Auto Racing Fantasy Fix: Daytona
Mike Harmon reveals his starts and sits for this weekend’s race at Daytona.
Higher Learning: Career services
Seniors graduating from college are facing a very tough job market, which has left career services offices scrambling to help them. One university has launched an innovative approach to re-organize their career services operation, an effort some people are comparing to opening up the school’s Rolodex to their students. Here to talk about it is Peter Kerwin from the Rhode Island Higher Education Assistance Authority.
General Mills profit dips in 4Q
PORTLAND, Ore. – General Mills Inc.‘s fourth-quarter net income dipped as the company’s revenue fell and it recorded several one-time charges, the company said Tuesday.
The maker of Cheerios cereal, Yoplait yogurts and other foods met analyst predictions for the quarter but forecast full-year guidance just below expectations, and its shares fell in after-hours trading.
General Mills said it earned $211.9 million, or 31 cents per share, for the quarter that ended May 31. That’s down from $358.8 million, or 53 cents per share, in the same quarter last year.
Excluding one-time items, the company earned 41 cents per share this year. That compares with an adjusted 43 cents per share a year earlier, after accounting for the company’s two-for-one stock split during the quarter this year.
General Mills’ revenue fell 2 percent to $3.57 billion, hurt by an extra week in last year’s fourth quarter and the costs of ending some product lines.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, who typically exclude one-time items, expected the company to earn 41 cents per share on revenue of $3.55 billion.
General Mills leaders said it was difficult to see the company’s operating performance in the quarter but volumes rose in all its segments. They expect the momentum to continue into 2011, and they plan to discuss their long-range goals at an investor conference on Thursday.
The company saw strong sales of its cereals and snacks both in the U.S. and abroad. But its bakery and food service business continued to suffer, with revenue dropping nearly 12 percent.
General Mills margins fell and costs rose during the quarter as it raised spending on marketing its expanding selection of products.
“We feel next year will be another good year across the segments,” General Mills CEO Ken Bowell said. “We think the consumer mindset very much favors our categories.”
For the full year, the company’s income grew to $1.5 billion, or $2.24 per share, compared with $1.3 billion, or $1.90 per share in the prior year. Excluding one-time items, the company earned $2.30 per share for the year, compared with $1.99 per share last year.
Revenue grew 1 percent to $14.8 billion for the fiscal year.
General Mills said that, looking forward, it expects to earn between $2.46 per share and $2.48 per share, excluding one-time items, for fiscal 2011. Analysts forecast $2.50 per share.
Shares of General Mills, based in Minneapolis, Minn., fell $1.66 — nearly 5 percent — to $35.24 in after-hours trading.
Mortgage applications rise 9 pct. after rates fall
WASHINGTON – Applications for mortgages rose last week as consumers refinanced their loans at the lowest rates in more than 50 years.
Overall applications increased nearly 9 percent from a week earlier, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday. But the growth in borrowing came from applications to refinance home loans and not to make new purchases.
Refinancings were up 13 percent, the highest level since May 2009. But they remain about half the level of early 2009, partly because many people who wanted and were able to refinance have already done so. Refinancing costs can total several thousand dollars.
New mortgages taken out to purchase homes fell 4 percent. They were 36 percent below last year’s levels.
The average rate for a 30-year fixed loan sank to 4.69 percent last week, according to Freddie Mac. That was the lowest since the since the mortgage company began keeping records in 1971.
Refinances made up nearly 77 percent of all mortgage activity last week. That’s up from 74 percent a week earlier.
Mortgage rates have fallen over the past two months. Investors, nervous about Europe’s debt crisis and the global economy, have shifted money into safe Treasury bonds. That has caused Treasury yields to fall and mortgage rates track those yields.
Home refinancing up but buying demand near 13-year low
NEW YORK (Reuters) –
Refinancing drove total U.S. mortgage applications to an eight-month peak, as loan rates fell to or near record lows, but demand to buy homes sank toward 13-year lows last week, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Wednesday.
The U.S. housing market continued to deflate after a spring sales spree, fueled by now-expired federal tax credits of up to $8,000, robbed from summer home buying.
The upside is now limited by unemployment stuck near 10 percent, heavy foreclosure supply and pent-up selling from owners just waiting for the right time to put their homes back on the market.
Mortgage refinancing requests jumped 12.6 percent in the week ended June 25 to the highest level since May 2009, as average 30-year mortgage rates slid 0.08 percentage point to 4.67 percent, the industry group said.
The 30-year loan rate flirted with the record low of 4.61 percent set in March 2009, according to the MBA’s records dating back to 1990, while the 4.06 percent 15-year rate was an all-time lows.
Refinancing drove total mortgage applications up by 8.8 percent, seasonally adjusted, last week. Nearly 77 percent of all loan requests were for a refinancing, the highest share since April 2009.
Still, refi applications were about half the level seen in the spring of 2009 and purchase demand fell for the seventh week out of eight weeks since the tax credit ended, said Michael Fratantoni, MBA’s vice president of research and economics.
Many qualified borrowers who could refinance have already taken advantage of low rates when they previously touched current levels. Others are not eligible, either because of credit scores or home values that are well below their current mortgage amounts.
Despite low borrowing costs and home prices average about 30 percent less than their peaks four years ago, applications to buy homes dropped 3.3 percent to hover just above 13-year lows.
Buyers had to sign contracts by April 30 to get the $8,000 first-time purchase credit or $6,500 move-up credit.
Sales of new homes plunged nearly 33 percent in May, however, to the lowest since record keeping began in the early 1960s and existing home sales unexpectedly fell 2.2 percent. A double-dip recession is a growing concern.
“We’re not out of the woods yet,” said James Angel, associate finance professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business in Washington. “Rescue scheme after rescue scheme after rescue scheme has been tried, but we still have millions of homeowners facing foreclosure.”
Home prices rose in April, but heavy unsold inventory of houses and foreclosure activity will impede a sustained recovery, Standard & Poor’s said on Tuesday.
“Prices will stay more or less stagnant as excess inventory is worked off for several years,” said Angel.