century technology, 5) expanding broadband across America, 6) investing in science, research, and technology, reports Action Economics. .

Prices for U.S. Treasuries were plunging Tuesday upon the body worries the U.S. and UK governments will have to borrow heavily to boost the economy, that will leave deficits for years to approach. The dollar index was higher — and the pound sterling and euro minutely lower — after the U.K. unveiled a financial services rescue custom and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) warned of a massive 2008 forfeiture. Gold futures were higher amid reports of bench buying. Oil futures were mixed as the February WTI catch expired.

The financial sector was hit hard as investor fears of deepending losses intesified Tuesday. After the latest fatal injections in Citigroup (C) and Bank of America (BAC) last week and confirmation of a $41 billion loss beneficial to the Royal Bank of Scotland in the UK over the weekend, losses in the financial sector show few signs of letting up, notes Action Economics.

The S&P Asset Management & Custody Banks industry index sank 19%, while the Diversified Banks index fell 17%.

Shares of BofA were down sharply after an algebraist downgrade, while other major lenders like Citi, Wells Fargo (WFC), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), and Goldman Sachs (GS) were also sharply lower.

Shares of State Street Corp. (STT) napping nearly 50% of their regard Tuesday after the company posted fourth quarter earnings by means of share (EPS) of 15 cents, vs. 57 cents single in kind year earlier, despite an 8% revenue rise. State Street posted $1.18 fourth-quarter operating EPS. Reflecting ongoing illiquidity in markets at Dec. 31, 2008, the company said that aftertax, unrealized mark-to-market losses in its investment portfolio increased to $6.3B. The company expects 2009 revenue to subsist approximately flat with 2008, down from its long-term goal of 8%-12% growth; and 2009 operating EPS to also be about flat by 2008, below its long-term mark of 10%-15% growth.

Regions Financial (RF) shares were sharply appear stormy after the company posted a fourth-quarter non-GAAP loss of 35 cents per share, vs. 24 cents EPS person year earlier, on an 11% drop in net interest income. Wall Street was looking in favor of a loss of 8 cents. The company noted that net lend charge-offs rose to $796 million, or to an annualized 3.19% of average loans, from $416 million in the third locality; the provision for loan losses increased to $1.150 billion, $354 million above net charge-offs and $733 a thousand thousand higher than the third quarter.

PNC Financial (PNC) shares tumbled Tuesday. S&P Equity Research downgraded PNC to hold from buy, noting that PNC shares are on the ground sharply this month, at the same time that investors fly most bank stocks due to general concerns relative to oversized loan-loss provisions, securities write-downs and possible dividend cuts. S&P lowered its estimates and price target notwithstanding PNC.

Bank of New York (BK) shares also tumbled Tuesday. The company rescheduled its fourth-quarter financial results conference christen to 5 p.m. EST Tuesday from its antecedently scheduled be dated of Jan. 22. The company said its Tier 1 Capital Ratio was expected to be 13.1% vs. 9.3% at Sept. 30, 2008, and the Tangible Capital Equity Ratio is expected to be 3.8% compared to 3.9% at Sept. 30.

MGIC Investment (MTG) placed a $2.21 fourth-quarter loss per certain quantity vs. an $18.17 loss one year earlier on a 3.1% receipts mount. Wall Street was looking for a loss of $1.14. The company reported losses incurred in the fourth quarter were $903.4 million, reflecting a continued increase in the number of misdoer loans, up from $788.3 the masses in the 2008 third quarter.

TD Ameritrade (AMTD) posted first-quarter EPS of 31 cents, vs. 40 cents, on a 4.8% revenue drop. The company adjusted its fiscal 2009 EPS guidance to 90 cents-$1.15.

Original text: http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/jan2009/pi20090120_670329.htm?campaign_id=rss_null

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FORT WORTH, Texas

The cases of Ignacio Ramos and Jorge Compean, who drew prison sentences more than a decade long, ignited conservatives and sparked countless pleas to Bush.

A senior White House official said the commutations announced Monday would be Bush’s last acts of tenderness.

Some members of Congress had asked Bush for more than a year

Conservative outrage was intensified through the national debate by illegal immigration and border security. Many Republicans, already angered by Bush’s pro-immigration policies, criticized the president for not releasing the pair lawmen.

Ramos and Compean were convicted of the shooting of Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, who was trying to flee back to Mexico adhering the model of abandoning a van carrying 743 pounds of marijuana near Fabens in west Texas.

After a high-speed chase, Aldrete-Davila left his van and ran away. The agents shot him, didn’t hearsay the shooting and threw away the shell casings.

Ramos was sentenced to 11 years, Compean to 12. Aldrete-Davila

Bush’s kind property both agents’ sentences will end March 20, in favor of all that they can be released before then, said Bob Baskett, the Dallas attorney for Compean. “Of pursue he was very delighted,” Baskett said of his dependant.

The convictions remain on their records, which means they subdue face probation and can’t work as law enforcers. Baskett said they’d appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Carlos Rico, Mexico’s deputy secretary for exterior relations, condemned the action. “This is a message of impunity,” Rico said. “It’session hard to manage to understand.”

Some conservative groups lauded the affair, even encouraging people to call the White House to thank Bush.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2008647574_pardon20.html?syndication=rss

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WASHINGTON

I be assured of that this fact

Yet across the metropolis on Monday, hundreds of thousands of people from America and around the world thronged the National Mall here and could talk of little else.

“Black man in the White House!” the afternoon chant went up in Lafayette Square, across the street from the president’s home. Blacks, whites, Asians

This installation of Barack Obama is no canned, bureaucratic event. It’session also no protest or debate or political meeting.. What it is is a glad. street party

I be in actual possession of never seen so many people just wandering around smiling, laughing and singing to the degree that I adage yesterday.

One was Robert Radford, 79, who lives on Seattle’s Queen Anne Hill. In 1946 when he was in the Army, he was reprimanded for talking back to a German prisoner. His commanding officer said it was for Radford is black and the German was pallid.

“He told me to never forget it, and I haven’t,” Radford said. “I have never felt 100 percent American.”

This is one accomplished citizen. He’s served in two wars, worked as a chemist, got a Ph.D. in educational giving and was principal of Seattle’s Lowell Elementary. Yet he still never quite belonged. Never fully felt like one of us.

“Not ’til now,” Radford said, misting up. Then he laughed and pumped his fist.

I don’confidentially think I’ve ever been to in the way that a positive politic gathering, by the many the crowd from around the world.

People are so carried on with President Bush they don’face to face even have the appearance interested in bashing him anymore.

“It’s not about the last eight years,” said Lt. Greg Bennett, 53, a Seattle firefighter who was photographing the Capitol. “It’s about the youth, the vitality of what’s coming. That’sitting why I’m in the present state.”

I ran into David McDonald, a Seattle lawyer and uber-Democrat who serves on the Democratic National Committee. He said Obama has been so inclusive he’s damped prostrate the anger at Bush.

“Still, I decision say I’household looking forward to that last beckon from the White House lawn and the helicopter lifting off,” McDonald said.

No, Washington, D.C., is Obama Nation since. In every way. You can buy Obama Hennessy “44″ cognac here. Obama cookies, shaped like his head. A dowdy was even selling “Obama Condoms” on the Mall. $5. “Hope Is Not Enough,” the packages said.

Everyone has known this historic day was coming for 2

But the electricity to this place makes it feel like they all just got the word. They need to decide it, again and anew. Maybe to make themselves believe it.

Black man in the White House. Sworn in on a National Mall that used to be a slave market.

I also heard this phrase about a thousand ages: “Never design I’d see the day.”

Now today is that day. How often does that happen in a lifetime?

.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dannywestneat/2008647555_danny20m.html?syndication=rss

OMAHA, Neb. —

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Online brokerage TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. said Tuesday its first-quarter profit dropped 23 percent, trimmed its watch toward the year because of the nation’s economic problems and said it would cut costs by about $60 million.

Its shares fell 38 cents, or 3.1 percent, to $12.27 in midday trading.

The Omaha-based company before-mentioned it earned $184.4 million, or 31 cents by interest, in the quarter that ended Dec. 31, down from $240.8 the great body of the people, or 40 cents per share, a year ago.

Thomson Reuters aforesaid analysts it surveyed expected Ameritrade to report net income of 31 cents per share forward average in the chief divide.

But Ameritrade divide its earnings guidance for the year to between 90 cents and $1.15 per share. That’s down from its foreboding last fall of earnings betwixt $1.10 and $1.42 per share in fiscal 2009.

In response, Ameritrade officials said it plans to cut $60 million from its expenses transversely the next year and a half, but the company did not immediately say where those cuts would be made. That represents about 6 percent of the company’s non-advertising expenses.

Chief Executive Fred Tomczyk said he’s not sure yet how sundry jobs bequeath be eliminated as allotment of the cuts, but the cuts will be made primarily in areas that don’t directly distribute cards with customers. And the company will withdrawal many apparent positions unfilled.

Tomczyk said Ameritrade plans to guard what helped the company weather the housekeeping storm such far.

“We’ll self-same much harbor the things that are working for us,” Tomczyk said in an interview.

He considered this a strong quarter, he said, although Ameritrade has been hurt by the recession.

“These headwinds are very real, and we see no signs that the overall housekeeping environment will improve over the balance of our fiscal year,” Tomczyk said.

Ameritrade said it generated $610.7 the masses income during the first quarter, thanks mainly to the high number of trades.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008648751_apearnstdameritrade.html?syndication=rss

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Now we acquire to hear Barack Obama give his presidential inaugural address.

The throngs have come, in a room for passing they haven’t come in a though, not pure to see him but to hearken to him, to prick up the ears to his war of words. Before he’s halfway through those tongues, they’ll be comparing his inaugural art by his victory speech in Iowa, his acceptance speech in Denver, on and onward.

Supporters talk about Obama’session speeches similar to if they were rock concerts. They brag about having been in the room for entertainments to hear them the way they might have bragged about sentient at Woodstock when Jimi Hendrix played “The Star-Spangled Banner” by the prime of day’s early light.

As much as anything else, Obama won the presidency by words.

Old-fashioned speech full of appropriate feeling

Obama is an orator, a rare thing in a time at the time educated people

But in Denver, when he accepted the Democratic nomination with a speech stacked through programs, policies, issues and specifics, he mildly disappointed those who hoped to be enthralled yet once more. They didn’t fall short in to move into a rational, leisurely future; they wanted to stay with the ancient mojo of one human being talking to a vulgar herd of other human beings.

This is any age of media hipness, when we’re virtuosos of facts bounced distant from satellites. But Obama has reminded us that none of this modern science has the monarch of a human standing up and talking

“The lower orders was quiet now, watching me,” Obama has written of discovering this power in college. “Somebody started to clap. ‘Go on with it, Barack,’ somebody else shouted. ‘Tell it like it is.’ Then the others started in, clapping, cheering, and I knew that I had them, that the connection had been made.”

Connect. Yes, we can.

Connect with repetition, cadences, attitude, rises and falls of tone. , .

Obama’s speech on Super Tuesday: “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”

This is poetry.

WE are the ONES we’ve been WAITing for.

It’sitting old English metrics: WE are the CHANGE that we SEEK, a chant of dactyls, DA-da-da, DA-da-da, as in Longfellow’s “THIS is the FORest primEVal.”

Rock it, Obama.

This stuff works. President Franklin Roosevelt used iambs (da-DA, da-DA) that could have been lifted from Shakespeare (”To BE or NOT to BE”) at the opening of his 1933 inaugural address: “The ONly THING we HAVE to FEAR is FEAR itSELF.” (Though the crowd that day ignored the line

The Rev. Martin Luther King: “I HAVE a DREAM that ONE day DOWN in ALaBAMa … “

Analysts of Obama’s oratory cite the influence of African-American preaching tradition, but the influence is older.

“It’s over the tune, not the lyrics, with Obama,” says Philip Collins, who wrote speeches for Tony Blair, the former British prime minister. In a British Broadcasting Corp. public character, Collins cites “the way he slides down some words and hits others

Winston Churchill rocked it in a chant of anapests (da-da-DA): “We shall FIGHT on the BEACHes … we shall FIGHT in the FIELDS … we shall FIGHT in the HILLS … we shall NEVer surRENDer.”

Plato defined rhetoric as “winning the inner man through discourse.”

Aristotle said good rhetoric should consist of pathos, logos and ethos

Obama has won souls for the greatest part with pathos and ethos. He hasn’t needed logos much because he’sitting usually preaching to the choir, all those shining faces full of hope. In an ugly and dangerous impulsive power in his campaign, however, he used logos to justify the complicated position he had taken on the incendiary racial remarks of his anterior minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. It worked for him.

Usually, he is not trying to convince the public who dissent with him

Here’s an ethos riff from Obama’s speech about Wright: “I am the son of a pitchy man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s army for the period of World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’session poorest nations.”

Charisma constituent

And in that place’s the charisma factor in his oratory, the quality that powered President Kennedy’s striking inaugural articulate utterance in the thoughtless winter sunlight that day in 1961: “Pay any price, bear somewhat burden” (alliteration: “pay”/”price,” “bear”/”surcharge”); “Ask not the sort of your unpolished have power to do for you

About a century gone, sociologist Max Weber said charisma defined its bearers as “set apart from ordinary people and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman or at smallest specifically exceptional powers.”

Obama has it now.

With his oratory there is also the agent of cool, which could be a subcategory of charisma. Hence Obama’s demeanor at the lectern

He smothers the highest syllables of a word sometimes, casual as a teenager. He drops the “g” in the rustic manner to be heard in both England and America. He shifts accents

He seems at ease with power.

Recent presidents have hidden their personal power

Presidents George H.W. Bush and Lyndon Johnson hid their aggressiveness behind forced smiles. They were men who acted like boys in hopes of reassuring their listeners. Obama has the charm of a stripling acting in the same manner during the time that a man

Gestures

There is not much to say in regard to Obama’s gestures, because gesture has largely vanished from oratory. A 19th-century speech hand-book listed oratorical gestures: four positions for the feet, nine ways for the hands to show defiance, discrimination and adoration, and so on.

Old pellicle footage shows President Theodore Roosevelt storming around and waving his fists. Former Louisiana Gov. Huey Long would pound his fist into his employee, then circle his hands over his shoulders of the same kind with suppose that he were speaking about helicopters.

Inaugural watchers are not apt to see Obama wave his hands much, except to point. He speaks more in the fashion of television anchormen, through their rituals of modesty and sincerity.

Speeches still have gestures, but they’re further subtle. President Reagan knew that in televised speeches he needed nay more than a savvy eyebrow lift to make a point.

Obama has his smile, his thoughtful stare into the distance and his cool grace.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008647328_inaugspeech20.html?syndication=rss

TRENTON, N.J. —

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Health care products maker Johnson & Johnson on Tuesday posted a 14 percent increase in fourth-quarter profit, surpassing Wall Street forecasts, as self-sufficient one-time gains offset slumping sales.

But the constructor of baby shampoo, contraceptives, medical devices and other health items forecast weaker results in 2009, blaming the global recession, unfavorable currency exchange rates and intensified competition for key products.

New Brunswick, N.J.-based J&J earned $2.71 billion, or 97 cents per quota, up from $2.37 billion, or 82 cents per divide, during the same period a year prior. Revenue unrelenting 4.9 percent to $15.18 billion from $15.96 billion.

Excluding charges and gains, the company reported it earned 94 cents per share. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected profit of 92 cents per share on revenue of $15.93 billion. The one-time items included a $141 a thousand thousand research charge, more than branch by $638 million in income for items including favorable settlements of multiple lawsuits and the demand of its professional wound care craft.

William Weldon, chief executory and chairman, related J&J’s fourth-quarter revenues were reduced across the board by means of the global recession, as people worried about unemployment and losing health assurance cut back on doctor visits, elective surgery and use of prescription medicines. He illustrious that sales of consumer items such as contact lens stores and diabetes discriminative characteristic strips have fallen as “consumers are neat more frugal.”

“I put on’t mean we’re going to see a reversal in the near term,” Weldon told The Associated Press in an interview.

Meanwhile, unfavorable currency commutation rates cut J&J’s fourth-quarter revenue by 3.9 percent - after suitable rates boosted sales so much earlier in 2008 that they still lifted revenue by 2.4 percent for the full year.

In an interview, Weldon said he expected exchange rates to be delivered of a “very substantial impulse” on results this year.

The company issued a 2009 profit forecast with a view to earnings of $4.45 to $4.55 by divide. That’s below average analyst estimates of $4.61, which J&J said excludes the 3-cent to 5-cent impact of buying breast infix and cosmetic product maker Mentor Corp., a deal set to close this month. Johnson & Johnson included that amount in its forecasts.

Despite the forecast, Weldon sounded optimistic about J&J’session prospects because of expansion in emerging markets, promoting its products for wellness and disease prevention, and especially snapping up other companies, products or medicines and development.

“I think the opportunities this year are going to be extraordinary,” Weldon told analysts.

He said in an meeting that J&J is reviewing opportunities across all its businesses.

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NEW YORK — For years, retailers could afford to be sloppy about running their businesses since customers kept buying.

No more.

Stung by the molest that shoppers — who cut spending by the most dramatic effect in at minutest 39 years this holiday season — may not start expenditure again for a to a great extent time, stores are making drastic changes. They are cutting out marginal suppliers, hiring external experts to store inventory lean, holding special events for those who are still buying, and making extraordinary efforts to gauge customer satisfaction.

The starting anew discipline will be mostly just actions news despite shoppers, who will detect stores less cluttered and see an array of products at lower prices, from common grocers’ commodities. to bluejeans from brands they could once only rise to.

Of course, the downside is that consumers who want something exhausted of the ordinary — an olive-green prom dress, for example — may have to look harder. Stores are rooting out offbeat, unpopular colors and styles, that will mean fewer choices.

Sales clerks are also checking back with customers to see if they’re satisfied through their purchases.

“We are in a sea change,” aforesaid Millard “Mickey” Drexler, J.Crew’s chairman and chief executive and former CEO and imaginative of Gap.

Pricing goods within extent of strapped consumers is also a big point of concentration, given the way nervous consumers have stopped shopping. Same-store sales, or sales at stores make open at least a year, fell 2.3 percent in November and December in concert, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers. And the worsening sales slump in January has many worried about the busy vigor’s prospects over the next few months.

J.Crew is working with its factories to arrange its prices on certain key items take pleasure in ballet flats, which now start at $98 rather than $118. It’session in addition stocking fewer of its high-priced items analogous $1,300 leather trench coats. It’s cutting inventory and slashing expenses.

Status denim brand Rock & Republic will ship a strange Recession Collection this spring that runs about half the usual $200 price tag for its jeans.

Even supermarket chain SuperValu has promised lower everyday prices upon groceries and more promotions.

Chief executives from Crate & Barrel to J.C. Penney acknowledged during the National Retail Federation meeting this month that they’re navigating new territory, predicting that the fundamental shift by consumers to consume less and save more will linger.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008647261_retailmakeover20.html?syndication=rss

ROME —

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Fiat and Chrysler reported Tuesday they have agreed to form a strategic alliance that would give the Italian auto empire a 35-percent jeopardize in the troubled U.S. carmaker and could eventually bring it full control.

The traffic means Chrysler, what one. is fighting off insolvency and struggling to betray less fuel efficient larger models, would have access to new markets and cheaper, more environmentally friendly technologies.

Fiat Group SpA, which makes Fiat, Lancia and Alfa Romeo vehicles, would gain a foothold in the huge U.S. market. The group has bounced back recently by cars such as the tiny 500 two-door hatchback, a be successful remake of every earlier iconic Fiat model that competes with Daimler AG’s Smart, BMW AG’sitting Mini and other very small cars.

The two companies said in a joint statement that in exchange for sharing its small-car platforms and fuel-efficient engines, Fiat would gripe an “initial” 35-percent stake in Chrysler on the contrary would not invest cash.

The indication that Fiat could eventually gain full control was further backed by John Elkann, Fiat vice president and inheritor of its founding Agnelli family, who was quoted as statement by the ANSA news agency that the company’s stake “could increase.”

However the joint statement stressed that the Turin-based Fiat was not committing to funding Chrysler in the future.

CreditSights algebraist Brian Studioso related Fiat, which has its admit challenges this year from continued drops in car and truck production, isn’t in a position to part through cash.

“For Fiat, the non-cash transaction would limit downside exposure under which circumstances giving the company a foothold in the North American emporium,” Studioso wrote in a note to investors.

For Chrysler, based in Auburn Hills, Michigan, the deal would mean breaking out of the North American market and gaining entry to more prompted by emulation products.

“A Chrysler-Fiat partnership is a great paroxysm in the manner that it creates the potential for a powerful, new global competitor, offering Chrysler a number of strategic benefits, including way to products that complement our current portfolio (and) a distribution network outside North America,” said Bob Nardelli, Chairman and CEO of Chrysler LLC.

Under the deal, Chrysler will be talented to manufacture and market in the United States new models based without ceasing Fiat platforms as well as the Italian company’s own products.

The alliance is subject to a review of company property and regulatory approvals, including by the U.S. Treasury Department, which after all the rest week announced any emergency bridge loan for Chrysler.

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Last spring, Fran Bigelow learned through a newspaper article that Barack Obama loves her salted caramels.

More news outlets picked it up, sending demand so high that Fran’s Chocolates forward East Pike Street has scaled outer part production of pre-Valentine’s truffles and chocolate hearts to make ready room for more caramels.

This month, salted-caramel production is up 50 percent to to a greater degree than 18,000 pieces a day.

“It’s unattainable to determine for what reason abundant is due to the Obama connection and the inauguration,” Bigelow said. Whatever the reason, she has yet to catch up with desire to obtain.

One purchaser sent the caramels to the White House, although Bigelow is not sure the candies got through security, and batches have been ordered for inauguration parties in Washington, D.C.

Dominique Evans, whose concourse Create the Vision Source is organizing the Shades of Blue Inaugural Gala in Washington, D.C., ordered 800 pieces each of Barack and Michelle Obama’session favorites — milk-chocolate-covered caramels with smoked salt and dark-chocolate-covered caramels with gray salt, respectively.

Melissa Allison: 206-464-3312 or mallison@seattletimes.com

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