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Morning Market Roundup: Bank of America’s $2.43B Settlement, U.S. Consumer Spending, Markets Shaky

Sep. 28, 2012 10:08am Becket Adams

Here’s what’s important in the business world this morning:

Bank of America: Bank of America says it has agreed to pay $2.43 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit related to its acquisition of Merrill Lynch.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of investors that bought or held Bank of America stock when the company announced its plans to buy Merrill Lynch as the banking industry and federal government struggled to contain fallout from the financial crisis in the fall of 2008.

Among the plaintiffs allegations was that Bank of America and some of its officers made false or misleading statements about both companies’ financial health.

In announcing the proposed settlement on Friday, Bank of America denied the allegations and says it agreed to the settlement to get rid of the uncertainties, burden and costs related to the lawsuit.

Consumer Spending: Americans boosted their spending in August even though their income barely grew. Much of the spending increase went to pay higher gas prices, which may have forced consumers to cut back elsewhere.

The Commerce Department said Friday that consumer spending rose 0.5 percent in August from July. It was the biggest jump since February.

Still, the increase was driven by a 1.7 percent surge in purchases of nondurable goods. That largely reflected a sharp rise in gas prices during the month. Spending on durable goods rose 0.3 percent, helped by gains in auto sales. Spending on services rose just 0.2 percent.

Income rose just 0.1 percent in August, reflecting the weak job growth. Taking into account inflation, after-tax incomes actually fell 0.3 percent in August – the poorest performance since November.

High unemployment and weak wage growth have kept Americans from spending more freely, which has held back growth. Consumer spending drives nearly 70 percent of economic activity.

Markets: Market trading proved volatile Friday – the last working day of the quarter – as investors continued to fret over Spain.

By midday in Europe, shares were mixed, with Madrid’s IBEX index underperforming its peers. The IBEX was trading 1.6 percent lower at 7,712. Elsewhere, Germany’s DAX was 0.4 percent lower at 7,261 while the CAC-40 in France fell 1 percent to 3,404. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares 0.1 percent lower at 5,775.

Wall Street was posed for a slightly lower open, too, with both Dow futures and the S&P 500 futures down 0.4 percent.

China: A group of state-owned Chinese shipping companies have placed a $4.5 billion order for 50 supertankers, throwing a financial lifeline to China’s struggling shipbuilders, a newspaper reported Friday.

The order adds to a multibillion-dollar flurry of investments by state companies in recent weeks – a key element in Beijing’s carefully controlled effort to reverse a painful economic slump. The government has approved a wave of spending on new steel mills, subway lines and other corporate and public works projects.

The move also could help China, the world’s biggest energy consumer, gain more control over its energy supply chain by owning the giant ships needed to import crude from the Middle East and elsewhere.

The supertankers were ordered by three of China’s biggest shippers, China Shipping Group, Dalian Ocean Shipping Co. and China Merchants Group, the 21st Century Business Herald said. It cited the president of China Shipping and the general manager of Dalian Ocean Shipping.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Comments (13)

exposejesuits
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 5:17pm
The Trilateral Commission (click here for membership list), officially founded in June 1973[3] by David Rockefeller (Illuminati) and Zbigniew Brzezinski (Illuminati), was created because the already established organizations, like the UN, were too slow in establishing a World Government. This commission consists of the industrial and commercial giants of the “trilateral nations”; USA, Japan and Western Europe. The members all are of the Elite, coming from different branches of Freemasonry world-wide to give the Bilderbergers a broader political basis. The 200 members are permanent and in this case different from the Bilderbergers, who are invited, except for the Steering Committee.

The Trilateral Commission controls through the CFR members (see below) the whole U.S. economy, politics, military, oil, energy and media lobbies. The members are chairmen of different companies, bankers, real estate agents, economists, scientists, lawyers, publishers, politicians, union leaders, presidents of Foundations and newspaper columnists.

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exposejesuits
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 5:12pm
Jesuits never do anything out in the open where they can be exposed. If they are recognized as the culprits, they will be blamed and suffer the consequences, but if they can use someoneelse as the cause of the worlds problems, especially an enemy they can destroy in the process, thenthey have simultaneously accomplished two of their objectives. The Jewish people are the perfect scapegoat. Since the Rothschilds are Jesuit agents operating under a Jewish cover, using them [i.e., the Rothschilds] in forming the Illuminati back in 1776 effectively throws the on us of this conspiracy on theJews. The Rothschilds are certainly not the only Jesuit agents that operate under a Jewish front.

History books will tell us that the French Revolution first began in 1787 or 1789, depending on whichbook you read. However, it was actually planned by [Jesuit] Dr. Adam Weishaupt and the House of Rothschild almost 20 years before the Revolution took place.
–William Sutton (Author of The New Age Movement and The Illuminati 666)

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exposejesuits
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 5:06pm
Under orders from Congress pursuant to the Dodd-Frank financial legislation, the Fed has finally released details of its emergency lending starting in 2007.

As Bloomberg notes:

Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co. were among the top borrowers from the Term Auction Facility [TAF]…

Bank of America had three loans for $15 billion each outstanding from the facility as of Jan. 15, 2009, while Wells Fargo had three loans for $15 billion each on Feb. 26 …

Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. also availed themselves of the TAF. Citigroup’s Citibank NA subsidiary had three loans under the facility totaling $20 billion on Jan. 15, 2009. JPMorgan’s JPMorgan Chase Bank NA had two loans totaling $25 billion on Feb. 26, 2009.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/12/guest-post-fed-data-shows-b-of-a-and-wells-fargo-biggest-borrowers-under-feds-emergency-lending-program-foreign-banks-also-borrowed-huge-amounts.html

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exposejesuits
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 5:01pm
Were does all the drug money go to? Hint: Large banks,in the U.S., The Bank of England, the island of Jersey, off the coast of England, and oh yes The Vatican Bank. The Bank of England and the Vatican Bank, should bail out the EU.

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exposejesuits
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 4:55pm
Since 1954, meetings have been arranged at least once a year on different locations every time – very secret. The members are around 120 persons from the high finance circles of Western Europe, the US and Canada. Although the meetings are very hidden and nothing, or very little leaks to the international media (which is natural, as most of the Media Moguls are Bilderbergers; so much for free press), the independent news-magazine “Spotlight” has been able to report from the meetings. The reporters have successfully been able to hide listening devices in certain areas, so some of the information around the meetings can be exposed to the public.
The Bilderberg Group is also called the “invisible world government”. Because of the character of the meetings it is clearly bribery on the behalf of the politicians who are taking part. Here they are suggested to betray their own countries by selling out their sovereign states to the EU by deceiving their own people … This is what many of our elected politicians secretly are doing behind our backs – it is High Treason.

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exposejesuits
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 4:51pm
The The world is controlled by the Jesuits, Black Nobility, and the Vatican. The Jesuits are a military organization not a religious order. The vatican and the Jesuits are not Christianity. The New World Order is controlled by elite jesuits and the black pope Adolfo Nicolas. The world bankers are NOT top of the food chain. They all follow the jesuit order and follow the supreme jesuit general aka black pope Adolfo Nicolas. The other jesuit elites are Adolfo’s 6 generals which is known as his assistance. Adolfo directs and guide the white pope and tells him what to do and say. The white pope is not a christian. When Jesuits and the Vatican say they believe in God they are referring to Lucifer as the God. Christians have been fooled for centuries that the Vatican is pure and good when the Vatican and the Jesuits have destroyed sovereign nations across the globe. The illuminati was created by the Jesuits in the 1700′s because at that time Jesuitism was banned in 80 countries. People at that time knew the Vatican was corrupt and desired world dominance. A lot of ppl are now learnin about the new world order but they are being taught the fake jew banker world order. Yes i know world bankers have great power but they all follow the vatican. Think about it, every world leader goes to and respects the Vatican no matter what religion they believe in. The black pope Adolfo and his 6 generals control the Roman Catholic Church, the Vatican Bank(richest bank in the world), space laws,et

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exposejesuits
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 4:50pm
We came in like lamb sand rule like wolves.We shall be expelled like dogs and Return like eagles. -Fancesco Borgia[ 3rd Jesuit Superior General] Beware of false prophets,which come to in Sheeps clothing,but inwardly, they are ravening wolves. - JESUS CHRIST [Mathew 7:15 KJV]

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Cavallo
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 12:17pm
Oh look, the UN is going to institute global taxes and rape the United States.

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- exposejesuits
  Posted on September 28, 2012 at 4:49pm
  One of the most powerful front groups of the Illuminati, which also works as a secret society in itself, is the Bilderberg Group. This is a group which was created in the beginning of the 50′s by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands (former SS-officer) and the Polish socialist Joseph Retinger, one of the founders of the European movement. These two persons decided meetings on a regular basis for the European foreign-ministers.
  
  Their first meeting occurred in Hôtel Bilderberg in the Dutch Oosterbreck between the 29-31 of May 1954, thus the name of the group.
  
  The first Bilderberg conference in Oosterbreck, 1954
  
  The core of the group consists of an Elite of people, counted to 39, called the Steering Committee. They are not elected and was originally led by Prince Bernhard, a close friend to the British Crown.
  
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woodyee
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 10:54am
We NEVER came out of the recession – it was only made worse with Gaybama’s profligate spending – over a BILLION taxpayer dollars on himself – yet the lame-stream media has continued to perpetuate the lie for Gaybama’s gayministration.

When we throw that stinkin’ brown terred out of office, we must also take into consideration the complicity of the lame-stream media. There is NOTHING more dangerous to a free society than a corrupted media committed to lying to protect domestic enemies. I’d often heard it said by the media that the founders didn’t mean military “guns” that could shoot non-stop until out of ammo. The he!! I say! However, I’m certain that when they said freedom of the press, they never expected the power that one man or woman, sitting in front of a camera and behind a mic can have on our freedoms if they were to intentionally lie about current events.

If yelling “fire” in a crowded theater is illegal, then so is misconstruing facts to deceive an audience.

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contkmi
Posted on September 28, 2012 at 10:13am
So, consumer spending, while up, is only an indicator of higher prices. Yet, it will be trumpeted by the media as a success.

Incomes were actually down on top of it.

Again I ask: If Obama were trying to destroy the country from within, what would he be doing differently?

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- Rothbardian_in_the_Cleve
  Posted on September 28, 2012 at 10:43am
  What’s sad is that 95% of the country doesn’t know the difference between real and nominal. The Fed and the government can steal writ large because the education system has failed generations to understand basic economics, finance, and civics. It is an absolute shame.
  
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- Cavallo
  Posted on September 28, 2012 at 12:13pm
  I can’t think of much he could do differently, unless the destruction was needed right now, or very very soon. There are a few things he could do to wreck the country before the election though. Blanket amnesty for all illegals, Moratorium on all coal, and fracking, trade war with China and the EU at the same time, invade Syria and Iran at the same time without pulling extra troops from Afghanistan. He could also declare martial law in Texas effectively pushing Texas out the electoral college this year. Sure fire reelection.
  
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