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Monday May 18, 2015

// May 18th, 2015 // Comments Off on Monday May 18, 2015 // Daily News

Strong dollar may knock $40B off dividends: Report
Jenny Cosgrave | @jenny_cosgrave

CNBC.com

The U.S. dollar’s recently-halted bull-run has weighed heavily on company dividends across the world this year, with full-year expectations for payments dramatically cut by Henderson Global Investors on Monday.
At its peak in March, the dollar was up 11 percent against a basket of currency year-to-date. However, it has since declined, partly as a result of gains to the euro, and is now up around 3 percent on the year.
As a result of the volatility, Henderson forecasts that dividends will decline by 3 percent this year, having previously expected growth of 0.8 percent. The revision would take total dividend payments around the world to $1.134 trillion, some $42 billion less than forecast by the firm in January.
“The effect of the strong dollar is set to be even greater in the second quarter when Europe and Japan pay a large share of their annual dividends. In fact, if the current exchange rates persist, the impact could be as much as $40 billion,” said head of global equity income at Henderson, Alex Crooke.
“In any given period, exchange rates can have a very large effect on dividend payments, but our research shows that over time they even out almost entirely, so investors can largely disregard them if they take a longer-term approach,” he added.
Global dividends fell more than 6 percent to $218 billion in the first quarter of 2015 compared with the same time last year, marking the second consecutive quarterly fall, according to Henderson.
However, underlying growth, which strips out special dividends and the impact of exchange rates, is still expected to come in at 7.5 percent for 2015, slightly stronger than the 6.9 percent originally forecast.
The euro has rallied against the dollar since mid-April, as investors speculate on the length of the European Central Bank’s bond-buying program.
Weaker than expected U.S. data last week has also weighed on the dollar, pushing it to fall against a basket of currencies for a fifth consecutive week—its longest stretch of declines in four years according to Reuters.
However, longer-term, many investors are still banking on the dollar to return to strength from current levels of around $1.14 against the euro. Indeed, some analysts still forecast euro-dollar parity, or a one-to-one exchange rate.
Henderson said strong growth in the U.S. made a “disproportionate contribution” to dividends, with payouts reaching an all-time record of $99 billion in the first quarter of 2015, owing to the large share of dividends the U.S. tends to pay at the start of the year.
Dividends in the U.K. tumbled a huge 60 percent to $19 billion, after a $26 billion special payment from Vodafone went unrepeated. This was the single largest factor affecting the growth rate, Henderson said.

Today’s Inspiration

Pursue and Seek Love

by Joyce Meyer – posted May 18, 2015

Eagerly pursue and seek to acquire [this] love [make it your aim, your great quest]. 1 Corinthians 14:1

Developing a love walk like the one displayed in the life of Jesus is like digging for gold. True Christ-like love is not found on the surface of life. It cannot just be seen and picked up. The Bible says you must eagerly pursue and seek it. This means you must go after love with all your might, as if you cannot live without it.

You must learn all you can about love and familiarize yourself with everything Jesus and the apostles said about it. However, not only are you to learn about love, you are also to seek, pursue, and acquire it.

Tonight, ask God to help you seek and acquire His kind of love—the love that can make a meaningful difference in your life . . . and in the lives of those around you.

Friday May 15, 2015

// May 14th, 2015 // Comments Off on Friday May 15, 2015 // Daily News

5 banks expected to plead guilty to felony charges

Ben Protess and Michael Corkery

The New York Times

For most people, pleading guilty to a felony means they will very likely land in prison, lose their job and forfeit their right to vote.
But when five of the world’s biggest banks plead guilty to an array of antitrust and fraud charges as soon as next week, life will go on, probably without much of a hiccup.
The Justice Department is preparing to announce that Barclays, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and the Royal Bank of Scotland will collectively pay several billion dollars and plead guilty to criminal antitrust violations for rigging the price of foreign currencies, according to people briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Most if not all of the pleas are expected to come from the banks’ holding companies, the people said — a first for Wall Street giants that until now have had only subsidiaries or their biggest banking units plead guilty.
The Justice Department is also preparing to resolve accusations of foreign currency misconduct at UBS. As part of that deal, prosecutors are taking the rare step of tearing up a 2012 nonprosecution agreement with the bank over the manipulation of benchmark interest rates, the people said, citing the bank’s foreign currency misconduct as a violation of the earlier agreement. UBS A.G., the banking unit that signed the 2012 nonprosecution agreement, is expected to plead guilty to the earlier charges and pay a fine that could be high as $500 million rather than go to trial, the people said.
The guilty pleas, scarlet letters affixed to banks of this size and significance, represent another prosecutorial milestone in a broader effort to crack down on financial misdeeds. Yet as much as prosecutors want to punish banks for misdeeds, they are also mindful that too harsh a penalty could imperil banks that are at the heart of the global economy, a balancing act that could produce pleas that are more symbolic than sweeping.
Holding companies, while appearing to be the most important entities at the banks, are in less jeopardy of suffering the consequences of guilty pleas. Some banks worried that a guilty plea by their biggest banking units, which hold licenses that enable them to operate branches and make loans, would be riskier, two of the people briefed on the matter said. The fear, they said, centered on whether state or federal regulators might revoke those licenses in response to the pleas.
Behind the scenes in Washington, the banks’ lawyers are also seeking assurances from federal regulators — including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Labor Department — that the banks will not be barred from certain business practices after the guilty pleas, the people said. While the S.E.C.’s five commissioners have not yet voted on the requests for waivers, which would allow the banks to conduct business as usual despite being felons, the people briefed on the matter expected a majority of commissioners to grant them.

Today’s Inspiration

Loving God with Your Words

by Joyce Meyer – posted May 14, 2015

I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. Psalm 34:1 NKJV

It is good to have love for God in your heart, but even better to express it with the words of your mouth. Tell God several times each day that you love Him; say with the psalmist David: I love You fervently and devotedly, O Lord my Strength (Ps. 18:1). it isn’t good enough to merely think, God knows how I feel. Are you blessed when people tell you they love and appreciate you? Of course you are, and it blesses God when we verbalize our love and praise for Him. Verbal expressions of love and gratitude improve all our relationships, including our rela¬tionship with God.

Don’t offer your petitions to God without telling Him how grateful you are for what He has already done for you. As parents we are more likely to answer the request of a thankful child than we are a grouchy and ungrateful one. As an employer I want to do even more for employ¬ees who are appreciative. Offering our continual gratitude to God for His goodness and mercy in our lives moves Him to want to do even more for us. Our gratitude shows God that we are mature enough to handle even more blessing and responsibility.

Women often say, ” I know my husband loves me, but I wish he would tell me more often.” Let’s try to be more diligent in telling God and the people in our lives that we love and appreciate them and what they mean to us.

Love God Today: It is impossible to love God with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, and not hear it come out of your mouth.