Finance Blog number 1

Ready to embark on the quest for an 800 credit score?

You’ll have to start by getting your exact score by shelling out $16 at myfico.com. (The best free scoring tool, the report card at Credit.com, gives you only a letter grade and a range your score probably falls into.)

You actually have three credit scores, one for each of the three major credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Mortgage lenders pull all three.

Though based on the same model, these scores can differ — typically by no more than 15 to 20 points, says FICO spokesman Crag Watts — depending on how lenders report to the bureaus and how the bureaus include that information in the report.

At myfico.com, you have the option of buying only your Equifax or Trans-Union score; Experian doesn’t sell its FICO score to consumers. If you’re shopping for a home loan, get the two available to you.

Scores change whenever your creditors report new information — like your credit card balance — so if you’re in the market for a big loan, start monitoring your number six to 12 months beforehand.

You might also find it useful to sign up for a tool like Equifax’s Score Watch, which for $13 a month will alert you when your score shifts. For those who aren’t loan shopping, there’s no need to check your number more than twice a year, says Wayne Sanford. owner of credit consulting firm New Start Financial Corp.

And if you find out you’re not in the promised land? Don’t worry. You don’t need to be fanatical to get to 780. Those in the know say these moves matter most:

1. Stay on top of your credit reports. You’re entitled to one free copy per year from each bureau. Get ‘em at annualcreditreport.com, and look for misreported delinquencies, over-reported loan amounts, and underreported credit limits business card design. Request corrections from the bureau in writing.

2. Pay bills within the grace period. Lenders report tardiness to the bureaus once you’re 30 days past due; if your score started at 780, it can go down to 680 after just one delinquency, says Watts. So set up payment reminders or have payments automatically deducted by a certain date.

3. Focus on paying off credit cards vs. other debt. Whittling down revolving debt will do a lot more for your score than erasing installment loans. Paying off a $250,000 mortgage when your score is already high will boost it by only five or 10 points, says Watts. But wiping away a few thousand bucks on plastic can add 100 points.

4. Stay under the magic 10%. Just paying credit card balances off every cycle doesn’t mean you have a 0% utilization; issuers report the total amount you charge each month to the bureaus. That suggests you should use credit cards sparingly, says Watts. Aim to spend no more than $2,000 on a $20,000 line; and put cards on ice a few months before applying for a loan.

5. Have a favorite credit card. The FICO model penalizes you for having multiple balances, so limit the bulk of your spending to one card. That said, issuers are closing inactive lines, which can hurt your utilization ratio. So make small charges to your other cards every three months or so.

6. Ask FICO what else will work for you. FICO offers a free Score Simulator tool to those who buy scores on myfico.com, and this allows you to see how your score would respond to certain actions, such as paying down debt or even taking on new loans.  

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Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. reported Tuesday adjusted net income of $2 million for the second quarter, compared with a loss of $21 million a year earlier, excluding $1.4 billion in income and tax benefits from the company's emergence from bankruptcy.

Including the impact of the bankruptcy income, Smurfi reported net income attributable to common stockholders of $1.41 billion for the second quarter, compared with a net income of $155 million a year earlier.

The company reported sales of $1.6 billion for the three months ended June 30, up 14 percent from $1.4 billion in the prior-year quarter.

Smurfit, which is dually headquartered in Creve Coeur, Mo., and Chicago, exited from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June. Smurfit has nearly all of the firm’s executives based in St. Louis. The company operates corrugated container, folding carton, recovered paper and recycling services facilities. Smurfit-Stone has 30 recycling plants in the U.S. The company reported $5.57 billion in 2009 revenue.

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The first big renovation of the Kansas City Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium in 40 years — a $375 million, three-year project — hosts its first event this weekend.

It’ll be a test run for the Chiefs, who are using the renovation as a springboard to improve customer service and the fan experience. The project — which includes an array of features evoking Chiefs history and highlights — added about 430,000 square feet to the stadium, for a total of more than 1.64 million square feet.

“This is the culmination of a five-year process designed to return Arrowhead to its status” as the finest stadium in the National Football League, Chiefs Chairman Clark Hunt said Friday as he gave a media tour of the recently completed facility.

Kelly Kerns, a principal with Kansas City-based Populous, the project architect, said the Arrowhead work kept about 100 of the firm’s local employees busy — and gave him a welcome period of work close to home for the past five years no fax payday loan.

But more than that, the project put Populous in a good position to take advantage of what Kerns said probably is going to be the next building trend.

The professional sports marketplace has experienced a big building boom during the past several years, but those projects in large part have been completed. Now, Kerns said he expects a flurry of projects to improve existing facilities. And Arrowhead provides a showpiece as to the possibilities and Populous’ capabilities.

It’s also a sustainable, green approach, Kerns said. By tackling the project using the existing structure, masses of concrete were kept out of landfills.

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BP will have to pay the U.S. government royalties on oil that spilled into the Gulf of Mexico if it is found that "negligence or regulatory violations" contributed to the accident, according to a government statement Thursday.

U.S. regulators are investigating what caused the April accident, but the findings aren’t expected for several months.

All oil companies pay royalties on oil produced from wells on government land or water.

BP is currently paying royalties on the oil that it is collecting and selling from its damaged well. BP is donating proceeds from those sales to a wildlife fund.

Based on the oil BP has collected as of last week, current oil prices, and the 18.75% royalty rate on the well, BP has paid about $8 million to the government.

But the well is estimated to be leaking up to 60,000 barrels a day. If the company was charged for that full amount, it would owe another $65 million.

BP has set up a payment plan with the government where it has promised at least $20 billion to pay for damages caused by the spill.

BP officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

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Florida International University’s Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine secured its ninth clinical partner by signing an affiliation agreement with Cleveland Clinic Florida.

The 150-bed hospital in Weston has 922 employees, including 166 physicians on staff. The nonprofit admitted more than 12,000 patients last year.

With the agreement, fourth-year FIU medical students could get clinical training from specialist physicians at Cleveland Clinic Florida.

“We are very excited to be affiliated with such a respected institution that has an excellent national reputation,” FIU College of Medicine Dean Dr. John Rock said in a news release same day payday loans. “Cleveland Clinic is world renowned for providing quality health care at an affordable cost, and we are proud to partner with them to train the next generation of doctors.”

The state university’s medical program also has affiliation agreements with Baptist Health South Florida, Jackson Health System, Mount Sinai Medical Center, Miami Children’s Hospital, Mercy Hospital, Leon Medical Centers, Broward Health and Memorial Healthcare System.

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A $900 million search ad deal between Google Inc. and News Corp. expires this summer, reportedly setting up a competition involving the search giant, Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

But declining Web traffic and other milestones on News Corp.'s MySpace have been far short of the goals laid out in the existing contract which expires in August, according to the Wall Street Journal, which is owned by News Corp.

The Journal cited unnamed sources familiar with the matter on Tuesday who said that any deal will be for significantly less money and will be much narrower.

The ad contract was a major factor in News Corp.'s ownership of MySpace, which it paid $650 million for.

But the social network has been surpassed by Palo Alto-based Facebook Inc payday loans., which has more than half a billion unique users compared to MySpace's 109 million users.

A number of high-level executives have left the company, amid a 30 percent cut in work force and a $450 million write down of the value of MySpace and other digital businesses by News Corp.

TechCrunch reported Tuesday that the search ad contract competition comes at a time that News Corp. may sell the Fox Audience Network (FAN), which it says serves most of the ads on MySpace. The blog reports that Menlo Park-based Silver Lake Partners is among the bidders and that if FAN is sold, MySpace is likely to quickly be sold as well.

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AOL said Thursday that it sold Bebo, the struggling social networking site, to Criterion Capital Partners, a private equity fund, for a fraction of what AOL paid for the site two years ago.

Terms were not disclosed, but reports pegged its value at $10 million or less. AOL paid $850 million for it.

AOL once had high hopes that Bebo would help it to regain momentum, especially with younger audiences and advertisers, and to catch other fast-growing Internet franchises. At the time, it was popular in Britain.

When it bought Bebo, the chief executive of AOL at the time, Randy Falco, called it a "game-changing acquisition" that would turn AOL into "a social media powerhouse." AOL also had hopes Bebo would help AOL’s instant messaging service bring in revenue. But Bebo was eclipsed by Facebook, which now has 500 million members around the world.

At the time of the deal, AOL was owned by Time Warner. Now, AOL is independent, and its new management team, led by Tim Armstrong, the chief executive, is struggling to engineer a turnaround.

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Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Friday it plans to create 500,000 jobs throughout the world in the next five years, saying there is tremendous opportunity for growth globally.

"We need to recruit the best talent and identify the best talent in our ranks," CEO Mike Duke told analysts and investors at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in Fayetteville, Ark. It was not immediately clear how many of the jobs would be created in the United States.

Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500) also announced a new program to repurchase $15 billion of its shares, which replaces a $15 billion repurchase plan announced a year ago. The company said $10.3 billion in stock had been purchased as a result of the prior program.

Hosted this year by Jamie Foxx, Wal-Mart’s annual meeting was again a star-studded fanfare. Movie stars and musicians such as Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige, recent "American Idol" winner Lee DeWyze, and Enrique Iglesias entertained shareholders who traveled far and wide for the annual part-pep rally, part-concert.

Duke said growth would not come easily, highlighting such challenges in the next 20 years as higher energy costs, nimble and innovative competitors, and technology.

The CEO also commented on Wal-Mart’s low-price strategy, saying a "new era of price transparency," brought on by the advent of mobile technologies, would make it more difficult to maintain its leadership position.

Wal-Mart officials called their international business strong, with Duke saying "It’s becoming an even bigger and more important part of our company." He added that more than 60% of the company’s new square footage last quarter was in Wal-Mart’s international unit.

Sales from the company’s international division exceeded $100 billion or about 25% of its $405 billion in total revenue. 

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The city of Scottsdale will hold funeral services June 8 for City Councilman Tony Nelssen, who died May 26 after a battle with cancer.

The services will be start at 9 a.m. Tuesday at the WestWorld center in North Scottsdale.

The city is reminding those attending the services that temperatures could reach 110 degrees, so they should dress appropriately. The event is being held outdoors.

Nelssen, 59, had served on the council since last June.

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A "Smart TV" breakthrough is reportedly ready to be launched this week by Google Inc. Intel Corp. and Sony Corp.

Search giant Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and chip giant Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) will unveil a deal to bring Web services to Sony's televisions at Google's annual developer conference this week in San Francisco, the Financial Times reported.

Central to the effort are the Android operating system from Google and the Atom microprocessor from Intel.

The Santa Clara chipmaker's CEO, Paul Otellini hinted at what is to come in remarks to analysts last week. "The revolution we're about to go through is the biggest single change in television since it went color."

Electronics manufacturer have been scrambling to find ways to integrate the Web with TVs, Blu-ray players and settop boxes. At their annual show in Las Vegas in January, a host of new equipment and services were announced including movies from Los Gatos-based Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX), Internet radio from San Francisco-based Pandora Inc., and social networking from San Francisco-based Twitter Inc. and Palo Alto-based Facebook Inc.

The Android OS could be very attractive to equipment makers if it gives them a way to generate money from online advertising, Google's main money maker.

"Consumer electronics manufacturers want a piece of this pie and Google is the player in this very crowded space that can immediately offer them revenue share," Kurt Scherf, principal analyst at research firm Parks Associates, told the Financial Times.

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