More than $600,000 has been donated to fundraisers for Oklahoma victims via crowdfunding site Fundly.

Crowdfunding websites are seeing donations pour in following the deadly tornado that ravaged Moore, Okla.

More than a dozen separate campaigns popped up on crowdfunding site, Fundly, less than 24 hours after the tornado swept through the Oklahoma City suburb, killing at least 24 people, injuring more than 200 and destroying hundreds of homes.

The 2013 Midwest Tornado Relief campaign, which was launched on Fundly by nonprofit Mercury One, has brought in more than $1 million from over 13,000 donors — significantly more than its original goal of $50,000. Another crowdfunding site, HopeMob, has received $41,000 from more than 300 donors.

Related: CNN’s Impact your world – How you can help

Along with setting up campaigns for general aid efforts, many friends and families of victims are also launching fundraisers on GoFundMe for specific families who lost everything in the tornado.

One fundraiser says its raising money for a couple who lost their home and are expecting a baby soon. So far, it has raised more than $7,000 — surpassing the initial goal of $5,000. And nearly $2,000 has been donated to a fundraiser claiming to help a son who lost his mother in the storm.

Crowdfunding is becoming increasingly popular in the wake of disasters. More than $1 million had already been raised for Boston victims just days after the April 15 bombings. And thousands of dollars were raised for West, Texas victims following the fertilizer plant explosion.

Related: FEMA offers aid to tornado victims

To protect against scams, sites employ different methods to vet campaign organizers like researching them on social media, assigning a coach to work one-on-one with them and verifying that the bank account provided by the organizer is actually registered under that person’s name. However, it can be difficult to confirm a fundraiser’s identity 100%.

Dave Boyce, CEO of Fundly, says that the direct impact of donating to a crowdfunding campaign is appealing to donors. “Needs are met directly — a family in need, a church in need, a neighborhood in need. There is no large, bureaucratic organization the money has to filter through,” said Boyce.

Related: 2-year-old West, Texas victim’s long road to recovery

It also gets the money in the hands of victims right away, since fundraisers can be set up within minutes, he said.

Using crowdfunding specifically for medical expenses is also a growing trend. A 2-year-old West,Texas victim, for example, has received more than $26,000 in donations so far for the medical bills that her family is racking up after the blast flung her against a wall and pummeled her with glass.

GiveForward, a crowdfunding site specifically for medical expenses, expects to see fundraisers being set up for Oklahoma in coming days, once the medical needs in the community are known.

Article source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/money_latest/~3/IbG6tiLiZYo/index.html

Wall Street analyst reports are like paper hankies: useful when needed but less than durable and easily disposed of afterward. Not so the annual “Car Wars” report by Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s John Murphy. Published each May for some two decades, it provides a glimpse into the future of the U.S. auto business. By detailing every redesigned model due over the next four years, it has become the most authoritative analysis of what’s coming to the market and how it will impact individual manufacturers. To find out more about future models, you’d need a telephoto lens and top security clearance

The latest edition, “Car Wars 2014-2017,” has just been published, and it contains some surprising conclusions:

–Big market share swings are over. Murphy sees the industry remaining remarkably stable over the next four years.

–Domestic market share erosion has slowed for the medium term. Scheduled product launches by General Motors and Ford should enable them to each gain a point of share by 2017.

–The Korean new model assault is losing steam. A slower pace of model redesigns points to a loss of share for Hyundai and Kia going forward.

Murphy’s analysis is straightforward. He’s found that the rate of product replacement and the age of models in the showroom drive market share: Faster turnover and younger product translates into more sales. So he determines the major model launches planned by each manufacturer, calculates the percentage of its total volume the launches represent, and then calculates how fast each manufacturer is turning over its product line.

MORE: 10 contenders for America’s top truck

Based on his estimates, Murphy believes that the large market share shifts that occurred over the last decade are unlikely to continue. Reason: Most manufacturers are turning over their product lines every two to three years, so they all have fresh product in their showrooms. However, he expects General Motors (GM, Fortune 500), Ford (F, Fortune 500), and Toyota (TM) to gain fractions of share from smaller competitors. The gains won’t be huge: one point of U.S. market share for GM and Ford, and eight-tenths of a point for Toyota. Korean and European brands are forecast to lose half-a-point apiece, but Nissan is the big loser, seen losing a point of share. That’s largely because redesigns of the Altima and Sentra, its two highest-volume models, fall outside the forecast period, which may not sit well with CEO Carlos Ghosn. He wants to double U.S. sales over the next few years,

The industry’s pace of new product introduction is accelerating as manufacturers rush to enter new segments like crossovers and hybrids, and try to make up for time lost to economic factors like the 2008 Lehman collapse and the 2009 bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler. The peak years for new products are 2015 and 2017 when 50 new models are due; they are the second-busiest 12-month periods in recent history.

Murphy attributes the acceleration to the demands of competition. Auto companies, he writes, can compete on cost, product superiority, or product differentiation. “For most OEMs, the first strategy has been unachievable, and it is even tougher to differentiate on cost,” he writes. “On the second strategy, there has been extreme convergence in quality as all automakers have improved to a relatively common level.” That forces automakers to compete by differentiating their products.

The hottest product segment remains crossover utility vehicles that are stealing sales from traditional small and midsize cars. Murphy figures that of the 175 new models expected over the next four years, nearly one-third will be crossovers. Detroit is going especially crossover crazy. Ford and Chrysler have five new models apiece scheduled for introduction, while GM has eight. The shift to crossovers should help lift the dependence of the former Big Three on light trucks as the market shifts to more fuel-efficient vehicles. While light trucks represent 30% of industry production overall, GM, Ford, and Chrysler depend on them for around 45% of their sales.

MORE: How VW is beating the slump in Europe

For those who like to gaze deeper into crystal balls, Murphy makes some educated guesses about some all-new nameplates. He sees two new Lincolns, the MKM coupe and MKA sedan arriving in 2017. As for Chrysler, Murphy sees a sporty coupe called the Barracuda and a small Chrysler, the 100, coming out of Auburn Hills in 2015, though he adds, “It should be noted that many products appeared to have slipped from the pipeline.” He identifies no new models bearing the Alfa Romeo or Fiat brands.

All of this new product comes at a high cost to manufacturers. They will need to leverage global platforms and simplify product offerings to remain efficient and competitive. For consumers, of course, it is a bonanza. Up-to-date products, rapid turnover, and the efficient workings of a global marketplace all work to their advantage.

Article source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/money_latest/~3/bPWM4dqEDIQ/index.html

We’ve all heard about the glass ceiling, but it looks the concrete one might be harder to crack.

According to the National Women’s Law Center, in 2010 women held a tiny percentage — 2.6 — of the U.S.’s 8.4 million construction jobs, the same percentage they held in 1983. The NWLC faults “barriers such as gender stereotypes, sexual harassment, a lack of awareness about opportunities in construction, and insufficient instruction.”

But while women may not be gaining ground in trades like carpentry and plumbing, they are increasingly getting involved on the entrepreneurial side of the industry. The U.S. Census Bureau counted 152,871 women-owned construction firms in 1997. Ten years later, that number had jumped by 76% to 268,809. Women are steadily chiseling away at that concrete ceiling. Or, as Lenore Janis, president of the National Association of Professional Women in Construction, put it, “Our fingernails are broken from scratching at it.”

For the past 15 years, the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) has compiled its Inner City 100 list, highlighting the fastest-growing urban small businesses in America. This year’s list includes 28 women-owned businesses, a double in percentage since 1999, the list’s inaugural year. While many of these businesses are taking advantage of the burgeoning “mommy market,” several are breaking into industries heavily dominated by men, including construction.

In addition to the efforts of the women themselves, Janis sees the growth as a direct result of a 35-year-old goal set by the Office for Federal Contract Compliance Programs. Since 1978, federal contractors are required to employ women for 6.9% of the total construction work hours on any federal project. (For it’s part, the NWLC says that considering the much higher rates of female participation in other typically male dominated fields like policing, butchering, and machine operation, 6.9% is still “not enough.”)

Shandra Spicer, 32, CEO of the Spicer Group (No. 57 on this year’s Inner City 100), has been running a full-service general contractor and construction management company since she was 18 years old. Coming out of bankruptcy, her father was unable to secure the capital to start a business, so he recruited his daughter to help. “Bright-eyed and bushy tailed,” as she describes herself then, she agreed.

Spicer says she expected to handle only the business end, leaving the construction to her dad, despite the fact that he had no financial ownership stake in the company. But at 23, Spicer learned that she had to take the reins and fully integrate herself into the world of construction. “I was still allowing my father to influence a lot of my decisions,” she says, until he persuaded her to submit a very low bid on a very large project. “At the time I didn’t know enough and I was trusting in my father’s opinion that we could do it even though it just didn’t sit right with me.” When the job was complete, “I ended up leaving by the skin of my teeth with nearly $300,000 in debt.”

Married with a young son and another on the way, Spicer decided it was time to take full control of the business. Over the next 10 years, she learned everything she could about construction, earning certifications, taking courses, seeking assistance through professional networks and government organizations, and eventually working with a mentor to put together a feasible business plan.

Her once-fledgling company pulled in $2.2 million in 2011, but Spicer refuses to take full credit for her accomplishments, doling out gratitude to her mother, her husband (also her employee), and her team. “I ask for help a lot, and I try to hire people that know more than and are smarter than me,” she says. And while she encounters a fair amount of sexism — and as a black woman, racism as well — she doesn’t let it slow her down. “I have to try probably 10,000 times harder than my male counterparts. I can work hard all day long, and then I can drive down the street and say to my kids in the car ‘Guess what, we built that building.’ I have something that stands for a long time, something physical and tangible.”

Genevieve Withers, 52, CEO of Pipe Wrap (No. 82 on this year’s Inner City 100), also got into the construction industry out of financial necessity. “I was looking to start a business that would be able to provide for my two children,” something she couldn’t do as a single mother on a schoolteacher’s salary. “I came across the idea of a quick fix pipe repair kit that could be used to quickly and easily stop emergency leaks.”

It took time to develop the product but, crediting her father’s zeal for experimentation as a research scientist, “instead of walking away and giving up, I just kept trying and trying and trying, until I got the leaks to stop.”

Once Withers finalized her product, she incorporated her business. Since then, the company has moved far beyond low-pressure leaks, and has moved into structural reinforcement and corrosion prevention. Most recently, Pipe Wrap was awarded a National Science Foundation grant to incorporate nanotechnological enhancements to its products.

Like Spicer, Withers credits her staffers for her company’s success. “I don’t do it alone,” she says. “I have surrounded myself with a team of men and women that are very highly qualified in their fields.” She advises other would-be construction entrepreneurs to do the same. “If you don’t know how to do it, get with somebody who does know how to do it and work together to make a better product, because nobody can do anything on their own.”

Despite the low numbers of women in construction, Withers is hopeful that more will enter the industry. “Most men will listen,” she says. “If a woman is in this industry and she has a good product and she knows she does, then there should be no reason on this green earth why she can’t succeed.”

Article source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/money_latest/~3/rNzgnKhfTKE/index.html

When you think of Texas businesses, large corporations like Exxon Mobil (XOM, Fortune 500), Dell (DELL, Fortune 500), and Texas Instruments (TXN, Fortune 500) are generally the first that come to mind. But over the past few years, from the inner cities to out-on-the-range, smaller firms have been stirring the Lone Star State economy.

As more entrepreneurs flock to the state, experts are pointing to a combination of growth-friendly conditions that have small businesses growing in, and messing with, Texas.

According to U.S. Census results for July 2011 to July 2012, Texas had the top two largest growing metro areas (Dallas and Houston) and three (Midland, Odessa, and Austin) of the top 10 fastest growing Metro areas in the country. This swell in population corresponds to a matching surge in small business friendliness, according to a recent survey by online contracting service Thumbtack.com, conducted in partnership with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Not only is Texas listed as one of the five friendliest states for small business, but Austin, Houston, and San Antonio are included among the top five cities.

Similarly, Texas’ representation in the 2013 Inner City 100, an annual ranking of the fastest growing urban businesses in the U.S., is larger this year than at any other point in the program’s 15-year history. “If you look at the 11 companies on our list from Texas, you can almost track that to the growth industries,” says Mary Kay Leonard, the president and CEO the Boston-based Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC), which annually amasses the collection of dynamically performing urban firms. “They’re a great case study about how a regional or state economy can actually be leveraged by, and for, inner city firms.”

A friendly Texan welcome

“I would say, without question, Texas is the best large state in which to do business in general, and for small businesses, in particular,” says Tom Castro. A managing director of New York-based IMB Development Corporation, Castro has owned businesses in both California and Texas over the past 25 years, and moved from Los Angeles to Houston 14 years ago, with the state’s prime business conditions –including its lack of state income tax, few land-use restrictions, and low costs — being a big reason why.

According to Castro, Texas’s nonexistent income tax is an especially valuable tool in recruiting outside talent to the state. “I would show them in black and white, if they were making $100,000 or $80,000, just by moving to Texas at the same salary, they could put 15%, sometimes 20% more in their pockets,” he says.

And as industries like biomedicine and social media pick up steam in Texas, startups can attract top talent using that benefit. “Human capital is at an all-time high in demand,” says Nina Vaca, the founder and CEO of Pinnacle Technical Resources, a Dallas-based, IT-focused staffing firm for the Fortune 500. “If you’re in IT and you’re good, you have a choice of where you can go,” says the former Inner City 100 winner.

For example, San Antonio-based InGenesis, which was ranked fourth on this year’s Inner City 100, staffs for the healthcare industry and recorded $57.5 million in revenue for 2011, the year for which the 2013 winners were studied.

Of course, large corporations certainly take advantage of this tax benefit, as have Dallas-area giants like ATT (T, Fortune 500), and Houston-based energy firms like ConocoPhillip (COP, Fortune 500)s.

Texas’ population growth has certainly aided small business success. According to the census, the state’s population swelled 3.6%, or nearly 900,000 people, from 2010 to 2012. To match this growth, home construction has kept pace through the recession and slow recovery, allowing a variety of industries to flourish. Aspenmark Roofing Solar, a Dallas-based provider of commercial and residential solar arrays, didn’t stall during the housing industry’s rough patch. Instead, the ninth listed firm on this year’s Inner City 100 brought in $6.5 million in revenue in 2011.

The growth has been fueled by domestic migration to major hubs like Dallas and Houston, as well as international migration of middle and upper-class Mexicans looking to start anew in the U.S. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, international migration accounted for 17.7% of Texas’ population boom from 2010 to 2011. In particular, the immigrant population is a valuable demographic for entrepreneurship because, according to research by the Kauffman Foundation, foreign-born citizens were nearly twice as likely as native-born people to start businesses in 2012.

Small business, big challenges

Through the years, successful Inner City 100 companies have sprung up alongside what ICIC’s Leonard calls “anchor institutions.” “Anchors are located in or near inner-cities, and make a conscious outreach to do more business with local suppliers,” she says. These large entities can range from universities to factories. One Texan example is Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center. In particular, the University of Texas treatment and research center has focused on diversifying its supply chain with local, minority-led businesses, says Leonard. “It’s good for MD Anderson’s business, and it’s also good for the small businesses.”

In urban environments, where roads and bridges are — ideally — well-maintained, it’s easier for anchors and small businesses to connect. But across the entire state, it’s not so simple. Castro points to Texas’ shale oil development at the Eagle Ford formation. Creating a massive amount of jobs and attracting billions of investment from around the world, more than any other industry, this literally fuels Texas’ economy.

“It’s not just the people who work on the oil rigs, but the truck drivers and people who work in manufacturing and logistics for all of the inputs that go into developing an oil field, pipelines, and other infrastructure to move the oil and gas out of that field to industrial facilities and processing plants,” he says. And on 2013′s Inner City 100, that translates to at least four Texas firms, including Houston-based Pipe Wrap, an oil industry repair solutions provider, and Dallas-based XTra 21 Express Trucking, which transports construction and heavy machinery.

But to support the oil industry, companies like these are putting big rigs on rural roads that were meant for lower, lighter traffic. “Because you have all this equipment being moved into these rural areas for the oil and gas drilling, they are getting 20 or 100 times as much use today as they were five to seven years ago,” says Castro. And because of the lack of revenue generated by things like income tax, roads like these are suffering. “Texas will have to invest more in infrastructure to keep up with the growth,” Castro adds.

The lax posture can cause problems that stretch beyond Texas’ roads, as evidenced by the April 17 fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas. A spotty inspection history has authorities still piecing together who or what is to blame in the tragedy, but if a lack of enforcement or regulations are ultimately to blame, it could be a heartbreaking reminder of ways that hands-off government can have a harmful impact on small businesses, communities, and families.

“The state government probably has too few people making sure that facilities, like the one that exploded, have safety standards that will protect the population,” says Castro. “It all translates into a cheaper cost of business, and at some point that catches up with you.”

Article source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/money_latest/~3/tGc01GRvVXo/index.html

As a health nut and foodie, 36-year-old Shazi Visram had a problem with processed baby food. Namely, it was gross, and people felt bad about feeding it to their kids.

But most parents are pressed for time and don’t have alternatives to mushed meals in glass jars. So, after attending business school at Columbia University in New York, Visram drafted a business plan and ultimately launched her own baby food company on Mother’s Day in 2006. She called the company Happy Baby, and it sold organic, nutrient-enhanced baby food in pouches, not glass.

Now called Happy Family, Visram’s company has grown remarkably since its birth. In 2011, it pulled in $34 million worth of revenue and nearly doubled that by 2012, earning about $60 million.

Happy Family has performed so well, in fact, that it caught the eye of France-based multinational food giant Danone. On Mother’s Day this year, Danone announced that it had agreed to purchase Happy Family for an amount that neither company would disclose.

This year, Happy Family also made the No. 1 spot on the annual Inner City 100 list, a ranking of the fastest-growing businesses in urban America.

This is far from the first time Visram has been singled out for her ingenuity. In 2011, she won an American Express competition to represent small businesses in a commercial. The exposure was extremely helpful, Visram has said, and she continued to work with American Express after the initial spot. Also in 2011, Visram won Ernst Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year for New York. And she earned a spot on Crain’s New York’s “40 Under 40″ list in 2012. Earlier this March, the World Economic Forum selected her to be a member of the Young Global Leader class of 2013.

She was trying to catch a breath of fresh air when she spoke with Fortune from her vacation in the Bahamas, without much luck. “I didn’t expect it to culminate in signing this past weekend,” she said of the Danone deal. “All of a sudden, the pressure was on, and they really wanted to put a release on the wire Monday morning, Paris time. I found myself in the hotel room when we got here and I didn’t sleep for 48 hours.”

Still, Visram says she’s pumped. “I don’t really anticipate anything that could be negative about it,” she says, and while big acquisitions can spook small companies, “they want me to continue to run the show, they love our spirit and they are not proposing any management changes.”

Though Danone sells yogurt brand Activia and Evian water in the United States, it doesn’t have a huge presence in the infant nutrition market here. Visram thinks her company can help change that. Already, Happy Family has 4% market share of the U.S. baby food industry.

So move over Gerber. When Happy Family launched, Visram says,”Gerber in the U.S. owned 80% of the market. For them, why take the time to change that up and disrupt a category that they already dominated?” Danone’s resources should help the company continue to gain market share in the U.S.

And of course, the partnership should extend the company’s global reach, especially in China. The Chinese middle class is growing, Visram said during an interview at Ernst Young’s 2011 Strategic Growth Forum: “They’re looking for American-made baby food and they’re looking for the very best for their baby. [We've] just had tremendous interest in the Chinese market, and it is a phenomenal market that can’t be overlooked.”

Lucky for her, 40% of Danone’s baby nutrition business comes from the Asia-Pacific, with China as the largest market. Danone continues to expand in the country — on May 20, it signed a new deal with China Mengniu Dairy.

If all goes as planned, the acquisition of Visram’s company should create one more even bigger happy family.

Article source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/money_latest/~3/YZpnExXMmGo/index.html

Watch out Apple and Samsung? Caterpillar launched a drop-proof, water-proof, dust-proof smartphone Monday that you actually wouldn’t be embarrassed to carry around with you.

The B15 Cat Phone isn’t the first “ruggedized” smartphone and isn’t even the first to be designed by Caterpillar (CAT, Fortune 500). But it is probably the first that you’d want to use.

Most phones meant to withstand punishment have a silly amount of heavy-duty rubber casing around them, and their functionality is an afterthought. Contractors, construction workers and other people with dirty jobs have typically been stuck with giant, ugly, and subpar phones.

The B15 is relatively thin, light, and has most of the standard smartphone features: Google’s (GOOG, Fortune 500) Android 4.1 operating system, a 4.1-inch touchscreen, a 5-megapixel camera and HD video recording. Of course, it’s not really going to compete with the specifications of the Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) iPhone 5 or the Samsung Galaxy S4, but it’s a perfectly decent phone.

If Caterpillar’s smartphone doesn’t exactly pack a punch, the B15 can certainly take one: It can withstand water up to a depth of 1 meter, for up to 30 minutes. The screen works perfectly well when it is wet, unlike most smartphones. And the silver anodized aluminum and rubber casing of the B15 protect it from drops of up to six feet.

Related story: HTC One looks good and works better

Caterpillar tried out the concept a year ago with the B10 smartphone. But that device was an inch thick and about as attractive as a front-end loader.

With the B15, Caterpillar partnered with Bullitt Group, a British company that specializes in helping brands enter new markets. Bullitt, which manufactures and markets the B15, got the casing down to a half-inch of thickness, and it’s only 0.2 inches wider and 2 ounces heavier than the iPhone 5.

“If you were to get a case to make the iPhone just as durable, our phone wouldn’t be the bigger of the two,” said Andreea Marciuc, brand director for Bullitt, at the CTIA wireless industry trade show in Las Vegas.

The B15 is available for $349 without a contract. Caterpillar hasn’t yet partnered with any carriers, but the phone is compatible with the ATT (T, Fortune 500) and T-Mobile (TMUS) networks.

The market for ruggedized devices isn’t enormous — just 21 million were sold last year, according to Caterpillar. But the company wants to own that niche, and become the top durable phone maker by 2015.

Article source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/money_latest/~3/2pm-kbih3O0/index.html

The U.K. should bring forward spending on infrastructure, such as the London Crossrail project, according to the IMF.

The U.K. should spend more on infrastructure projects this year and cut corporate taxes to shore up its fragile economic recovery, said the International Monetary Fund.

Recent evidence of an upturn in activity was encouraging but the world’s sixth-largest economy was still a long way from a “strong and sustainable recovery,” the IMF said, following a two-week consultation with U.K. officials.

The U.K. managed to avoid a triple-dip recession with stronger-than-expected growth in the first quarter.

But retail sales fell 1.3% in April, according to data released Wednesday, raising questions about whether the economy can pick up momentum while consumers remain so cautious.

Historically low capital investment, depressed per capita incomes, government spending cuts and weak export markets mean that the risks to the economy are still stacked on the downside, according to the IMF.

Related: Eurozone stuck in longest recession

“The key risk is that persistent slow growth could permanently damage medium-term growth prospects,” it said.

The IMF also said austerity measures of about £10 billion in 2013-2014 would act as a drag on growth, and the government should offset this by taking advantage of low borrowing costs to spend more on projects such as social housing and repairing schools.

“In a range of policy areas, the government should be more supportive of growth than it has been, and it plans to be,” IMF deputy managing director David Lipton told reporters. “Accelerating infrastructure spending would provide quite a significant kick to the economy.”

British finance minister George Osborne reiterated that the U.K. would stick to its medium-term debt reduction targets, but acknowledged it faced a “hard road” to recovery.

Infrastructure projects would be discussed as part of a broader review of government spending due in June, he added.

Marginal corporate tax rates could be cut to encourage investment and the government could introduce tax allowances to make it cheaper for companies to raise equity, the IMF said.

And measures to offset the budgetary impact of increased capital spending and lower taxes should only take place over the medium-term.

“In essence this would allow the (fiscal) adjustment to take place in a more back-loaded fashion and provide more support for the economy at the front end,” Lipton said.

The IMF cut its forecast for U.K. growth in 2013 by 0.3% last month, citing depressed demand, and said the government should think about taking a more flexible approach to cutting the budget deficit.

Fitch Ratings followed with a downgrade of U.K. debt to AA+ from AAA, citing the impact of weak growth on debt and deficit levels.

Article source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/money_latest/~3/ICkPb3xIHP8/index.html

The Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds are both working to increase capital levels.

Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds won’t need to tap investors or taxpayers for new funds to bolster their financial strength as they prepare to be returned to the private sector.

The Bank of England said in March that British banks would need to raise another £25 billion ($38 billion) to ensure they were ready for any potential market shocks, prompting speculation that the two bailed-out banks may be among those needing to raise fresh equity.

RBS and Lloyds issued statements Wednesday saying the central bank had accepted their existing plans to meet capital requirements. Shares in both banks gained about 1.6%.

Lloyds (LYG) said it was confident it would meet those requirements by retaining earnings and selling some assets. RBS (RBS) said it was working towards meeting the central bank’s capital rules by selling some businesses and pursuing a partial IPO of its Citizens Financial division.

The Bank of England said it was still in talks with other U.K. banks to ensure they have adequate funding to withstand potential problems.

Related: RBS looks to escape state control

The announcements came as the International Monetary Fund issued a new report about the U.K., expressing concern that bank balance sheets continue to be impaired. It said the country was “still a long way from a strong and sustainable recovery.”

The British government owns just over 80% of RBS and nearly 40% in Lloyds, roughly five years after it rescued the banks during the financial crisis at a cost of £66 billion ($100 billion).

The government is now considering how to exit its investment in RBS and Lloyds, possibly before national elections due in 2015.

The IMF said it supports efforts to put the banks back in the hands of private shareholders and hoped the government would be able to do it in a way that “maximizes the value for taxpayers,” including providing a guarantee to meet any future capital shortfall if necessary.

Early this month, RBS chairman Philip Hampton said the bank would work with the government to prepare a privatization prospectus by the middle of 2014, allowing it to extract itself from what has been a troubled relationship.

Article source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/money_latest/~3/vAcdNYvx0hk/index.html

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After touching new all-time highs earlier Wednesday, the Dow and SP 500 ended firmly in the red as investors wrestled with mixed messages from the Federal Reserve.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.5% while the SP 500 lost 0.8%. The Nasdaq sank 1.1%.

All three indexes had rallied earlier as investors welcomed comments from Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, who told lawmakers that withdrawing monetary stimulus prematurely could derail the economic recovery.

But the momentum faded after the Fed released minutes from its latest policy meeting.

According to the minutes, some members of the monetary policy committee were willing to dial down the Fed’s bond-buying program as soon as June if the economic recovery becomes sustainable.

While a few members were concerned about investors’ expectations for the overall size of the program, the committee voted to continue buying $85 billion worth of long-term Treasuries and other assets every month.

“There seems to be a bit more dissent at the Fed, or at least that’s how people are reading the minutes,” said Joseph Saluzzi, co-head of equity trading at Themis Trading.

The Fed’s stimulus policies have been a big driver of the bull market in stocks over the past few years. But investors have been rattled by what appears to be a split within the Fed’s monetary policy committee over the size of the asset purchases.

The minutes suggest the Fed will begin to curb its bond-buying activities sometime in the second half of the year, according to Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics. He said the Fed will probably wait until September to make the change since that will give Congress time to sort out the nation’s budget and raise the debt ceiling.

Related: Fear Greed Index still at extreme greed

Housing still strong. The National Association of Realtors said existing home sales edged up 0.6% in April, matching economists’ expectations.

Lowe’s (LOW, Fortune 500) reported an increase in quarterly sales and profit, but the home improvement retailer missed estimates. Still, the stock was up on the news.

The results came one day after rival home improvement retailer Home Depot (HD, Fortune 500) reported stronger-than-expected quarterly results.

Meanwhile, Toll Brothers (TOL) reported strong results thanks to accelerating demand for houses and higher home prices.

Click for data on commodities, currencies and bond prices

Other retailers miss the mark. Shares of Target (TGT, Fortune 500)fell after the retail chain reported a worse-than-expected decline in earnings.

Staples (SPLS, Fortune 500) reported a decline in quarterly sales because of store closings. The office supplier also reported a drop in profit. But shares were higher.

Shares of Saks (SKS) rallied 13% following a strong sales report and a New York Post story saying the luxury retailer may be looking for a buyer.

Carnival (CCL) dropped one day after the cruise ship operator took a beating following its dour sales outlook for the year.

Shares of GE (GE, Fortune 500) edged slightly higher after CEO Jeffrey Immelt said that the company would consider spinning off certain non-core assets within its financing arm GE Capital.

After the market closed, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ, Fortune 500) said earnings and sales fell in the company’s fiscal second quarter. Despite the declines, HP’s profits were better than expected. Shares surged after hours on the news.

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European markets closed higher, while Asian markets ended mixed. Tokyo’s Nikkei rallied by 1.6% after Japan’s central bank pledged to maintain its ambitious quantitative easing program, saying that economic conditions in the country are improving.

Sony (SNE) shares spiked to their highest level in two years on reports that the company would consider a proposal to spin off its movie and music division.

CNNMoney’s Maureen Farrell contributed to this story.

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Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warns of risks of raising interest rates too soon, reiterates that Congress needs to do more to help economy.

The U.S. economy is on stronger footing than a year ago, but Ben Bernanke wants to be careful not to squelch the recovery now.

“A premature tightening of monetary policy could lead interest rates to rise temporarily, but would also carry a substantial risk of slowing or ending the economic recovery and causing inflation to fall further,” the Federal Reserve Chairman told the U.S. congressional Joint Economic Committee on Wednesday.

The Federal Reserve has kept its key short-term interest rate near zero since December 2008, and expects it to stay there for a “considerable time” as the recovery strengthens, Bernanke said.

The central bank is also engaged in a controversial stimulus policy known as quantitative easing, in which it buys $85 billion a month in mortgage-backed securities and Treasury bonds. The policy is intended to reduce long-term interest rates, and thereby stimulate the economy through various channels.

Low mortgage rates, for instance, have played a key role in the housing recovery, allowing some homeowners to refinance and giving buyers an incentive to purchase a home, Bernanke said.

The housing recovery has also boosted construction and real estate jobs, he noted. Since 2011, those two industries have added about 416,000 jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

It’s unclear, though, how effective the policy has been in healing the job market overall. The economy lost 8.7 million jobs in the aftermath of the financial crisis, and has since gained only about 6.2 million jobs back.

As of April, the unemployment rate was 7.5% — an improvement from its high of 10% during the financial crisis, but still well above its pre-recession level. Just six years ago, the unemployment rate was at 4.5%.

Bernanke cited his concerns about not just unemployment, but also underemployment. About 8 million people are working part-time even though they would prefer full-time work.

“High rates of unemployment and underemployment are extraordinarily costly,” Bernanke said.

Meanwhile, quantitative easing is credited for stoking stocks to record highs. Some critics, including hawkish members of the Fed, also blame it for fueling bubbles in other assets, including junk bonds and farmland.

Related: Fed’s Dudley says new plan needed to end stimulus

Bernanke reiterated Wednesday that the Fed is closely watching for indications of financial instability, including signs that low interest rates may spur investors to “reach for yield” and turn to riskier assets.

The Fed is aiming to keep short-term interest rates near zero until the unemployment rate falls to 6.5% or inflation exceeds 2.5% a year. By the Fed’s own forecasts, that scenario is not likely to happen until at least 2015.

The Fed expects to wind down quantitative easing before then, but the timing is not yet clear. Fed watchers have recently been parsing every word out of officials’ mouths for hints. Bernanke offered few clues in his testimony Wednesday, but Fed minutes released later in the afternoon mentioned that some members would like to start tapering QE as soon as next month.

“A number of participants expressed willingness to adjust the flow of purchases downward as early as the June meeting,” the minutes from the April 30-May 1 meeting said.

The minutes also showed that central bank officials are re-evaluating their strategy to eventually wind down the entire stimulus program, just as Bernanke and New York Fed President William Dudley have suggested. That time still appears to “be well into the future,” the minutes said.

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