Finance Blog number 1

It doesn’t matter how many weeks of vacation you have, it never seems like enough. By the time you book off a summer week, March break, plus time for your childrens’ soccer tournament and parent-teacher interviews, you’ve run out of paid time off. But employees of the Toronto-based Social Media Group don’t have that problem. In October, 2010, CEO Maggie Fox did away with tracking vacation days and introduced an unlimited paid vacation policy for her 20 employees.

The company helps organizations develop strategies around the effective use of social media tools like Facebook, Twitter and Linked in. Clients include Fortune 500 organizations like 3M, Ford, CNN, Thomson Reuters and a top global bank. Fox says, “We’re playing with the “big boys” and our incredible team has to deliver their A+ game – Every. Single. Day. What shouldn’t an employee be able to taking an afternoon off to play with her kids?”

The “golden rule” is that each employee is responsible for his own mental health, his colleagues and his clients. Time off has to be cleared with supervisors, but it’s an informal process. “Obviously if you said I want to take six weeks off starting tomorrow, it would not be feasible. But if you gave us a couple of months notice and a plan for structuring your work, it is not impossible.” The company doesn’t keep formal statistics, but Fox believes people are taking more time off overall, and she says that’s a good thing. “It’s not so much that people are saying let me take a week or a month four times a year. But they are taking more long weekends in addition to scheduled family vacations.” The only negative she can think of is that often when offers are extended to new employees, they don’t believe her. She explains that the starting point is the minimum vacation required by law, and that’s what staff are paid  if they leave the company with unused time off. But while they are working for the company, the unlimited paid vacation policy applies. Fox agrees that unlimited vacation would be impossible in a manufacturing company or where essential services are provided, but she says the size of her organization isn’t really a factor. Netflix in the U.S. introduced open-ended vacations for over 500 salaried employees in 2004 and IBM Canada has eliminated tracking of vacation days (except in their Quebec manufacturing plant). IBM Guidelines say employees get a three week vacation to start but there is no policing and employees are empowered to take vacation whenever they want. While unlimited vacation appears to be the ultimate perk, a 2010 Expedia Survey reveals that almost half of Canadian employees do not fully take advantage of the number of vacation days they have now. Top reasons cited are they do not schedule a vacation long enough in advance, they are too busy to get away, or their significant other can’t get away. Do people at the Social Media Group abuse the program? Not at all, says Fox. “We work hard and play hard. I hire people who do great work. If I hire someone who takes advantage of the program, it’s my problem, because I’ve made a bad decision.” Also see: Top civil servants lose their perks  and 13 things to know about your benefits plan .

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The number of people seeking first-time unemployment benefits dropped last week to the lowest level since early April, a sign the job market may be healing after a recent slump.

The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly applications fell 24,000 to a seasonally adjusted 398,000. That’s the first time applications have fallen below 400,000 in 16 weeks. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, dropped to 413,750, the lowest since the week of April 23.

Applications had fallen in February to 375,000, a level that signals healthy job growth. But they then surged to an eight-month high of 478,000 in April and have declined only slowly since then.

Some of the drop likely reflects seasonal volatility. Applications were elevated earlier this month partly because of temporary layoffs in the auto and other manufacturing industries, which are ending. Many auto companies close their factories in early July to prepare for new models.

The drop “is clearly good news,” said Joshua Shapiro, an economist at MFR Inc. Still, “we would prefer to see further data before concluding that the earlier downtrend in claims is being re-established.”

The total number of people receiving benefits, meanwhile, dipped to 3.7 million. That doesn’t include millions of people receiving extended benefits under emergency programs. All told, 7.65 million people received benefits in the week ended July 9.

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Asian stock markets fell Monday after U.S. political leaders failed to reach a deal to raise Washington’s debt limit that is crucial to avoiding an impending default.

Oil prices fell below $99 a barrel amid investor concern that the lack of a debt agreement could damage the world’s biggest economy and reduce demand for crude.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 was off 0.8 percent at 10,053.2 points and China’s Shanghai Composite Index slid 2.1 percent to 2,711.37. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index lost 0.8 percent to 22,268.28.

Elsewhere, South Korea’s Kospi lost 0.8 percent to 2,152.74 and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 dropped 1.4 percent to 4,538.50.

“The only thing you can be assured of over the coming hours and days is volatility as the political posturing continues in the U.S.,” said Ben Potter, market strategist for IG Markets, in a report.

U.S. leaders had hoped to strike a deal Sunday to reassure investors. President Barack Obama has insisted on raising revenues, mainly through letting tax cuts for wealthier Americans expire, but Republicans want more spending cuts and have rejected higher taxes.

A default would mean the U.S. government could not pay all its bills starting next month, including interest and principal on Treasury bonds. That would cause shockwaves through the global economy and financial markets.

Many analysts expect U.S. leaders to reach a last-minute deal to raise the government’s $14.3 trillion borrowing limit before an Aug. 2 deadline. But markets are watching anxiously for what tax or spending changes might be part of the settlement.

In China, market heavyweight PetroChina Ltd., Asia’s biggest oil and gas producer, and the country’s biggest commercial lender, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., both were off 0.8 percent.

Chinese railway shares fell after this weekend’s deadly bullet train crash in southeastern China. China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Corp. declined 8.6 percent and China Railway Group was off 7 percent.

The dollar was little changed at 78.45 yen, up slightly from Friday’s 78.43. The euro also was largely unchanged at $1.4366.

Benchmark oil for September delivery was down $1 to $98.87 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Crude rose 74 cents to settle at $99.87 on Friday.

In London, Brent crude slid 97 cents to $117.70 per barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

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Rupert Murdoch said he was the best person to clean up News Corp. Investors agreed.

The company’s stock had its best day since the phone-hacking scandal broke, rising more than 5 percent Tuesday while Murdoch and his son and deputy, James, testified before a committee of the British Parliament in London.

The gains restored about $2.2 billion of the $8.3 billion in market value the company had lost during the furor.

Murdoch, 80, said he was ashamed at revelations that the News of the World, a News Corp. tabloid, had broken into the voicemail of a murdered schoolgirl, potentially interfering with investigators and giving false hope to her family that she was alive.

But Murdoch declined to take personal blame in a crisis that has extended to the top levels of the British police and to the prime minister. Asked whether he was considering resigning as head of News Corp., he said: “No.”

“I feel that people I trusted, I’m not saying who, I don’t know at what level, have let me down,” Murdoch said. “And I think they behaved disgracefully, betrayed the company and me, and it’s for them to pay. I think that frankly, I’m the best person to clean this up.”

News Corp. stock was up all day, with some cable channels in the United States showing its price changing, cent by cent, while Murdoch spoke in London. The stock rose steadily throughout his testimony and closed at $15.79, up 82 cents.

“It became more certain from comments from Rupert that he intends to stay in place. That certainty is something that markets like,” said Laura Martin, an analyst for Needham & Co., an investment banking and asset-management firm.

She gave Murdoch “an A” and James Murdoch, 38, his son and heir apparent, an “an A-plus” for showing a good grasp of facts, appearing contrite and describing how they reacted appropriately when they learned of wrongdoing.

Martin said the succession plan that markets believed was in place, with James assuming the top job in a few years and Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey staying in his role, was now believed to be unchanged.

Late Monday, Thomas Perkins, a News Corp. board member, said top management had the board’s full support. He denied a report that it was considering an immediate change.

News Corp. owns media properties around the world, including Fox television, the 20th Century Fox movie studio, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post. It closed the News of the World earlier this month.

The company employs 52,000 people around the world. Its stock is still down about 13 percent since the scandal broke, a loss of about $6.1 billion in market value.

At the hearing, British lawmakers pushed for details about the Murdochs’ ties to Prime Minister David Cameron and other members of the British political establishment payday loan lenders in states. They questioned London police about reports that officers took bribes from Murdoch’s journalists.

David Joyce, an analyst with trading firm Miller Tabak & Co., said the father-son pair did a good job distancing themselves from wrongdoing by saying they run a decentralized company and trust their employees.

“I think the stock is up as their apologies point to a desire to salvage the company as-is, and that significant asset sales are not likely,” Joyce said.

Rupert Murdoch also said he had seen no evidence that victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks had been victims of hacking by his journalists.

“Rupert came across very direct, very clear that this doesn’t touch U.S. soil,” said Jeffrey Logsdon, an analyst for BMO Capital Markets. “So if the scorched earth is going to remain unfortunately somewhere else, that’s a relief.”

Some investors may have bought News Corp. stock because it seems cheap, said Morningstar analyst Michael Corty.

“In the long run, the fundamentals in the business aren’t changed by all these headlines and the scandal,” Corty said. “We think it’s undervalued, but it’s not a screaming buy.”

News Corp. made $2.5 billion on $32.8 billion in revenue in its last fiscal year, putting it in the same league as Time Warner and Disney among the world’s largest media companies. Analysts have valued the company primarily on its money-making TV and movie businesses and have considered newspapers a drag on profits despite Murdoch’s attachment to them.

More than two hours into the hearing, a spectator wearing a plaid shirt walked up to the table where the two Murdochs sat and appeared to hit the elder Murdoch squarely in the face with a paper plate full of shaving cream.

Murdoch’s wife, Wendi Deng, who was sitting behind Murdoch and had touched his elbow occasionally to stop him thumping the desk, lashed out, slapping the man in the face before falling down.

Police quickly took the man away. As he left the room, Deng picked up the plate and hurled it at the man. The panel took a 10-minute recess. When it resumed, the elder Murdoch was without his suit jacket but apparently cleaned up. That’s when he was asked if he was considering resigning over the affair.

News Corp. stock edged up about a percentage point after the incident. Thomas Eagan, an analyst at Collins Stewart, said the attack may have caused investor sentiment to shift “from animosity toward sympathy.”

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When I went to college (which wasn’t THAT long ago), it was slim pickings when it came to dorm furnishings, especially trying to locate those elusive twin extra-long sheets.

Not so anymore. From bean bag chairs to funky lamps, many big box stores are now full of merchandise at this time of year aimed at the college-going crowd as retailers have realized that this is a huge untapped market. Or at least it was.

Now one more store to add to some St. Louisans’ college shopping list will be Pottery Barn’s new tween and teen store that will open on Saturday next to Plaza Frontenac. The adjoining 1,300 square-foot PBteen and 6,100 square-foot Pottery Barn Kids stores will be housed in the building formerly occupied by the standalone Williams-Sonoma home store in the parking lot. (Williams-Sonoma is the part of the same company as Pottery Barn.)

PBteen, which sells bedding, lighting, and other home furnishing accessories, has been around as an online store since 2003 — and just went international with its online sales earlier this year. But it only has a handful of bricks-and-mortar stores around the country. The Plaza Frontenac store will be the company’s fourth store in addition to ones in New York, Atlanta, and Chicago. So why did St. Louis get the honor?

“With all of the colleges in the St. Louis area, we think it will be a great place to showcase our PBdorm brand,” Janey Hayes, president of Pottery Barn Kids and PBteen said in an email.

And, of course, it had an existing piece of real estate to fill.

So will PBteen be opening other stores across the country? It looks like St. Louis is it for now. Hayes said the company has no other confirmed plans for expansion.

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In today

When your customers know what they want and how much they

If you’re thinking of buying a car soon, here’s some advice: Don’t.

“If you can wait, wait,” says Jeremy Anwyl, CEO of Edmunds guaranteed pay day loans.com, the car-buying website.

The Japanese earthquake is raising prices and cutting selection

European officials closed ranks Thursday to demand that the IMF’s next leader be one of their own, someone with the political savvy to handle the continent’s relentless debt crisis, but the U.S. balked at offering its immediate support.

Frenchman Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who has been widely praised for his leadership of the Intentional Monetary Fund and its involvement in solving Europe’s woes, resigned Wednesday to devote “all his energy” to fighting sexual assault charges in New York.

The move heated up simmering debate over his successor, with Europe staking its traditional claim to the post even as fast-growing nations like China and Brazil say it’s time to break that monopoly and seek an IMF chief from a developing nation. The IMF is empowered to direct billions of dollars to stabilize the global economy.

In Washington, where the IMF is based, U.S. Treasury chief Timothy Geithner said “We want to see an open process that leads to a prompt succession.”

Geithner’s statement was ambiguous and leaves open the possibility that the U.S., which has a major say in determining who will head the fund, could support a candidate from either group. Some analysts said the U.S. government will make its preference clearer behind the scenes while keeping a more impartial stance in public.

Hours after Strauss-Kahn’s resignation, everyone from the European Commission to the German chancellor to the French finance minister _ herself a potential candidate _ said the replacement should come from Europe. Not because of any tradition, they insisted, but because intimate knowledge of Europe’s debt crisis should be a critical element of any candidate’s portfolio.

“From a European point of view, it is essential that the appointment will be merit-based, where competence and economic and political experience play the key role,” said Olli Rehn, European Commissioner for Monetary and Economic Affairs. “And in this current juncture it is a merit if the person has quite solid knowledge of the European economy and decision making.”

There is no indication yet when a decision will be made. But a meeting of the G-8 _ a group of eight developed countries _ takes place next week in the seaside resort of Deauville, France, and all the major decision-makers will be there.

France’s Finance Minister Christine Lagarde has in recent days been touted in many European capitals as a good choice. A sharp, articulate negotiator, she has a strong international reputation and impeccable English after living in the United States for many years.

“I am convinced that she is a good candidate. I made a few trips with her to Asia. I was able to verify her popularity among ministers of large emerging countries,” France’s transport minister, Thierry Mariani, told France-Info radio Thursday.

Despite Lagarde’s popularity, Mariani was the first member of the French government to speak publicly about her as a candidate.

That’s partly because she is a member of French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative UMP party, and if Sarkozy openly pushes for her candidacy, that could fuel the widespread belief in France that the accusations against Strauss-Kahn were part of a conspiracy to knock him off what appeared to be his march toward the French presidency.

Lagarde herself mentioned no names but said she too supported a European for the job.

“I’m a true European and I’m convinced that Europe is the way to go, as far as we are concerned,” she told reporters on a visit to a French supermarket. “I am a convinced European and I think that for such a candidacy, the Europeans must be united.”

In Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel pushed for a rapid decision and underlined her hopes for another European. “It is of great significance, of course, that we find a quick solution.”

The IMF’s executive board released a letter from Strauss-Kahn on Wednesday in which he denied the allegations against him but said he felt he must resign to protect his family and the IMF.

Strauss-Kahn was back in court Thursday in New York for a bail hearing that could have spelled the end of his leadership of the IMF anyway. He faces charges of assaulting a maid in a New York hotel room and has been jailed in New York since Monday.

The IMF’s statement said the process of choosing a new leader would begin, but in the meantime John Lipsky would remain its acting managing director.

Lipsky said Thursday that he deeply regrets the circumstances that temporarily placed him in the top position.

Europeans have led the IMF since its inception after World War II. Americans have occupied both the No. 2 position at the IMF and the top post at its sister institution, the World Bank. The World Bank funds projects in developing countries.

Developing nations see Europe’s stranglehold on the position as increasingly out of touch with the world economy. China’s is now the world’s second largest economy. India’s and Brazil’s have cracked the top 10.

“We must establish meritocracy, so that the person leading the IMF is selected for their merits and not for being European,” Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega said Wednesday.

Other potential European candidates include Germany’s former central bank chief, Axel Weber; the head of Europe’s bailout fund, Klaus Regling; and Peer Steinbrueck, a former German finance minister.

Candidates from elsewhere include Turkey’s former finance minister, Kemal Dervis; Singapore’s finance chief, Tharman Shanmugaratnam; and Indian economist Montek Singh Ahluwalia.

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The FDA has approved the first flu shot injected with a tiny needle into skin cells rather than muscle.

Sanofi Pasteur said Tuesday that the Food and Drug Administration approved the company’s Fluzone Intradermal vaccine for adults 18 through 64 years old. It will be available for the 2011-12 influenza season.

Flu shots generally are injected deep into muscle with a needle 1 inch to 1.5 inches long, a sight that distresses many patients.

Sanofi Pasteur’s new product has a needle less than a tenth of an inch long, attached to a pre-filled syringe that holds a smaller amount of influenza vaccine than the company’ standard flu shots. That’s because the dermis, the skin layer just under the surface, has a high concentration of the dendritic cells that are key to generating an immune response.

The company, based in Swiftwater, Pa., said patients have said they prefer the shorter, slimmer needles of the Fluzone Intradermal vaccine, but there’s no data yet on whether they are less painful than bigger needles payday loans. Reactions around the injection site, including redness, swelling and itching, were more common with the new vaccine than with an intramuscular vaccine, company research found.

The product is already marketed in Europe, Australia and Canada by Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccine division of French drug giant Sanofi, previously known as Sanofi-Aventis SA.

Olivier Charmeil, CEO of Sanofi Pasteur, said the product may help increase adult influenza immunization rates here.

Flu shots are now recommended for most Americans, but many adults don’t get them. Complications from the flu kill tens of thousands of Americans in a typical year.

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