NEW YORK – U.S. stock futures crept higher Monday as investors returning from a long holiday weekend were heartened by good news on retail sales.

Overseas markets were also higher. The dollar weakened against other currencies, giving commodities prices a boost. Bond prices fell.

Data released Monday showed shoppers opened their wallets more this season, a good sign that consumers are feeling better about the economy.

Figures from MasterCard Advisors' SpendingPulse, which track all forms of payment, show retail sales rose 3.6 percent from Nov. 1 through Dec. 24, compared with a 2.3 percent drop a year ago. Adjusting for an extra shopping day between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the number was closer to a 1 percent gain.

Consumer spending is one of the biggest drivers of economic growth and is vital to a sustained recovery.

Stocks are currently at their highest levels of the year, and in the absence of any bad news, analysts say the market is likely to drift higher during the final days of 2009. Trading volume has been extremely light due to the holidays, which can exaggerate price swings. Markets were closed on Friday for Christmas and will be closed again this Friday for New Year's Day.

Ahead of the market's open, Dow Jones industrial average futures rose 5, or 0.1 percent, to 10,471. Standard & Poor's 500 index futures gained 1.50, or 0.1 percent, to 1,123.50, and Nasdaq 100 index futures rose 5.75, or 0.3 percent, to 1,873.75.

Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock average rose 1 loans until payday.3 percent to its highest close since late August, boosted by encouraging news on factory production. In late morning trading, both Germany's DAX index and France's CAC-40 rose 0.7 percent. Britain's FTSE 100 was closed for a holiday.

Bond prices fell. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, rose to 3.85 percent from 3.80 percent Thursday.

Commodities prices rose as the dollar fell. The ICE Futures U.S. dollar index, which measures the dollar against other major currencies, slipped 0.1 percent. Oil prices gained 40 cents to $78.45 a barrel in electronic premarket trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold prices also rose.

Major stock indexes ended a holiday-shortened session Thursday at new highs for the year following upbeat reports on unemployment and durable goods orders. This week, readings on home prices and consumer confidence are among the few economic reports expected.

Stocks have managed to push higher this month despite lingering concerns about the economic recovery. But the gains have been more subdued than in recent months as investors have held back on taking risks heading into the end of the year. The Standard & Poor's 500 index is up 66.5 percent since hitting 12-year lows in March.

Gains overseas, retail sales data boost futures

When Telenor decided to upgrade its mobile phone network in Norway, the job drew bids from the companies that had built its original grid: Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks.

Instead, Telenor this month chose Huawei Technologies, a Chinese equipment maker, to build its ultrafast network based on a technology called LTE, or Long Term Evolution.

Grabbing the contract in the heart of Scandinavia was the latest coup for Huawei, the rising star of the mobile equipment industry, whose low-cost, multipurpose networks have catapulted it to No. 2 in the world, behind Ericsson.

&S220;Huawei has established itself as a serious competitor,&S221; said Morten Karlsen Sorby, the head of global business development at Telenor. &S220;They have been able in a very short period of time to build the necessary competence and innovation.&S221;

But as Huawei&S217;s influence grows &S212; it leapfrogged Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens in quarterly sales this year, according to Dell&S217;Oro, a research firm in Redwood City, California &S212; the private company founded in 1988 by Ren Zhengfei, a former officer of the People&S217;s Liberation Army, has fought the perception that it has ties to China&S217;s government and military.

A 2007 report by the RAND Corp., a policy research institute, for the U.S. Air Force said Huawei &S220;maintains deep ties with the Chinese military, which serves a multifaceted role as an important customer, as well as Huawei&S217;s political patron and research development partner.&S221;

Security concerns motivated the Committee on Foreign Investment, a U.S. government panel, to reject Huawei&S217;s joint $2.2 billion bid with Bain Capital in 2008 for 3Com, a U.S. communications equipment maker that produces anti-hacking software for the U.S. military.

Huawei&S217;s private ownership &S212; which it has never disclosed in detail &S212; has brought it scrutiny in India and Australia this year as it has bid on contracts.

Edward Zhou, the Huawei marketing director for Europe, dismissed questions surrounding the company&S217;s ownership structure as &S220;market speculation,&S221; saying Huawei was owned by its 80,000 employees and had no links to Chinese officialdom.

&S220;No government or government-linked organizations have any ownership stake,&S221; Mr. Zhou said during an interview. &S220;Huawei has no connection to the Chinese military, and none of our directors hold, or has held, any positions with, or serves or has served as a consultant or advisor to, any Chinese government or agency.&S221;

A senior executive for one of Huawei&S217;s main rivals, who did not want to be identified because he was not authorized to speak for the company, said he did not know of any government ties the company might have but that that did not mean they did not exist.

&S220;They are very aggressive as a vendor,&S221; he said. &S220;But there is a definite lack of transparency, which makes it very tricky for us.&S221;

Questions surrounding its ownership have not prevented Huawei from supplying 36 of the world&S217;s top 50 mobile operators, including Telus in Canada and Cox Communications, Leap and Clearwire, a WiMax operator majority owned by Sprint Nextel, in the United States.

All were attracted to innovative Huawei products like its SingleRAN, a multipurpose wireless network that transmits in second- and third-generation, as well as LTE, signals, saving operators the expense of separate, parallel grids. In-Stat, a research firm in Scottsdale, Arizona, says Huawei was the first company to produce an LTE base station, the fastest in the industry, on a large scale.

&S220;In whatever sector they are competing in, Huawei is a major player,&S221; said Jeff Heynen, an analyst at Infonetics in Raleigh, North Carolina fast cash online. &S220;They are now among the top three in almost every market. The future for them continues to look bright.&S221;

Supplying gear to China&S217;s three big operators &S212; China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom &S212; helped Huawei almost double its share of the $38 billion global mobile equipment market to 20.1 percent in the third quarter from 11 percent a year earlier, according to Dell&S217;Oro. Huawei moved past Nokia Siemens, at 19.5 percent, and trails Ericsson, which has 32 percent.

ZTE, China&S217;s second-largest maker of networking equipment, is also growing rapidly as Chinese operators roll out mainland China&S217;s first 3G networks this year. Sales at ZTE, which is publicly traded, rose 43 percent, to $2.2 billion, in the third quarter as its profit rose 59 percent, to $60 million.

Huawei is based in Shenzhen, like ZTE, in mainland China near Hong Kong. It has grown beyond China&S217;s borders, with foreign orders accounting for 75 percent of its $18.3 billion in 2008 sales, up 43 percent from a year earlier. Huawei&S217;s profit rose to $1.2 billion from $957 million in 2007.

In Europe, where it has been selling equipment since 2000, Huawei supplies all of the Continent&S217;s major operators, including Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, France T&>33;l&>33;com and Telef&>43;nica. European sales are about $3 billion, Mr. Zhou said.

Scott Siegler, an analyst at Dell&S217;Oro, said inexpensive Chinese labor and Huawei&S217;s private ownership, which spares the company from having to pay regular dividends, let it underbid rivals by 40 percent to 50 percent on average.

That has roiled the industry, Mr. Siegler said. As Huawei&S217;s sales soared in 2008, Ericsson&S217;s rose 11 percent, while Nokia Siemens&S217; dipped 0.7 percent. The two companies said they would cut thousands of jobs this year.

&S220;Huawei is crushing the market,&S221; Mr. Siegler said. &S220;They continue to win market share and are forcing others to compete on their terms.&S221;

Rather than underbidding, Mr. Zhou said it was Huawei&S217;s unique products, like the SingleRAN, short for single radio access network, that were winning contracts. The SingleRAN lets mobile operators cut operating costs, which account for 80 percent of expenses over the lifetime of a network.

&S220;From a cost perspective, we are not the lowest bidder in many projects,&S221; Mr. Zhou said. &S220;But our focus has been on lowering the total cost of ownership for the network as a whole.&S221;

In Moldova, a former Soviet republic between Romania and Ukraine, France T&>33;l&>33;com chose Huawei last year to build a new 3G network, the first in Europe that can transmit voice calls in high-definition audio. Luidmila Climoc, the Orange Moldova chief executive, said Huawei made the best offer to Orange, France T&>33;l&>33;com&S217;s mobile unit.

&S220;Their network was easier to roll out, and it was already HD voice-ready,&S221; Ms. Climoc said. &S220;With Huawei, it was much easier to implement this feature. Everything was already in place.&S221;

Mr. Sorby, the Telenor business development chief, said his company had examined Huawei&S217;s private ownership but deemed it was not a factor in its deal. The Norwegian contract will place Huawei on track to bid on a multibillion-dollar overhaul of Telenor&S217;s networks in eastern Europe, Russia and central Asia.

&S220;Their technology is innovative, and their bid provided the lowest cost of ownership for us,&S221; Mr. Sorby said. &S220;And in our business, the lowest cost of ownership is key.&S221;

Newcomer From China Roils Mobile Network Field

WASHINGTON &<51; The Transportation Department imposed its first penalties for runway delays Tuesday, collecting $175,000 from three airlines for leaving 47 passengers of a regional jet stranded overnight in Rochester, Minn.

The agency said that Continental Airlines and its regional affiliate, ExpressJet Airlines, operating as Continental Express, had deceived passengers by promising, through a &S220;Customer First&S221; statement on Continental&S217;s Web site, to let passengers off planes within three hours when faced with an extended delay on the runway.

The two airlines argued that the promise was not enforceable by the government, but they agreed to pay $50,000 each in civil penalties.

A third airline, Mesaba, agreed to pay $75,000 because its employee told the Continental Express captain &<51; wrongly &<51; that the passengers could not be allowed into the terminal because the Transportation Security Administration was not present.

The Transportation Department said that Mesaba had shown &S220;indifference to the passengers&S221; that amounted to an unfair and deceptive practice. Mesaba also said it had not violated any law but agreed to pay the fine.

The flight, on Aug. 8, was supposed to go from Houston to Minneapolis but was diverted to Rochester because of bad weather. Continental Express does not serve Minneapolis, but asked Mesaba for help so the passengers could have access to the restrooms and vending machines.

A Mesaba ground agent, however, said the Transportation Security Administration forbade passengers from being in the terminal while it was closed. Later, however, the agency said that the passengers could have gotten off and reboarded if they stayed in the area inside the checkpoints, and that it had the ability to recall screeners in the middle of the night if necessary low fee pay day loans.

Instead, the passengers were kept on the plane from half past midnight until 6 in the morning, despite repeated efforts by the crew.

The secretary of transportation, Ray LaHood, said in a statement, &S220;I hope this sends a signal to the rest of the airline industry that we expect airlines to respect the rights of air travelers.

&S220;We will also use what we have learned form this investigation to strengthen protections for airline passengers subjected to long tarmac delays,&S221; Mr. LaHood said.

The department proposed a rule a year ago to require airlines to have a contingency plan for lengthy airport delays, and incorporate the plan into their contracts of carriage, which would make it easier for passengers to sue if the plans were violated. The department said that a final rule was expected by the end of the year.

The House of Representatives passed a passenger-rights bill earlier this year but it does not address runway delays, according to Kate Hanni, executive director of flyersrights.org, a consumer advocacy group. A Senate version, which does set limits on delays, is in the Commerce Committee and may reach the Senate floor early next year, she said.

&S220;I think it&S217;s awesome that the Department of Transportation has set down some punitive damages,&S221; Ms. Hanni said.

Airlines Pay For Stranding Passengers

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Berkshire Hathaway, the insurance-focused conglomerate owned by Warren Buffett, increased its stakes in Wal-Mart Stores and Wells Fargo during the third quarter, according to a regulatory filing Monday.

Berkshire took new stakes in Exxon Mobil , Nestle SA , Republic Services and Travelers Cos. during the period, the filing showed.

Berkshire sold shares of Eaton Corp. , Wabco Holdings , NRG Energy , Moody's Corp. and ConocoPhillips in the quarter, the filing also showed.

Buffett has generated strong returns over several decades, so changes in Berkshire's investment portfolios are closely watched. Monday's filing shows Berkshire holdings as of Sept. 30. It's likely that some of the company's investments have changed since then.

Berkshire's stake in Wal-Mart stood at 37,836,642 shares worth roughly $1.9 billion at the end of September, according to the filing payday loans online. That compares to 19,944,300 shares worth less than $1 billion at the end of June.

Berkshire increased its stake in Wells Fargo by more than 10 million shares during the third quarter, according to the filings.

Berkshire held 1,276,290 shares of Exxon Mobil at the end of September. Three months earlier the company held no shares of the oil company, according to the filings.

Berkshire held 3.4 million American depository receipts of Swiss food giant Nestle worth more than $144 million at the end of September.

The company's new stake in Republic Services was worth almost $100 million on Sept. 30, while its Travelers stake was worth roughly $1.3 million.

Berkshire raised Wal-Mart, Wells Fargo stakes

&S220;Severe mental health problems are likely to surge, in the U.S. and elsewhere, unless Congress exerts dramatic leadership to help slow climate change &S212; and soon,&S221; began an e-mail message that found its way into my in-box last week.

It came from a group called Psychologists for Social Responsibility.

(I get a lot of e-mail messages.)

&S220;Many Americans are already anxious about what climate change portends,&S221; the group wrote in a letter it had apparently sent to Congress. &S220;The greater risk is that millions of people will develop severe and persistent anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, aggression, and other troubled behavior if the U.S. does not quickly lead the way to dramatically reduce carbon emissions.&S221;

I tread lightly here, as I would not want to belittle the ravages of depression and anxiety, but the question did occur to me: What possible impact could it have on the debate over climate change and what to do about it?

My suspicion: none &S212; or at least no more or less an impact than, say, studies that show women are likely to fare worse in a changing climate than men. Or a 2006 study that examined &S220;the impact of climate change on golf participation in the Greater Toronto Area.&S221; Or even a study earlier this year out of the Czech Republic, which found a reduction, as a result of warming trends, of the compound in Saaz hops responsible for the signature taste of a fine pilsner beer.

&S220;If the sinking Maldives aren&S217;t enough to galvanize action on climate change,&S221; wrote New Scientist magazine in an account of the hops study, &S220;could losing a classic beer do it?&S221;

Even as a lover of a good pilsner, I would guess the answer is no. And as for the Maldives, one might reasonably question whether the country&S217;s &S220;underwater cabinet meeting&S221; last month &S212; a stunt designed to highlight the plight of coastal and island nations threatened by rising seas &S212; changed any minds either.

&S220;Our capacity to respond quickly when our survival is at stake is often limited to the kinds of threats our ancestors survived: snakes, fires, attacks by other humans, and other tangible dangers in the here and now,&S221; writes Al Gore, the former U.S. vice president, in his latest book, &S220;Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis.&S221;

&S220;Global warming does not trigger those kinds of automatic responses.&S221;

Obviously, human beings &S212; individually and collectively &S212; have the capacity for the disciplined pursuit of more faraway goals, but Mr. Gore suggests that both information overload and the way the market values consumption and growth over conservation and economic health retard our collective ability to respond rationally to the threat of climate change.

Of course, at the macro level, businesses scrambling to block climate legislation or treaties that, as they see it, will threaten to reduce their profits and hinder their growth would seem to be acting quite rationally.

The same logic extends to nations like India and China, which have argued &S212; rather reasonably &S212; that their adolescent economies do not have the ability to compete when bound by emissions reductions. The United States, also quite reasonably, is loath to commit to binding emissions reductions of its own until nascent market competitors like India and China do the same business card.

And while it might be true, at the individual level, that ordinary citizens have difficulty appreciating the impacts of rampant consumption when, as Mr. Gore writes, &S220;virtually every Pavlovian trigger discovered in the human brain is now pulled by advertisers,&S221; it seems unlikely that most people are closeted climate crusaders in want of the right message.

The real secret &S212; no secret at all, really &S212; is on page 320 of Mr. Gore&S217;s book: &S220;The easiest, most obvious, and most efficient way to employ the power of the market in solving the climate crisis is to put a price on carbon.&S221;

Getting that done in the face of powerful opposing forces &S212; from consumers who will always want their fuel, electricity, food and clothing to be cheaper than it is, to corporations driven by the bottom line &S212; will ultimately be a matter of sheer political will.

Few world leaders are unfamiliar by now with the basic mathematics of climate change, and while some may reasonably quibble over how bad things really are, or how bad they might get and how soon, it is difficult to believe that any large number of them still wonder if human beings are contributing to a hotter, more resource-scarce planet.

On Sunday, President Barack Obama and other world leaders decided to put off the difficult task of reaching a climate change agreement at a global climate conference scheduled for next month, agreeing instead to make it the mission of the Copenhagen conference to reach a less specific &S220;politically binding&S221; agreement that would punt the most difficult issues into the future.

This comes after news late last week that Brazil, a top emitter, aimed to cut emissions by as much as 39 percent over expected 2020 levels &S212; a development that suggested the stakes for all nations had been raised.

Spurred in part by Brazil&S217;s &S220;voluntary&S221; commitment, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he was undertaking a drive to persuade other countries to come up with &S220;ambitious proposals&S221; of their own.

Perhaps he would be helped in his mission by &S220;Cats Against Climate Change.&S221;

Google that phrase and you will come across a video of an oddly chattering tabby interpreted by subtitles.

&S220;Someone left this camera on,&S221; the cat informs us, looking cautiously around the room, and then plaintively at his audience. &S220;I don&S217;t have much time, so I&S217;ll be brief.&S221;

The conceit is unnecessarily complicated, but we learn that this cat is delivering a message for another cat, Felix.

In any event, our cat tells us that Felix has concerns about the &S220;funny weather,&S221; which he attributes to &S220;the cars.&S221;

This funny weather, Felix says, heralds a wretched future of rain and puddles. &S220;He thinks the humans know,&S221; the tabby tells us, &S220;but are too lazy to deal with it.&S221;

Green Inc. Column: Sheer Political Will Is Needed for Climate Fix

(Reuters) – U.S. shares were expected to fall on Thursday, after ending only marginally higher in the previous session, following the Federal Reserve&&9;s statement that it was keeping rates close to zero for an "extended period."

At 4:23 a.m. EST futures for the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq were down between 0.2 and 0.9 percent.

The FTSEurofirst 300 (.FTEU3) index of leading European shares was down 1.1 percent at 973.93 points, ahead of rate decisions due from the European Central Bank and the Bank of England.

Initial weekly jobless claims, due at 1330 GMT, are set to fall to 523,000, from 530,000 in the previous week, according to a Reuters poll.

Retail chains are expected to post positive same-store sales results for October, but investors hoping for a clear signal on an economic recovery could be disappointed. Sales are expected to have risen 1.2 percent overall, according to Thomson Reuters data. That compares with a 4.1 percent fall in October 2008, just weeks into the global financial markets collapse.

Data on wholesale inventories is also due.

Food maker Sara Lee (SLE.N) is expected to report a rise in earnings, while media giant CBS (CBS.N) may report a decline.

Dr Pepper Snapple Group (DPS.N) is among other companies reporting.

The Senate vote unanimously on Wednesday to extend aid for jobless workers and broaden tax breaks for homebuyers and businesses in a bid to breathe life into the struggling U guaranteed payday loan.S. economy.

After the closing bell Cisco Systems Inc (CSCO.O) gained 3.1 percent after the network equipment vendor said quarterly revenue rose more than expected from the previous quarter. The company also said its board authorized up to &&6;10 billion in additional stock buybacks.

After reporting results, shares in News Corp (NWSA.O) and Qualcomm (QCOM.O) rose in after-hours trading, while those in Whole Foods Market (WFMI.O) and Murphy Oil (MUR.N) fell.

U.S. stocks rallied but lost steam on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve said it would keep rates near zero for "an extended period" even as it expressed confidence in the economic recovery. The market was unable to hold gains as it succumbed to selling pressure in the last half-hour of trading.

The Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) gained 0.3 percent, after rising as much as 1.6 percent. The Standard & Poor&&9;s 500 Index (.SPX) edged up 0.1 percent.

(Reporting by Brian Gorman; Editing by Greg Mahlich)

Stock futures point to lower open for Wall Street shares

NEW YORK &S212; News last week of the first major influx of Chinese capital and wind turbine manufacturing expertise into the renewable energy market in the United States &S212; a 600-megawatt wind farm planned for the plains of west Texas &S212; had many readers of the Green Inc. blog in a state of agitation.

&S220;I don&S217;t understand why China is exporting wind energy to the U.S.,&S221; wrote Mark from New York City. &S220;Isn&S217;t this exactly the kind of project a United States company could and should be doing?&S221;

Another reader &S212; Drew from Boston &S212; was more blunt: &S220;Again, China is playing the West for a sucker,&S221; he wrote. &S220;We send them our engineering, they get the manufacturing work and experience.&S221;

The details of the deal known so far: Contingent on financing from Chinese commercial banks &S212; and no small measure of funding from the U.S. economic stimulus package &S212; A-Power Energy Generation Systems, a Nasdaq-listed company based in the Chinese industrial city of Shenyang, would provide 240 of its 2.5-megawatt wind turbines for a 36,000-acre, or 14,600-hectare, utility-scale wind farm in west Texas to be operated by Cielo Wind Power, a developer based in Austin.

The total cost of the project, which was brokered in part by the U.S. Renewable Energy Group, an American private equity company, was estimated at $1.5 billion. At an event after the announcement in Washington on Thursday, Cappy McGarr, a managing partner at the company, was beaming.

&S220;This planned $1.5 billion investment in wind energy will spur tremendous growth in the renewable energy sector,&S221; Mr. McGarr was quoted in a news release as saying, &S220;and directly create hundreds of high-paying American jobs.&S221;

The devil, though &S212; as many observers pointed out by the end of the week &S212; is in the details.

The group&S217;s calculations last week put the number of American jobs at a little more than 300 &S212; most of them temporary construction jobs, along with about 30 permanent positions once the wind farm is operating. Mr. McGarr told The Wall Street Journal that more than 2,000 Chinese jobs would be created by the deal.

That, along with the fact that the project was hoping to secure 30 percent, or $450 million, of its financing from U.S. stimulus funds, was enough to send tempers flaring.

&S220;Why are U.S. stimulus funds being used to subsidize manufacturing jobs in China,&S221; wrote a reader at Green Inc., who pointed out that American officials had repeatedly warned that the United States could lose its competitive edge on renewable energy manufacturing to China.

And yet, he continued, &S220;the federal government gives stimulus monies to subsidize a project buying turbines made in China. Why?&S221;

Part of the agitation almost certainly arises from China&S217;s own reputation for green protectionism.

As Keith Bradsher wrote earlier this year in The New York Times, by establishing prohibitive quotas for homegrown solar and wind turbine equipment, and disqualifying bids from foreign companies on dubious grounds, the Chinese leadership has muscled out American and European manufacturers of clean energy seeking to gain a foothold in China&S217;s burgeoning market for renewables fast payday loan no faxing.

As it happens, American officials made inroads in combating such trade barriers during a meeting of the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade in Hangzhou, China, last week. Among the outcomes of the meeting: China agreed to remove local-content requirements on wind turbines.

Still, with the American economy struggling to get back on its feet and with an analysis last week from The Associated Press suggesting that the White House may be guilty of overstating the number of American jobs its $787 billion stimulus package has so far created, news that a Texas wind farm would create thousands of green jobs in China was, for some, a bitter pill.

&S220;Thank you for killing the U.S. windmill industry,&S221; wrote a reader from Chicago at Green Inc. &S220;Thank-you, U.S. industrialists and financiers, for having us buy these things with financing and grants emanating from money borrowed from China.&S221;

The deal, however, was no surprise to Russ Choma, a reporter with the Investigative Reporting Workshop, a nonprofit investigative journalism project attached to the American University School of Communication in Washington.

In a somewhat intriguing coincidence of timing, Mr. Choma and his colleagues published, on the same day the Chinese-American wind farm deal was unveiled, a detailed analysis of where stimulus money aimed at creating renewable energy projects and jobs in the United States was flowing.

By Mr. Choma&S217;s reckoning, 84 percent of the $1.05 billion in clean-energy grants distributed by the government since Sept. 1 has gone to foreign renewable energy companies &S212; specifically, wind companies. Through its American subsidiary, Iberdrola, a global manufacturer of wind turbines based in Spain, commanded most of that funding: $545 million.

&S220;We broke down some of the numbers and found out that the program funded 11 projects that installed 982 turbines,&S221; Mr. Choma wrote in an e-mail message, &S220;and 695 were built by foreign manufacturers.&S221;

To some extent, this is hardly surprising. As Mr. Choma noted, the American clean energy manufacturing base &S212; particularly its wind turbine production capability &S212; is tiny compared with that of Europe.

And to be sure, the dispensation of the $22 billion in stimulus funding that is supposed to go toward renewable energy projects has only just begun.

But China&S217;s foray into the American wind power market comes alongside its dominance of the solar panel manufacturing industry, in which 95 percent of total output is exported to the United States and Europe.

And as Mr. Choma noted, when it comes to stimulating the economy, it is the manufacturing that matters. He points to a 2004 study from the Renewable Energy Policy Project, a research institute based in Washington. The institute found that every 1,000 megawatts of installed wind capacity had the potential to generate as many as 4,300 jobs, of which about 3,000 are created at the manufacturing level.

Green Inc. Column: Tempers Flare in U.S. Over Chinese Involvement in Wind Farm Planned for Texas

NEW YORK (Reuters) – S&P 500 index futures moved higher on Tuesday after a report showed U.S. home prices rose in August for the fourth-straight month, surpassing forecasts.

The Standard & Poor&&9;s/Case-Shiller composite index of home prices in 20 metropolitan areas rose 1.2 percent in August from July, above the 0.7 percent estimate in a Reuters poll.

S&P 500 futures rose 0.80 of a point and were above fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract low interest rate personal loans. Dow Jones industrial average futures gained 9 points, while Nasdaq futures were off 2.75 points.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Padraic Cassidy)

S&P futures rise after Case-Shiller data

FRANKFURT/MADRID (Reuters) – U.S. carmaker General Motors was close to signing a deal to sell a 55 percent stake in its European arm Opel to Canada&&9;s Magna Thursday as talks continued with unions over job cuts.

Sources in Germany, home to around half of Opel&&9;s 50,000 staff, said the deal could be signed Thursday or Friday.

The deal, set to close by the end of next month, caps weeks of negotiations by the companies and Opel labor leaders, but still awaits details on financing, including 4.5 billion euros (&&6;6.7 billion) in aid being sought from states with Opel plants.

Opel&&9;s 50,000 staff are supposed to get a 10 percent stake in the new company in return for cost concessions, while GM will keep a 35 percent stake.

GM decided last month to sell a majority stake to Magna and its Russian partner Sberbank.

Countries with Opel plants have fought to save jobs and avoid plant closures amid promises of billions in state aid.

Talks with unions were continuing in Spain after a union representing workers at Vauxhall, Opel&&9;s British sister brand which employs 5,500 people, reached an agreement with Magna earlier in the week.

Magna agreed, among other concessions, not to implement enforced redundancies.

In Belgium, unions agreed to 20.2 million euros of cost savings at the Antwerp plant after Magna pledged to look into keeping the plant open. The facility had been seen as a top candidate for closure.

Poland&&9;s economy ministry declined to confirm a radio report saying the government would award 450 million euros in aid.

"Poland plans to provide assistance whose amount will depend on the requests and needs of the New Opel in Gliwice," a spokeswoman for Poland&&9;s economy ministry said.

The Opel plant in Gliwice builds Zafira and Astra models outdoor fireplace plans.

In Spain Opel&&9;s prospective new owner Magna offered on Wednesday to return 72 percent of production of the new Opel Corsa to its Spanish plant in 2013.

Until then, production will drop to 70 percent in favor of Germany, the Canadian car parts manufacturer said during a meeting with the regional Aragon government and union leaders in Zaragoza, northern Spain, home to the Opel factory which employs around 7,500 workers.

"Magna&&9;s latest offer guarantees the Zaragoza plant&&9;s capacity with two operating lines of 478,000 vehicles. That&&9;s progress, but we&&9;re going to continue negotiating today and tomorrow," said Arturo Aliaga, industry counselor for Aragon.

An official at the Comisiones Obreras union said: "This is step forward, but we&&9;re still waiting for more."

The meeting followed a failed attempt Tuesday in Madrid to reach an agreement over jobs at the Opel car factory in Zaragoza.

The Opel plant at Figueruelas employs 7,500 and Magna had proposed cutting between 1,300 to 1,650 jobs there.

Magna&&9;s initial restructuring plans for Opel, which involve laying off more than 10,500 workers in Europe, have run into stiff opposition from European governments.

Magna and Sberbank have vowed to inject 500 million euros into the car maker, aiming to use it to make a push into the Russian market.

The European Commission is keeping a close eye on the transaction to ensure state aid is not misused for political purposes.

(Additional Reporting by Chris Borowski, Judy MacInnes, Christiaan Hetzner and Phil Blenkinsop; Writing by Helen Massy-Beresford; Editing by David Holmes)

(&&6;1=.6710 Euro)

GM, Magna set to sign Opel deal, job talks continue

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks fell on Monday as a resurgent U.S. dollar took a toll on commodity prices and investors paused to gauge if the outlook for corporate profits justified the market&&9;s recent run to 11-month highs.

A weaker-than-expected reading in a forward-looking measure of the U.S. economy added to the negative tone.

The Conference Board&&9;s August index of leading indicators rose 0.6 percent, a fifth straight monthly increase, but shy of the 0.7 percent forecast by economists.

"It&&9;s maybe a tad weaker than expected. But for stock prices, it&&9;s not going to change the overall direction, where stocks were a bit overbought here, looking for a modest pullback," said Steve Goldman, market strategist at Weeden & Co in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Through Friday the benchmark S&P 500 had risen 58 percent since hitting a 12-year closing low in early March, partly because of strong second-quarter earnings and optimism that an economic recovery is gaining traction.

That optimism is beginning to come under some strain, however, as investors seek more clarity about the 2010 profit outlook and await hints of how strong results will be for the rest of this year.

The Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) shed 67.41 points, or 0.69 percent, to 9,752.79. The Standard & Poor&&9;s 500 Index (.SPX) lost 7.60 points, or 0.71 percent, to 1,060.70. The Nasdaq Composite Index ( payday loans guaranteed no fax.IXIC) declined 7.06 points, or 0.33 percent, to 2,125.80.

Caterpillar Inc (CAT.N), down nearly 2 percent, was among the top drags after the maker of bulldozers, excavators and other products said worldwide August sales of machinery to dealerships fell.

Crude oil futures shed 3.8 percent to &&6;69.30 a barrel, and spot gold prices dropped below &&6;1,000 an ounce. The S&P materials (.GSPM) index fell 2 percent.

Shares of Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) declined 1 percent to &&6;69.28, while gold miner Newmont Mining Corp (NEM.N) shed 2.7 percent to &&6;43.77.

The Nasdaq&&9;s losses were curbed by a rise in biotechnology companies after a brokerage raised its rating on Celgene Corp (CELG.O), up 5 percent at &&6;55.20.

Computer maker Dell Inc (DELL.O) announced a &&6;3.9 billion proposed takeover of Perot Systems Corp (PER.N). Perot Systems shares jumped 65.3 percent to &&6;29.61, while Dell shares dipped 5.1 percent to &&6;15.83.

Any benefit from that announcement, however, was tempered by the rising U.S. dollar. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of major currencies, rose 0.7 percent. (.DXY)

(Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Padraic Cassidy)

Wall Street dips as commodities, Caterpillar, data drag

LONDON (Reuters) – Benchmark world stocks hit a fresh 11-month high on Thursday while emerging stocks extended gains to a new one-year peak, levels last seen before the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

The MSCI world equity index rose 0.4 percent to 282.58, its highest since early October, bringing gains this year to 24 percent.

The MSCI emerging stock index rose more than 1 percent to 889 guaranteed payday loan.89, its highest since early September 2008. The index has risen more than 56 percent since January.

(Reporting by Natsuko Waki; editing by Chris Pizzey)

World stocks hit fresh 11-month highs

PARIS &<51; The European Central Bank left its benchmark interest rates unchanged on Thursday after a meeting of its governing council, which concluded that the economic recovery would be sluggish and uneven.

The bank left its main policy rate at 1 percent, where it has been since May. The bank&S217;s president, Jean-Claude Trichet, said at a news conference in Frankfurt that current borrowing costs were &S220;appropriate&S221; and that &S220;price developments are expected to remain subdued.&S221;

Economists had expected the bank&S217;s policy to remain steady.

Mr. Trichet confirmed that the central bank had lifted its growth projections amid &S220;increasing signs of stabilization in economic activity.&S221;

The bank now sees growth next year of 0.2 percent. In June, it forecast a 0.3-percent decline. The current market consensus is for growth of 0.8 percent.

The recovery will be &S220;very gradual&S221; and &S220;rather uneven,&S221; especially as the financial sector is still struggling to reduce debt levels after the crisis, he added.

On inflation, the bank also slightly increased its projections, based mainly on rising energy prices. The central bank gave a central forecast of inflation at 0.4 percent this year and 1.2 percent next year. Its inflation target is for a rate of below but close to 2 percent.

Mr. Trichet said &S220;price developments are expected to remain subdued&S221; because of the sluggish rebound.

The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development published improved economic forecasts for industrialized economies on Thursday, suggesting an end to the global recession may come as early as the third quarter.

The O.E.C.D. forecast that growth across the Group of 7 countries would contract 3.7 percent this year, less than the 4.1 percent decline projected in June. The latest forecasts provide slightly improved outlooks for Japan and the euro area, an unchanged projection for the United States and a gloomier situation in Britain.

Since last month, economic data from the euro area have continued on an upward path.

This week, the European Union&S217;s statistics agency Eurostat said the euro-zone&S217;s economy shrank 0 cheap business cards.1 percent in the second quarter, the fifth consecutive quarter of falling output but a significant improvement over the record 2.5 percent plunge in the first three months.

On Thursday, a release from Markit Economics, showed that Europe&S217;s manufacturing and service industries ended the longest streak of contraction on record in August. A composite index of both industries rose to 50.4 in August from 47 the previous month. The index is based on a survey of purchasing managers and a reading below 50 indicates a contraction, for 14 months.

Still, the central bank is aware that the recovery is tentative and that there has been no improvement in certain areas &<51; especially unemployment. On Thursday, the French national statistics office INSEE reported that unemployment rose in the second quarter to 9.5 percent from 8.9 percent during the previous three months.

There is also limited evidence that companies are benefiting from the stronger balance sheets at banks.

In a joint letter to European Commission and Sweden, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, Italian and German business associations warned the signs for the second half of 2009 &S220;are not reassuring,&S221; Reuters reported Thursday.

As part of its support for banks and businesses, the central bank has introduced so-called nonstandard measures, the most important of which is its one-year unlimited liquidity auctions. In June, 442 billion euros ($628 billion) of cash was taken up by banks and the next auction is scheduled for the Sept. 29.

Mr. Trichet said last month that he had not committed to scaling back unconventional measures before raising interest rates.

Separately, the Swedish central bank, the Riksbank, left its benchmark interest rate on hold Thursday, at 0.25 percent, while maintaining the view that borrowing costs would not rise before the third quarter of 2010.

European Central Bank Expects a Gradual, Uneven Recovery

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Asian shares slipped along with commodities on Tuesday in a reversal of the previous day&&9;s solid gains, with many investors sticking to the sidelines and awaiting more clues on whether the economic recovery is picking up steam.

The Shanghai Composite index (.SSEC) slid 3.4 percent as cautious remarks from Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao the previous day stirred worries about the recovery, but the drop had limited fallout on other markets.

Investors showed little reaction to the White House saying that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke would be reappointed for another term at the helm of the central bank.

Analysts said that the decision removed uncertainty about the outlook for U.S. monetary policy and was neutral for U.S. assets.

Some analysts had said a decision not to reappoint Bernanke would have been a negative by risking politicizing the Fed chief post at a time when investors fret about record U.S. deficits.

"When you look at responses to last year&&9;s financial crisis, bold action was taken and the market reacted to that favorably," said Takahide Nagasaki, chief FX strategist at Daiwa Securities SMBC in Tokyo.

"I don&&9;t think there will be any major impact, but it should be positive for stock and bond markets in the sense that an element of uncertainty has been removed."

The MSCI index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) dropped 1 percent, with the consumer discretionary and health care stocks the bigger decliners. The index is still up about 47 percent for the year and near an 11-month high struck earlier in the month.

Share trading volumes were very light for a second day running, leading to exaggerated moves across markets.

Japan&&9;s Nikkei average (.N225) shed 0.8 percent after jumping 3.4 percent the previous day, its biggest one-day gain in 3- months.

Foreign investors, which have been increasingly shoving funds back into Japanese shares in the past few weeks, are keeping an eye on Japan&&9;s August 30 general election.

Many are expecting a victory by the opposition Democratic Party but remain hesitant about taking big positions before the see the results.

The dollar dipped against the yen and was down slightly against a basket of currencies, with the yen rebounding after a broad slide the previous day as market players favored riskier assets including higher-yielding currencies.

The dollar shed 0.6 percent to 93.90 yen. The Australian dollar, the highest-yielding of major currencies, dipped 0.2 percent to &&6;0.8354 and dropped nearly 1 percent to 78.45 yen.

Gold prices gained on the dollar&&9;s woes, rising &&6;4.45 an ounce to &&6;945.85. But oil prices pulled back, losing 58 cents a barrel to &&6;73.79 after reaching a 10-month high of &&6;74.81 on Monday.

Safe-haven government bonds popped higher on the retreat in shares and gains in U.S. Treasuries the previous day. September Japanese government bond futures edged up 0.17 point to 139.08 and the benchmark 10-year JGB yield dipped half a basis point to 1.320 percent, back near a five-week low struck last week.

(Editing by Jan Dahinten)

Asia shares and oil retreat in choppy trade

FINANCIAL stocks have more than doubled from their March 2009 lows. And with autumn &<51; generally a rocky season for the markets &<51; fast approaching, it&S217;s a good time for a reality check on the banking sector. The goal: to determine whether fundamentals in the industry support the rocket-fueled surge in bank shares.

To be sure, the stock market and smart money often try to anticipate recoveries long before they are evident in the numbers. But a &S220;relief rally&S221; &<51; that is, the exuberance that accompanied the fact that our economy appears to have avoided another Great Depression &<51; won&S217;t have the same staying power as a move based on solidly improving operations. So understanding what&S217;s going on in banks&S217; financial statements is worthwhile.

With that in mind, Christopher Whalen, managing director at Institutional Risk Analytics, a research firm, has analyzed financial data from the second quarter of this year that almost 7,000 banks submitted to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The data includes 90 percent of institutions with federally insured deposits but excludes reports from the 19 money-center banks like Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo. Those reports are filed later to the F.D.I.C.

Even with the big guys missing from the analysis, it is an illuminating look at the health of regional and community banks and a fairly comprehensive assessment of the industry&S217;s well-being.

Unfortunately, that assessment shows that the number of financially sound banks is declining and that the ranks of troubled institutions are growing. Indeed, Mr. Whalen said his figures show more stress in the banking industry in the second quarter of 2009 than in the immediately previous periods.

For example, Institutional Risk Analytics gave 4,234 banks a rating of A+ or A (as a measure of their financial soundness) as of June 30. That total was down 21 percent from the end of March and 25 percent from the end of 2008. Meanwhile, it slapped a failing grade on 1,882 banks as of June 30, up 16.5 percent from the end of March; the number with failing grades had dropped a bit in the first quarter.

This downward migration is a sign that more banks are now feeling the effects of economic conditions regardless of their business models, Mr. Whalen said. In other words, even the best-run banks are having trouble escaping the impact of a sluggish economy and high unemployment.

Based on his preliminary review of individual bank reports, Mr. Whalen said the greater stress across the industry results from the large number of banks getting dinged by losses or charge-offs. The figures, Mr. Whalen said, call into question assumptions made by the government earlier this year, when it put major banks through &S220;stress tests.&S221;

In short, the tests may not have been tough enough.

&S220;The stress tests said that through the two-year cycle, big banks had to have enough capital plus earnings to withstand a 9 percent loss rate,&S221; Mr. Whalen said. &S220;But what we&S217;re seeing with the levels of stress in the industry is that we are there now and we are not at peak of cycle yet.&S221;

The government&S217;s stress tests also assumed that the third quarter would show a bit of an improvement, and Mr. Whalen does not necessarily disagree. But any reduction in losses in that quarter may also be short-lived. &S220;The third quarter may be a little rah-rah in terms of loss rates,&S221; Mr. Whalen said, &S220;but if the economy isn&S217;t dramatically improving, then the fourth quarter of this year and the first quarter of 2010 will be another leg down.&S221;

The good news is that some banks have raised capital during these past few months of investor optimism. But a host of operational problems remains at many institutions. In addition to loan losses and rock-bottom recovery rates on assets they&S217;re trying to unload, for example, banks also face rising expenses (because they&S217;re paying to carry properties that generate scant &<51; or zero &<51; revenue). All of this cuts significantly into earnings, which banks desperately need to bolster their battered financial positions.

With banks short on revenue, they cannot apportion enough for reserves against future loan losses. &S220;In bad periods,&S221; Mr. Whalen said, &S220;banks typically set aside twice as much as they charge off, but now a lot of them are at one-to-one.&S221;

Later this year, Mr. Whalen said, banks that stayed on the straight and narrow and dealt swiftly with their problems will start to emerge from the morass.

&S220;But we will still have a very large percentage of the population experiencing problems going into the end of the year,&S221; he said.

SURELY, investors in financial companies have earned a respite from their long slog of losses, and the recent rally has been a tonic for damaged stock portfolios. But it&S217;s simply not clear that the banking industry is out of the woods. It took many years to inflate the enormous debt bubble that popped in 2007. The deleveraging process, which is nobody&S217;s idea of fun, will take a long time, too.

Fair Game: What the Stress Tests Didn’t Predict

WASHINGTON &<51; Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, no longer looks sleep-deprived.

He still works seven days a week, but earlier this month he took two days off &<51; for the first time in two years &<51; to attend his son&S217;s wedding. And he often gets home for dinner and even out to baseball games every few weeks.

As central bankers and economists from around the world gather on Thursday for the Fed&S217;s annual retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyo., most are likely to welcome Mr. Bernanke as a conquering hero. In Washington and on Wall Street, it would be a surprise if President Obama did not nominate Mr. Bernanke for a second term, even though he is a Republican and was appointed by President George W. Bush.

But the White House has remained silent. And despite Mr. Bernanke&S217;s credibility in financial circles, both he and the Fed as an institution have come under political fire from lawmakers in both parties over the handling of particular bailouts and the scope of the Fed&S217;s power.

He has been frustrated that many in Congress do not give the Fed what he believes is enough credit for what it has accomplished. Indeed, Mr. Bernanke has met privately with hundreds of lawmakers in recent months to explain the Fed&S217;s strategy.

Fellow economists, however, are heaping praise on Mr. Bernanke for his bold actions and steady hand in pulling the economy out of its worst crisis since the 1930s. Tossing out the Fed&S217;s standard playbook, Mr. Bernanke orchestrated a long list of colossal rescue programs: Wall Street bailouts, shotgun weddings, emergency loan programs, vast amounts of newly printed money and the lowest interest rates in American history.

Even one of his harshest critics now praises him.

&S220;He realized that the great recession could turn into the Great Depression 2.0, and he was very aggressive about taking the actions that needed to be taken,&S221; said Nouriel Roubini, chairman of Roubini Global Economics, who had long criticized Fed officials for ignoring the dangers of the housing bubble.

But Mr. Bernanke is hardly breathing easy. Unemployment is still at 9.4 percent, and the central bank&S217;s own forecasts assume that it will remain that high through the end of next year. Even if all goes according to plan, Fed officials said, Mr. Bernanke&S217;s current popularity could sink if the recovery proves slower than many people expect.

While the White House keeps mum about Mr. Bernanke&S217;s future, the leading Democratic candidates to replace him include Lawrence H. Summers, director of the National Economic Council; Janet L. Yellen, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco; Alan S. Blinder, a Princeton economist and former Fed vice chairman; and Roger Ferguson, another former Fed vice chairman.

Mr. Bernanke faces two major challenges. On the economic front, the Fed has to decide when and how it will reverse all its emergency measures and raise interest rates back to normal without either stalling the economy or igniting inflation.

On the political front, Mr. Bernanke is trying to defend the Fed&S217;s power and independence as the White House and Congress debate plans to overhaul the system of financial regulation.

Democrats like Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, contend that the Fed was too cozy with banks and Wall Street firms as the mortgage crisis was building. House Republicans, and some Democrats, complain that the Fed already has too much power.

&S220;Why does the Fed deserve more authority when institutionally it seemed to have failed to prevent the current crisis?&S221; asked Senator Dodd last month.

The political battle over President Obama&S217;s plan to overhaul financial regulation has put Mr. Bernanke in an awkward position.

Fed officials support the administration&S217;s proposals to put them in charge of systemic risk like the growth of reckless mortgage lending or the misuse of financial derivatives. But they chafe at the plan to shift the Fed&S217;s consumer-protection functions, which protect people from deceptive and unfair lending practices, to a new agency.

Mr. Bernanke has avoided publicly criticizing the White House&S217;s call for an independent consumer regulatory agency. While acknowledging that the Federal Reserve did nothing to stop mortgage practices during the housing bubble, Mr. Bernanke has argued that the Fed has since written tough new protections for both mortgage borrowers and credit card customers.

&S220;We think the Fed can play a constructive role in protecting consumers,&S221; he told the House Financial Services Committee last month.

Mr. Bernanke and other Fed officials now concede they failed to anticipate the full danger posed by the explosion of subprime mortgage lending. As recently as the spring of 2007, Mr. Bernanke still contended that the problems of the housing market were largely &S220;contained&S221; to subprime mortgages. When panic over mortgage-backed securities began spreading through the broader credit markets in late July 2007, Fed officials initially refused to cut interest rates.

By December 2007, Mr. Bernanke became increasingly convinced that the economy itself was in trouble but policy makers were unable to reach agreement and decided not to reduce interest rates.

At a meeting on Jan. 21, 2008, the Fed slashed the benchmark federal funds rate by 0.75 percent, to 3.5 percent, the biggest one-time reduction in decades. Nine days later, officials cut the rate again, down to 3 percent.

As the credit crisis deepened, Mr. Bernanke urged Fed officials to devise proposals that had never been tried before. They responded with a kaleidoscope of emergency loan programs to a wide array of industries.

&S220;He has had tremendous courage throughout this episode,&S221; said Frederic S. Mishkin, a professor at Columbia University&S217;s business school and a former Fed governor.

Amid the chaos, Fed and Treasury officials made numerous mistakes. Their original idea for the $700 billion to buy up bad mortgage assets held by banks has yet to get off the ground.

But economists say Mr. Bernanke&S217;s most important accomplishment was to create staggering amounts of money out of thin air.

All told, the Federal Reserve has expanded its balance sheet to $1.9 trillion today, from about $900 billion a year ago. Analysts now caution that Mr. Bernanke&S217;s job is only half complete. He will eventually have to reel all that money back. He has already laid out elements of the Fed&S217;s &S220;exit strategy,&S221; but Fed officials have been careful to say it is still too early to pull back any time soon.

Bernanke, a Hero to His Own, Can't Shake Critics