Wendt Igonder blog

Dow, S&P fall on debt worries

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Dow and S&P 500 fell on Monday as enthusiasm over a bailout package for Ireland faded and investors worried that further steps would be needed to combat euro zone sovereign debt problems.

The European Union and International Monetary Fund began to thrash out details of a loan package to Ireland to resolve its banking and budget crisis.

Concerns that Ireland's debt crisis might spread to other euro zone countries has hung over U.S. stocks in recent weeks. World shares pulled back from an early rise, while European markets fell 0.7 percent on Monday.

U.S.-listed shares of Bank of Ireland (IRE.N) tumbled 16.1 percent to $2.24, and Allied Irish Banks Plc (AIB.N) lost 1.6 percent to $1.21.

"A Band-Aid is not what is needed, major surgery is what is needed. Money is not going to solve the problem," said Peter Kenny, managing director at Knight Equity Markets in Jersey City, New Jersey.

"All you are doing is buying time. You are kicking the can down the road. We are finally coming to terms with the fact you can't keep kicking the can down the road."

The euro fell 0.4 percent against the dollar on fears about possible contagion to other highly indebted euro zone nations.

The Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) dropped 51.84 points, or 0.46 percent, to 11,151.71. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index (.SPX) lost 4.50 points, or 0.38 percent, to 1,195.23. The Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC) gained 6.17 points, or 0.25 percent, to 2,524.29. The Nasdaq was boosted by strength in the semiconductor sector after Robert W. Baird upgraded SanDisk Corp (SNDK.O) shares to "outperform" from "neutral.

SanDisk gained 5.6 percent to $42.26, while the PHLX Semiconductor index (.SOX) rose 0.7 percent.

Trading volume is expected to be tepid this week due to the U.S. Thanksgiving Day holiday on Thursday.

No. 1 U.S. meat producer Tyson Foods Inc (TSN.N) posted higher-than-expected quarterly profit on a big jump in gross margins and said its current quarter was off to a strong start. Its shares gained 3 percent to $16.11.

Quarterly results are due from Hewlett-Packard Co (HPQ.N) and Analog Devices Inc(ADI.N) after the close.

(Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

AP-Gfk Poll: Consumers feel less angst from debt

WASHINGTON – Debt isn't stressing people as much as it had been, but consumers remain gun-shy about embarking on a big holiday spending spree.

An Associated Press-GfK Poll also suggests Americans are more disciplined about using their credit cards. Deep into a stubbornly harsh economic downturn, more people than last year say they pay off their balances right away, and fewer say they make credit card purchases if they lack enough money at the time.

"I use it as cash in my pocket," Richard Kirby, 64, a retiree from Palm Harbor, Fla., said of his card. "We're all tempted. I can buy this, I can buy that, but then you realize you have to pay for it."

Fifty-nine percent said they feel little or no stress from their family's debt from mortgages, credit cards and other loans. That's an improvement from when 49 percent said so a year ago, with women and city residents reporting significantly less tension than last year.

In addition, 52 percent said they seldom or never worry about their financial liabilities, about the same as last year but the first time more than half said so since an AP poll first asked that question in 2004.

"People are essentially adapting to their circumstances," said Joseph Sirgy, a marketing professor at Virginia Tech who studies consumer behavior. He said the change appears to be a combination of people revamping their financial behavior and getting mentally used to tough times.

Some, though, face deeper problems. About 1 in 8 expressed worry about ever getting out of debt, 1 in 5 acknowledged brooding about IOUs all or most of the time and 1 in 10 predicted his or her debts will be a major problem for the next five years.

Federal Reserve data show that total household debt has dipped by 3 percent since its peak in early 2008, as the recession was starting. That reflects both defaults and people paying down their IOUs, analysts say.

Another measure of debt-related anxiety tied to the AP-GfK Poll, the debt stress index, fell to 25, the lowest level since the AP began taking the measurement in 2004. The figure means people are feeling relatively little angst about the money they owe.

Paul J. Lavrakas, a research psychologist and AP consultant who analyzed the AP-GfK survey, said the least worried include people earning more than $75,000 a year, those without children in their households and retired people under age 60. Those most disturbed by their debt include the lowest earning, the better educated and residents of the Northeast.

Just 9 percent in the AP-GfK Poll said they plan to spend more this year on holiday purchases than they did a year ago. Thirty-seven percent said they plan to spend less, down from the 53 percent who said in 2008 that they'd cut holiday spending, while just over half plan to spend the same amount.

"Unfortunately, you have to be disciplined," said letter carrier Shelton Rhodes of Aurora, Colo., who plans to keep his holiday spending at last year's levels. "Otherwise, you get sticker shock when January comes by" and the credit card statements appear.

Consumer spending has grown at its fastest rate in four years but still so modestly that it is having little impact on economic growth or the near-10 percent unemployment rate. Consumer spending is crucial because it powers 70 percent of the country's economic activity, and holiday shopping can be as much as 40 percent of many retailers' revenues and profits.

The poll offered several clues that people are curbing credit card use:

_About 7 in 10 said they have paid off last month's credit card bill or will when it arrives, up from roughly 6 in 10 expressing such plans last year.

_More than 8 in 10 planning to use credit cards for holiday gifts said they expect to pay off those bills when they get the statement, up from two-thirds who said so two years ago.

_Thirteen percent said they buy things with credit cards even when they lack money to pay for it at that time, down from 21 percent a year ago.

"I'm maxed out," said Karen Pellegrin, 36, a web designer from Centennial, Colo., who said she's near her card's $2,000 ceiling despite trying to limit credit card purchases to emergencies. With her husband recently finding a job, she said, "the future looks bright, but it's been a long struggle."

Those in the survey with credit cards typically owed $800, meaning half said they owed more than that and half said less. That compares with $900 last May and $1,000 last year.

According to a report this year by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, there were 610 million credit cards in the U.S. in 2008, the latest figures available. That meant an average of 2.7 cards per adult and 3.5 cards per cardholder.

The AP-GfK Poll was conducted Nov. 3-8 by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications. It involved landline and cell phone interviews with 1,000 adults nationwide and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. It included interviews with 730 people who have credit cards, for whom the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4.8 points.

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AP Polling Director Trevor Tompson, AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius and AP Economics Writer Jeannine Aversa contributed to this report.

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Online:

AP-GfK Polls:

Hazell leads Seton Hall past Cornell 92-68

NEWARK, N.J. – Jeremy Hazell scored 28 points to lead four Seton Hall players in double figures in a 92-68 victory over Cornell on Sunday.

Thanks to a big surge early in the game, the Pirates (1-1) made easy work of the Big Red (1-1) in their home debut.

Seton Hall jumped out to a 24-point lead with 6:30 remaining after a 26-7 run gave the Pirates a 39-14 lead and Cornell never got within 14 points again.

Jeff Robinson scored 16 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, Herb Pope had 13 points and Jordan Theodore added 10 points, seven assists and seven rebounds.

Aaron Osgood led the Big Red with 19 points, getting to the free-throw line 16 times but hitting just half of his attempts. He didn't receive much help, though, as no teammate made it into double figures and Cornell dropped its first game after a season-opening win at Albany.

Brazilian superstar Ivete Sangalo plays NY arena

NEW YORK – The most Earth-shattering event in Brazil this weekend took place in New York, where singer Ivete Sangalo played a sold out show at Madison Square Garden. Too bad, few Americans even noticed.

A superstar in her native Brazil, where she can pack a 70,000-capacity soccer stadium and commands crowds of millions during Carnaval, Sangalo kept the almost-entirely-Brazilian audience on its feet over the course of three hours and five costume changes.

Dancing frenetically, the crowd of 14,500 sang along with every word of her samba-inflected dance pop songs like "Festa" (Party) and "Acelere" (Accelerate).

"I just want you to be proud of me, and I want you to be proud of the show I brought here," Sangalo said from the top of a massive, thrusting stage pulsing with lights and video — designed by the man responsible for this year's Super Bowl halftime show, Bruce Rodgers.

In Brazil, Sangalo's show was touted as her first step toward conquering the U.S., placing her in a pantheon with the likes of Madonna, the Rolling Stones, Beyonce and U2.

But a 100-foot-high banner that hung outside the Garden for weeks advertising the show still required the helpful caption explaining Sangalo is "A Brazilian Star."

At a pre-concert news conference, the statuesque brunette said the relative anonymity didn't faze her.

"When I started in Brazil, I was also unknown, and Brazil is a gigantic place with lots of talent," the husky-voiced singer explained. "I haven't come here with the pretension of being well known, but what I've come do to here, I've come to do right."

As a Portuguese speaker, Sangalo may have had her work cut out for her, but promoters say selling out the Garden is a real accomplishment.

Shows by non-English-speaking acts there tend to top out at around 3,000 to 4,000 people, unless they sing in Spanish, which is spoken by a large and growing percentage of the U.S. population.

The only other Brazilian to headline a show at the Garden, singer Roberto Carlos, did so by reaching out to Latin audiences and singing in Spanish.

The closest comparison might be the Korean pop singer Rain, who sold out two nights at the smaller Madison Square Garden theater, which seats 4,000, in 2006.

Concert promoter John Scher said people have been calling him to ask who Sangalo is.

"I don't think there's been anything quite like this. There are Latin (Spanish speaking) artists who can sell out the Garden, but this is a pretty unique situation really," Scher said. "There's a lot of interest in the music industry, if not with the public."

Sangalo, 38, got her start singing as a teenager from the top of the sound trucks that ply their way through the packed streets of Salvador da Bahia during Carnaval time.

When she left the Carnaval group Banda Eva to go solo in 1999 she was already one of the country's biggest stars.

But her brand of Carnaval-inspired dance-pop, known as axe (pronounced ah-SHAY'), isn't what U.S. listeners usually think of as Brazilian music, and her audience tends to be concentrated among teenagers and twenty-somethings looking for a chance to hook up.

Her lyrics express the irrepressible optimism of youth, and her sound is a world away from the cool, cerebral bossa nova of Joao Gilberto or the smooth sounds of Caetano Veloso and Marisa Monte, all of whom are better known in the United States, even if Sangalo outsells them all at home.

As many as 5,000 fans had been expected to fly in from Brazil for the show, organizers say.

So despite all the conquering America swagger, Sangalo's intent is actually something entirely different: The Garden show was mainly intended to serve as a backdrop for her new DVD and a TV special to be broadcast in Brazil in December.

"They want a packed house and want to say 'we've sold out Madison Square Garden' and they've probably achieved that through various other meanshan from straight ahead ticket sales,'" says Gene de Souza, development director of the nonprofit Rhythm Foundation, who promoted Sangalo's Miami show.

In Miami, with a larger Brazilian population, Sangalo sold only 6,500 of the 7,000 seats put up for sale, de Souza said, in an arena where Britney Spears was able to pack in 18,500 fans.

On Saturday night Sangalo appeared well aware of her target audience, addressing the crowd as "Brazil" and dedicating the show to Brazilians living abroad.

Her only nods to local audiences were covers of Michael Jackson's "Human Nature" and Lionel Richie's "Easy" and a duet with Nelly Furtado, in which her English sounded good with only a slight accent.

She also reached out to the Spanish-speaking audiences, performing duets with Colombian superstar Juanes and Argentina's Diego Torres, but the warmest applause was reserved for Brazilian guests like Seu Jorge and fellow axe star Netinho, who appeared, briefly transforming the 25-minute-long encore into a mini-version of Carnaval.

"I didn't come with the objective to transforming anything or parting the waters for Brazilian music or anything like that," Sangalo said before the show. "I am a popular singer for the masses, and I will continue to be one, and this is my greatest pleasure."

(This version CORRECTS typo in expatriate in long headline.)