Mexico recounts votes from over half of polling booths

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's election officials on Wednesday recounted votes from more than half the polling booths in Sunday's presidential and congressional elections, responding to claims of fraud and requests for recounts in areas where the race was tight.

Officials with the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) said the recount would not significantly change preliminary results of the presidential vote, which showed Enrique Pena Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) winning with more than 38 percent of the vote, 6.5 points clear of his nearest rival.

Leftist runner-up Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador refused to concede and demanded a new tally, alleging vote-buying and coercion by the PRI, whose seven decades of rule until it lost power in 2000 were marked by widespread allegations of vote-rigging.

A small group of Lopez Obrador's supporters set up a makeshift camp outside the headquarters of the electoral institute on Wednesday.

In the weeks before the election, a student movement criticizing Pena Nieto and the PRI erupted, with many young voters rallying around Lopez Obrador's campaign mostly in Mexico City where the left won a resounding victory.

"There were a lot of electoral crimes, burnt and stolen ballot boxes," said one of the protesters, Balam Onofre, 23.
The left has accused the PRI of handing out pre-paid shopping cards and other goods to voters in exchange for support, a charge the Pena Nieto campaign denies.

Lopez Obrador had asked for a recount of every vote, but the electoral institute said that just over half the polling booths for the presidential race met the necessary conditions set out by a 2007 electoral law.

That law stipulates that a recount can only be requested at a polling station where there is a gap of less than 1 percentage point between the two leading candidates, or for other "inconsistencies" that could include hard-to-read ballots.
"This is an exercise in openness and transparency," said Edmundo Jacobo, executive secretary of the electoral institute.

The final presidential numbers were due on Thursday.

With returns counted from 54 percent of the polling stations, Pena Nieto had won 39 percent of the vote, 8 points ahead of Lopez Obrador. All these votes had either been recounted or were already considered final, the IFE said.

The final congressional counts were due on Sunday.

Other conditions that could allow for a recount were when all votes at a polling station had been cast for one party, or when the number of void ballots was bigger than the gap between the first and second-placed candidates, the institute said.
Election officials said those conditions were met for 54.5 percent of polling stations for the presidential race and just over 60 percent in the cases of the Senate and lower house of Congress, which were also elected on Sunday.
In 2006, Lopez Obrador demanded a recount after losing to President Felipe Calderon by slightly more than half a percentage point, or some 250,000 votes. This time he finished more than 3 million votes behind Pena Nieto.
Electoral law did not permit a full recount in 2006 and his request was refused. Lopez Obrador then called out his supporters who launched street protests that choked Mexico City for weeks.

(Additional reporting by Dave Graham and Mica Rosenberg. Editing by Daniel Trotta and Christopher Wilson)

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More than one million in U.S. still without power five days after storm

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than 1 million homes and businesses in a swath from Indiana to Virginia remained without power on Wednesday, five days after deadly storms tore through the region.

The outage meant no July 4 Independence Day holiday for thousands of utility workers who scrambled to restore lingering power outages.

Much of the damage to the power grid was blamed on last weekend's rare "derecho," a big, powerful and long-lasting wind storm that blew from the Midwest to the Atlantic Ocean.

Violent weekend storms and days of record heat have killed at least 23 people in the United States since Friday. Some died when trees fell on their homes and cars, and heat stroke killed others.

Energy provider Dominion Virginia Power said emergency crews were working around the clock to deal with 60,000 outages for its customers throughout Virginia as of noon Wednesday.

Service for virtually all customers in Northern Virginia and the Richmond metropolitan area who lost electric service because of the storms should be restored by Friday night, said Daisy Pridgen, a Dominion spokeswoman. In a few instances, work may continue into Saturday where there was extreme damage, she said.

More than 5,000 people from 18 states and Canada were working through the holiday, Rodney Blevins, a Dominion vice president, said in a statement. The company said it had restored power to about 90 percent of its 1 million customers who had lost electric service because of the weekend storms, the biggest non-hurricane outage in the company's history.

Much of the hardest-hit areas were to bake for another day in scorching heat, with the National Weather Service forecasting temperatures from 90 Fahrenheit (32 Celsius) to more than 100 F (37.7 C) from the Midwest to the Atlantic Coast.

In Washington, about 5,000 customers of local power company Pepco were still without power on Wednesday morning, and the city was distributing food to people who were unable to cook at home. Closer to 50,000 Pepco customers in suburban Maryland were still in the dark.

But the region still most affected, however, was West Virginia and the neighboring Blue Ridge Mountain section of Virginia, accounting for close to half of the lingering outage.

In West Virginia, 174,960 of Appalachian Power'shalf-million customers remain without electric service, the company said in a noon update on Wednesday.

Just over the state line in the mountains of western Virginia, 110,578 Appalachian clients remained blacked out, it said.

"Crews are continuing to find additional damage to our distribution and transmission facitilities," a statement on the company's website said. It said additional crews from outside the area will join restoration efforts as they become available.

More than 3,000 workers are dedicated to its effort in Virginia and West Virginia, the company said. Other utilities also pledged to keep crews working - some in 16-hour shifts - until the electricity was restored.

Virginia's Arlington County, across the Potomac River from Washington, still had 6,875 people without power as of 7 a.m, said John Crawford, deputy director of the county's office of emergency management.

Verizon services to the county's 911 emergency communications center are "still not 100 percent stable," but have been up and running for 48 hours without known incident, he told Reuters.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson and Jim Wolf in Washington; Additional reporting by Edith Honan in New York; Writing by Dan Burns; Editing by Eric Beech and Sandra Maler)

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Spring revival for America's housing market

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Kate Carpenter and her husband waited for two years before sensing the time was right to look to buy a home in the suburbs of New York.

"This is the first time homes are at an affordable point," said the freelance writer, 35.

She hopes to move her two young daughters out of their rented New York City apartment soon, taking advantage of record low mortgage rates and signs the slump is over.

Six years after the housing market began its slide, dragging the U.S. economy into recession, this year's spring season -- traditionally the busiest period for home sales -- is shaping up to be the strongest since the crash.

Sales rose more than 10 percent in April from a year earlier and may end the year up by as much as 13 percent, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Prices, which plunged by a third from 2006 according to some measures, are rising in some cities. Realtors report bidding wars, albeit more modest ones than during the bubble years, and buyers are snapping up homes much more quickly than only a few weeks ago.

"We have more buyers than we have houses to sell," said April Bolin, a realtor in Riverside, California, considered one of the epicenters of the U.S. housing crash.

"We have multiple bids all the time. I recently sold a property that had 10 offers in three days," Bolin said.

A reminder of how damaged the market remains: That contested condominium sold for the asking price of $173,000, less than half of what it fetched at the peak of the bubble.

Even if existing home sales this year touch 4.8 million, the top end of the NAR's forecasts, that compares with more than 7 million in 2005, before the crash.

"We're guardedly optimistic," said Ron Phipps, a broker at Phipps Realty in Warwick, Rhode Island, a state hit hard by the 2007-09 recession. "We've seen some really good signs. We just want them to be sustained."

WORKING OFF THE OVERSUPPLY

One of the most significant signs of recovery is the fall in the bloated inventory of homes on the market. Nationally, it has fallen to about six-months' supply, usually considered a healthy market, down from more than nine months in April of last year.

Agents attribute some of the quick drawdown to a broadening of the kind of buyers getting into the market - homeowners looking to upgrade, first-time purchasers and retirees as well as the cash investors who ventured in earlier and growing numbers of Wall Street funds betting on juicy rental returns.

Some of the cities looking at a potential inventory shortage were among those hardest hit by the crisis, including Phoenix and Miami, because investors have already swooped on many homes. In Sacramento, California, supply has shrunk to just 1.1 months' worth, according to data firm RealtyTrac.

"We don't have a lot of product, and we have a lot of eager buyers," said Donna Evers, an owner of Evers & Company, a real estate company in the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, one of the hottest spots in the recovery so far.

A five-bedroom house that needed a lot of renovation drew 11 offers within three days and eventually sold for $250,000 over the asking price at $1,350,000, Evers said.
"Prices are building pretty fast," said the 30-year veteran of the U.S. property market.

The market still faces big obstacles, not least a large number of homeowners whose properties are worth less than their mortgages or who are behind on their payments. In March, data firm CoreLogic estimated that for every two homes sold, there is one that could yet be foreclosed.

A setback in the still fragile U.S. economic recovery could also scare away potential buyers.

MORTGAGE LENDING STILL TIGHT

Another risk to the recovery: Despite record low interest rates, lending conditions remain very tight for anyone who cannot show a high credit score and satisfy often highly detailed demands from banks for proof of their financial standing.

"The cruel irony is that during the housing boom, we were giving mortgages to anybody with a pulse," said Guy Cecala, publisher of industry newsletter Inside Mortgage Finance. "Now we aren't willing to give a mortgage to anybody but an Olympic athlete. Somewhere in between there's an appropriate balance."

Mortgage originations by U.S. banks were flat in the first quarter compared to the last three months of 2011 although they were up from a year earlier, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., a U.S. bank regulator.
Bankers, smarting from a $25 billion settlement over shoddy foreclosure practices, complain about uncertainty as regulators draw up new mortgage rules. The Federal Reserve said in April some community banks have given up on mortgages altogether.

But comments from major lenders Bank of America and Wells Fargo & Co suggest they could soon start beefing up lending again.

Bank of America Chief Executive Brian Moynihan told investors last week that his bank is adding loan officers as it looks to recover lost market share.
Wells Fargo, which now makes more than one in three U.S. mortgages, is also looking to grow.

"Now, we fully expect some bumping along here as the national economy has its own fits and starts and the like. But we see some real continued improvement," Mike Heid, head of Wells Fargo's mortgage unit, told investors last week.

Wells Fargo wrote $129 billion in mortgages in the first quarter, up from $120 billion in the fourth quarter and $84 billion a year earlier.

Still, demand has been far stronger from homeowners trying to bring down the cost of their existing mortgage than from prospective buyers. Last quarter, refinancing accounted for 76 percent of all mortgage applications.

Some of those who can buy are moving fast.
Twenty-six-year old John, who asked that his family name not be published, signed a contract on a three-bedroom property in Ponte Vedra, Florida, just a day after seeing it.
"There was another family that put in a bid on the same day, so we offered a little bit more than we were originally planning because we just wanted to get it off the market," he said.

(Additional reporting by Michelle Conlin in New York, Tim Reid in Los Angeles and Rick Rothacker in Charlotte; editing by William Schomberg and Kenneth Barry)

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M&S to open in-store bank branches - report

LONDON (Reuters) - Marks & Spencer is expected to announce plans on Friday to open an in-branch banking service from its stores, the Telegraph reported.

The retailer plans to open banks at 50 of its branches over the next two years starting with in its flagship store in central London next month.

It already offers limited financial services through M&S Money, having first ventured into personal finance in 1985, but its latest proposal will offer current accounts, with mortgages to follow at a later date, the newspaper said on Friday.

The new service is expected to be called M&S Bank will have the same opening hours as its stores, including late evenings and weekends.

M&S could not be reached for immediate comment.

(Reporting by Stephen Mangan; editing by M.D. Golan)

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US rate on 30-year mortgage rises to 3.71 pct

WASHINGTON (AP) — Average rates on fixed mortgages rose this week, the first increase in seven weeks. But mortgage rates remain near historic lows, boosting prospects for home sales this year.

Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average rate on the 30-year loan increased to 3.71 percent. That's up from 3.67 percent last week, the lowest since long-term mortgages began in the 1950s.

The average rate on the 15-year mortgage, a popular refinancing option, rose to 2.98 percent. That's up from 2.94 percent last week, also a record low.

The rate on the 30-year loan has been below 4 percent since early December. Low rates are a key reason the housing industry is showing modest signs of a recovery this year.

In April, sales of both previously occupied homes and new homes rose near two-year highs. Builders are gaining more confidence in the market, breaking ground on more homes and requesting more permits to build single-family homes later this year.

Low rates could also provide some help to the economy if more people refinance. When people refinance at lower rates, they pay less interest on their loans and have more money to spend.

Still, the pace of home sales remains well below healthy levels. Economists say it could be years before the market is fully healed.

Many people are still having difficulty qualifying for home loans or can't afford larger down payments required by banks. Some would-be home buyers are holding off because they fear that home prices could keep falling.

The economy is growing only modestly and job creation slowed sharply in April and May. U.S. employers created only 69,000 jobs in May, the fewest in a year.

Mortgage rates have been dropping because they tend to track the yield on the 10-year Treasury note. Uncertainty about how Europe will resolve its debt crisis has led investors to buy more Treasury securities, which are considered safe investments. As demand for Treasurys increase, the yield falls.

To calculate average rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country on Monday through Wednesday of each week.

The average does not include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.

The average fee for 30-year loans was 0.7 point, unchanged from last week. The fee for 15-year loans also was unchanged at 0.7 point.

The average rate on one-year adjustable rate mortgages slipped to 2.78 percent from 2.79 percent last week. The fee for one-year adjustable rate loans was 0.5, up from 0.4.

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Why the Slowest Investors Win the Race

Anyone who attended kindergarten remembers Aesop's fable about the tortoise and the hare. The story's moral has implications for investors: Slow but steady wins the race.

Hare investors try to sprint to the finish line of a comfortable retirement without girding their portfolios against the perils of volatility — frequent ups and downs in asset value. So they tend to lag far behind tortoise investors, who take these precautions, which I'll explain in a moment.

Volatility reflects uncertainty, and markets tend to punish uncertainty with lower prices. Yet just because an investment is volatile doesn't mean it has no place in your portfolio. Because they may be less likely to go down with other assets in the portfolio, volatile investments may add highly beneficial variety, known as diversification.

Let's say you own tech stocks like Apple and IBM. Adding more tech stocks to your portfolio doesn't decrease overall risk, so you add a gold-mining stock instead. Though highly volatile in itself, the gold-mining stock is less likely to go up or down with tech stocks, so it increases the portfolio's diversification.

Because there's little correlation between gold-mining stocks' price movements with those of tech stocks, these categories are said to have a low correlation. That sounds complicated, but you can easily look up the differences in price movements between different types of investments to see whether they're correlated, and if so, how closely.

Aware of the downsides of volatility, tortoises avoid it by assembling highly diversified portfolios. That means traditional investments such as U.S. stocks and bonds, mixed with a dash of non-traditional (alternative) assets. These may include emerging market stocks, Treasury bonds and real estate securities. The price movements of these investments have a history of not being highly correlated with U.S. stocks or bonds.

Tortoises are like a savvy retailer on a tropical resort island who wisely sells umbrellas as well as sunscreen to help cover losses during rainy periods. Every once in while, the rain falls on everything -- which is what happened in late 2008, much to the dismay of investors. In the financial meltdown, stocks, bonds and real estate both in the US and abroad swooned, leaving little quarter for investors.

Tortoise-style investors add a touch of alternative investments, knowing this may cut their overall returns some years, but they'll sleep more peacefully with the knowledge that it can counter-balance heavy losses in traditional investments.

Hares aren't focused on this balanced approach. Instead, they assemble highly aggressive portfolios of assets that tend to rise or fall in lockstep. They're not concerned with cutting their losses because, compelled by greed, they're not planning to have any losses ior they believe they can defy gravity. This was not unlike the employees who loaded up on their company's shares before the recession, only to see their investment go south along with their job.

Like the Aesop's hare, hare investors are overconfident and turn a blind eye to the ravages of volatility, which take a long time to recover from. Tortoises, having sustained less damage, continue their slow but steady progress.

The math of recovering from hits may astonish you. Let's say your portfolio loses 33 percent of its value, leaving you with two thirds of what you had. Many believe they'd be back where they started if they gain 33 percent. But this gain wouldn't restore their losses. They would actually need to make a 50 percent gain to get back to where they started. The reason is that the gain is based on a lower value than what you started with.

Heavy gains followed by just a large losses from volatile investments is comparable to the hare in Aesop's fable sprinting for periods and then, winded, lying down to take a nap. Like the tortoise, investors with adequately diversified portfolios don't tend to need as much recovery time.

Such losses are even more damaging than they appear at first blush. Not only do hare portfolios lose time that could be used to make progress toward the goal, but they also miss out on the benefits of compounding from reinvested gains . Though tortoises' gains may be far lower than those made by hares during their sprints, they're more likely to enjoy the benefits of compounding.

These awkward reptiles plod steadily toward the finish line while the halting progress of hares leaves them far behind.

Ted Schwartz, a Certified Financial Planner®, is president and chief investment officer of Capstone Investment Financial Group http://capstoneinvest.net. He advises individual investors and endowments, and serves as the advisor to CIFG Funds. Because Schwartz has a background in psychology and counseling, he brings insights into personal motivation when advising clients on achieving their wealth management goals. Schwartz holds a B.A. from Duke University and an M.A. from Oregon State University. He can be reached at ted@capstoneinvest.com.

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Crunch time for Google as EU deadline looms

BRUSSELS: Google faces arguably its biggest challenge next week when it will have to decide whether to respond to an ultimatum by EU antitrust regulators to come up with concessions to soothe competition concerns or fight it out and risk a hefty fine.

EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia has given the world's most popular search engine until early July to try to settle an 18-month investigation triggered by more than a dozen complaints.

Playing hardball may cost Google a near $4 billion fine, 10 per cent of its 2011 revenues of $37.9 billion, the maximum that the European Commission can levy.

Following are some key facts about the European Commission's investigation into the company's business practices:

The complainants: Sixteen companies have taken their grievances to the EU watchdog to date, with Microsoft the highest profile.

Microsoft-owned German price comparison site Ciao, French legal search engine eJustice and its parent 1plusV, British comparison site Foundem, Dutch football website Elfvoetbal, German online mapping company Hotmaps, French publishing company Interactive Lab, Italian company nnpt.it and French online daily deals company Dealdujour.pro have all made complaints.

The others are the Spanish Association of Daily Newspaper Publishers (AEDE), French shopping comparison site Twenga, British online mapping company Streetmap, online travel sites Expedia and Tripadvisor, and online travel group Odigeo, which has four brands including e-Dreams and Opodo.

The Commission's four areas of concerns: Google may have favoured its own search services over those of rivals; it may have copied travel and restaurant reviews from competing sites without their permission; its advertising deals with websites may have blocked rivals; its contractual restrictions may prevent advertisers from moving their online campaigns to rival search engines. 

 

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HDFC Bank to declare Q1 results

MUMBAI: The Board of Directors of HDFC Bank Ltd is likely to hold a meeting on 13 July, 2012, to audit the unaudited financial results for the Q1 ended 30 June, 2012.
HDFC bank was incorporated in the year 1994. It is considered as India’s largest housing finance company. It is one of those companies that received an ‘in principle’ approval from Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to set up a bank in the private sector.
The company mainly deals in three business sections which include Wholesale Banking Services, Retail Banking Services and Treasury. Within these business segments, HDFC has three key product areas- Foreign Exchange and Derivatives, Local Currency Money Market & Debt Securities and Equities.

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