Slower Chinese GDP growth adds to financial risk
By John Foley
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
HONG KONG â Chinas annual GDP growth of 9.1 percent in the third quarter is still the envy of the developed world. But the lowest rate in two years shows that the era of double-digit increases is at an end. China can no longer rely on using economic growth to smooth over the damage from a financial system run amok.
UPDATE 1-Bellway profit jumps 51 pct, eyes more sales growth
* Hikes dividend by 30 percent* Eyes volumes 5 pct higher in current financial yearLONDON, Oct 18 (Reuters) - British homebuilder Bellway
posted a 51 percent rise in full-year profit, prompting
it to hike its dividend by nearly a third and to predict further
increases in sales volumes and selling prices over the next
year.Bellway, which operates from over 200 sales outlets across
the UK, posted a pretax profit of 67.2 million pounds ($106
million) in the 12 months to end-July, compared with 44.4
million last year.That was towards the top end of market expectations, which
had already edged higher after an upbeat trading update from the
company in August. Forecasts ranged between 58 million and 67.7
million pounds, with the average at 63.8 million, according to
18 forecasts on Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.”Bellway aims to continue to increase both volumes and
average selling prices … the board is confident of delivering
these improvements over the next twelve months but, as ever,
remains mindful of current economic uncertainties,” said
chairman Howard Dawe in a statement on Tuesday.Bellway is aiming to increase the number of sites and sales
volumes by up to 5 percent during the year, and said it expects
further improvements in prices and margins.UK housebuilders have trimmed the fat off their businesses
in recent years as a dearth of mortgages continues to cripple
housing sales, also prompting builders to shift their product
mix towards more popular family-sized homes.Housebuilders have also refocused their activities on the
more lucrative market in the crowded south-east of England.
Recent figures show that asking prices in the south of the
country have risen over 5 percent since the start of the credit
crunch, while they’ve fallen 9.4 percent in the north, resulting
in the biggest disparity between the two regions since records
began in August 2002.Bellway had already said in August that the number of
completions in the year to end-July had risen by 7 percent to
4,922, while the average selling price of homes sold rose 7
percent to 175,613 pounds, prompting it to predict
forecast-beating results.Shares in the Newcastle-based builder, which said it would
pay a final dividend of 8.8 pence, closed at 677.5 pence on
Monday, valuing the group at 826 million pounds.
BlackBerry outage frustrates investment bankers
* Many bankers still prefer BlackBerry for work* Security concerns are top factor for all devicesBy Paritosh BansalOct 12 (Reuters) - A senior investment banker at a major
Wall Street firm kept sending out emails on his BlackBerry on
Wednesday morning. And they kept bouncing back.”It’s one of those things — you don’t realize how
important it is to breathe, until you can’t do it,” said the
New York-based banker, who declined to be named because he was
not authorized to speak about the subject on behalf of his
bank.The banker is one of millions of BlackBerry users in
various regions around the world who have been plagued by
service disruptions over the last three days, with North
American users of Research in Motion’s popular
handheld device being the latest to get hit on Wednesday.Indeed, Wall Street honchos and others who tend to spend
more time on their BlackBerry than perhaps with their families
were left frustrated at the service disruption — a sentiment
that does not bode well for Research in Motion.The disruptions were the worst since an outage swept North
America two years ago, and analysts said it could ratchet up
the negative sentiment towards a company already losing market
share to rivals such as Apple and Samsung .Research in Motion advised clients of the outage in the
Americas and said it was working to restore services. The
company wasn’t immediately available to comment on this
article.The disruption comes on top of increasing demand from
bankers to be allowed to use other devices on company networks.
Some do not want to carry two phones, and some prefer tablet
computers such as iPads over laptops.Banks also have an incentive in allowing employees to use
their own devices, as it can save on costs that come with the
company paying for the BlackBerry and the service plan.One London-based banker, who advises telecom and technology
companies, said he has been increasingly using an iPad with
clients during pitches but was worried about data security.”I only use my iPad for publicly available information at
the moment because we are not yet sure about security for
nonpublic and sensitive information,” said the banker said, who
wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about the subject.One of Blackberry’s main selling points has been Research
in Motion’s top-tier security features.But mobile device management companies such as Good
Technology and MobileIron are offering alternatives, allowing
some banks to start letting employees use other devices like
iPhones, iPads and Google Inc’s Android-based phones
on the company’s network.Credit Suisse , for instance, allows employees to
connect to other devices, while Barclays Capital
allows some employees to use iPhones and iPads. Standard
Chartered switched from BlackBerry to iPhones for many users
several months ago.At Sagent Advisors, an independent investment bank in New
York, 10 percent to 15 percent of the users have switched to
iPhones, while another 10 percent to 15 percent have taken up
Android devices.”It is still mostly BlackBerry but quickly moving away,”
said Terrence Barron, Sagent’s head of marketing and
communications. “Over time there has been much more of sliding
over to Android devices and iPhones for us.”Still, Blackberry remains ubiquitous on Wall Street, and
some bankers said they prefer the device over others when it
comes to work.One Houston-based investment banker who focuses on energy
sector deals said while Wednesday’s disruption was frustrating,
he felt it was not frequent enough to force a change at his
firm.”If BlackBerry were down every other day it would be a
pretty big issue,” the banker said. “It just forces you to
actually call your assistant. It’s like the old days, when you
had to talk to people.”The banker, who requested anonymity because he was not
authorized to speak to the press, said he also carries an
iPhone for personal use.
Martina McBride’s “Eleven” a nicely restrained fresh start
On tour, she still hits nightly home runs with those big ’90s ballads that climax with key changes and rafter-rattling soprano fireworks. But you won’t find any such easy-listening-gone-wild moments on “Eleven,” where McBride keeps her massive pipes in check and comfortably settles into the conversational style she’s lately favored.In other words, Martina is basically Celine Dion if Celine were vocally modest and had a sense of fun. And if Dion came from Kansas. And allowed harmonica solos.Besides being her 11th album, “Eleven” marks her first break from the RCA/Sony corporation she spent almost 20 years with. She’s starting over with Republic Nashville, sister label to Big Machine. (Yep, she got signed with some of that Taylor Swift money.) McBride has boasted about “Eleven” being more “rootsy and organic” — although fans may recall these being the same talking points used to promote 2007’s “Waking Up Laughing.”Her new co-producer, Bryon Gallimore, proves a solid match, striking the right balance between gloss — which she’s always going to have, even in her post-adult-contemporary phase — and relative grit. “Eleven” has kitchen-sink elements, veering from peppy pop-country to old-school Music Row torch balladry to Nashville R&B. But Gallimore gets consistency out of these country subgenres by imbuing every track with a crisp live-band feel.An inherently warm performer, McBride has a knack for doing “inspirational” without succumbing to schlock. Following in that tradition, “I’m Gonna Love You Through It,” her current single, is her Breast Cancer Anthem. The that’s-what-friends-are-for theme continues with “You’re in My House Now,” a celebration of sheer hospitality that somehow avoids being as hokey as any description makes it sound.Your sugar tolerance may be more severely tested by “Marry Me,” a Train song now turned into a duet between McBride and pal Pat Monahan. It would’ve been even better as a duet between McBride and the steel guitar that intermittently floats into the mix, but you can’t blame her for favoring the better-known partner.Here’s some good news, anyhow: Somewhere around track 7, “Eleven” turns into as pure a country album as McBride has made, and it stays there.”Teenage Daughters,” a good-natured parental lament, makes McBride into the Loretta-esque housewife next door, if the neighboring hausfrau were suppressing a multi-octave range. “Whatcha Gonna Do” takes marital strain more seriously, in the tradition of another literally questioning McBride oldie, “Where Would You Be.”The album reaches its emotional low point — but a musical high point — with the classic-style C&W weeper “When You Love a Sinner,” soon to be played at Al-Anon meetings across middle America.But the album’s standout is the similarly dysfunction-resigned “Closing Time.” Unfortunately, you’ll have to buy the Target-only deluxe edition to hear it. In fact, all four of the songs exclusive to that expanded package are arguably as strong as any of the 11 tunes on the standard version.Remember when bonus tracks were obviously inferior leftovers or even runts of the studio litter, not highlights deliberately withheld to draw more traffic to big-box chains? Is it time for music fans tired of shelling out for deluxe and/or retailer-exclusive editions to organize an #OccupyBestBuy protest?
