New Yorkers support anti-Wall Street protests: poll

An even wider margin, 87 percent, agreed with the protesters’ right to camp out in Lower Manhattan, as long as they obeyed the law. The movement began staging rallies more than a month ago.Support for the protests was split down party lines, with 81 percent of the Democrats saying they backed them, while only 35 percent of Republicans said so.The protests have spread across the country and moved overseas over the weekend. While most rallies were relatively small, violence flared in Rome where tens of thousands of people came into the streets.The movement’s focal point, however, has been New York, where protests have been largely peaceful. Still, less than half of those surveyed approved of the way police have handled the demonstrations, after several episodes in which force has been used on protesters.The largest block of voters, 37 percent, blamed former President George W. Bush’s administration for the nation’s economic problems, while 21 percent blamed banks. Seventy-three percent said they would support tougher government regulation.The Oct 12-16 poll of 1,068 registered voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

@7 months ago with 22 notes
#New #Yorkers #support #antiWall #Street #protests #poll 

Virgin Atlantic still eyeing bmi bid: CEO

“The bmi sale process is ongoing and we’re still involved in that,” Steve Ridgway said on Tuesday.German airline Lufthansa (LHAG.DE), which owns bmi, has said that it is considering finding a partner for loss-making bmi, and has mandated bankers to sound out a potential sale.Airlines are keen to get hold of bmi’s coveted takeoff and landing slots at London’s Heathrow airport.Analysts believe bmi’s main asset is its Heathrow slots — Citigroup analyst Andrew Light last month estimated bmi’s Heathrow slots to be worth around 460 million euros ($628 million).Bmi controls about 10 percent of the take-off and landing slots at Heathrow, the world’s second-busiest airport, making it second there only to IAG-owned (ICAG.L) British Airways (BA), which now has around 45 percent of the slots.Last month BA acquired six daily takeoff and landing slots at London’s Heathrow airport from bmi for an undisclosed sum.”Bmi is an important UK asset and I think it needs to be dealt with wisely,” said Ridgway, when asked if Virgin would look at acquiring bmi’s slots instead of the airline itself.Virgin Atlantic, majority-owned by billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, swung to a full-year profit in the year to March but expects higher fuel prices, weakening consumer confidence and tough economic conditions to impact the business in its current fiscal year.”Growth rates are low and it’s very challenging for airlines at the moment and will probably continue to be like that in the months ahead,” said Ridgway.Industry body IATA last month said it expected airlines to suffer a weak end to the year due to waning consumer confidence, sluggish international trade and high fuel prices.It said a weak global economy would prompt a sharp fall in airline profits in 2012 and cut the industry’s profit margins to 0.8 percent from 1.2 percent this year. IATA forecasts industry profits in 2012 will fall 29 percent to $4.9 billion from $6.9 billion this year.Ridgway also poured cold water on a plan to link London’s Heathrow and Gatwick airports by high-speed rail.The British government last week said it was considering connecting the airports — creating a virtual hub dubbed Heathwick — to increase capacity in the London aviation market”Building this link between airports is not really practical especially given the constraints placed on runway capacity in the UK,” he said.Virgin Atlantic on Tuesday said it plans to start using a low-carbon jet fuel derived from waste gases released during industrial steel production on certain commercial flights by 2014.The technology, developed with energy firm LanzaTech, will capture waste gases from industrial production, then ferment and chemically convert them using technology by the company Swedish BioFuels for use as jet fuel.”In future, waste from aluminum smelting and chemical plants could be used, right down to waste from power stations,” said Ridgway.($1 = 0.732 Euros)

@7 months ago with 100 notes
#Virgin #Atlantic #still #eyeing #bmi #bid #CEO 

UPDATE 1-PREVIEW-Markets bode ill for U.S. insurers’ earnings

* Valuations sparking talk of a buying opportunityBy Ben BerkowitzOct 17 (Reuters) - Insurance companies look set to report weak third-quarter earnings after falling markets and Mother Nature conspired to batter an industry that already was having one of its worst years.The financial results may put further pressure on already depressed stock prices, potentially creating a buying opportunity for patient investors.The Standard & Poor’s 500 fell more than 14 percent in the quarter, while long-term Treasury yields fell more than 120 basis points. Those declines could hurt major life insurers, which have big stock and bond holdings in their vast investment portfolios.Meanwhile, Hurricane Irene was the first tropical cyclone to make U.S. landfall in three years, and dueling floods and droughts ravaged the Midwestern states, hurting property insurers.Some of the bad news has already started. MetLife , the nation’s largest life insurer, warned of up to $275 million in charges for disaster losses in its home and auto business and reserve increases in its life business.Allstate , the largest publicly traded U.S. home and auto insurer, has said it had lost more than $800 million on disasters in July and August.Stack all of that on top of the industry’s more than $70 billion catastrophe losses in the first eight months of the year, plus the ongoing effects of the European debt crisis, and there is little cause for optimism.”The impact of these macro factors will be felt by all companies we follow, and the (third-quarter) results and accompanying outlooks will provide insight into the degree of impact,” Langen McAlenney analysts said in a note on Tuesday.At Friday’s close, the S&P 500 had fallen 2.6 percent this year, while the S&P insurance index was down 12.9 percent.DISASTROUS SUMMERAnalysts have not thrown in the towel yet on property and casualty companies, but they say Hurricane Irene, continuing losses from the March earthquake in Japan, and weak equity markets will drag on results.On Oct. 6, KBW cut earnings estimates for dozens of companies, some by half or more and many to far below Wall Street consensus.The firm was not alone, though. According to Thomson Reuters data, mean earnings estimates have fallen nearly 10 percent in the last month for Travelers Cos and nearly 40 percent for Allstate.”The (property & casualty) insurance business is a financial business and subject to many of the same concerns pressuring all financials,” KBW’s Cliff Gallant wrote. “A weak global economy, dwindling interest rates, and exposure to potentially severe problems in Europe have all driven up risk and fear and will likely lead to weaker (returns on equity).”At current prices, the property insurance sector is trading at about 0.85 times book value, according to Thomson Reuters data, compared with historical multiples of around 2.0 and even troughs that were closer to book.”The sector is cheap, far beyond what the fundamentals support,” JMP Securities analyst Matt Carletti wrote in a Monday note. “Identifying a catalyst for near-term change is difficult, but pressures are building.”LONG LIFE, LONG OBLIGATIONSThings are not necessarily any better for life insurers. Even though policies are selling, terrible returns on the companies’ investments stand to eat into income.Accountants say life insurers will have to cope with years of weak returns that could, over time, force them to reconsider the products they sell.In the short term, though, they have to try to figure out how to make money with what they’ve got.”Earnings growth is slowing primarily due to the decline in equity markets, the low interest rate environment and (accounting charges) from weak equity markets,” Barclays Capital analyst Jay Gelb said in an early October note.Life insurers are also unusually cheap, Gelb said. On a price-to-earnings ratio basis, they were trading at a 28 percent discount to property companies, he said, even though they usually trade at a premium.The median price-to-2011-earnings ratio for the life insurance sector stands at 7.2, according to Thomson Reuters data, while Barclays said its historical average was around 11.4.Life insurers’ valuations may improve once markets stabilize, Gelb said.

@7 months ago with 53 notes
#UPDATE #1PREVIEWMarkets #bode #ill #for #US #insurers #earnings