Venezuela’s opposition-run parliament on Tuesday outlawed a “petro” cryptocurrency promoted by socialist President Nicolas Maduro, calling it an effort to illegally mortgage the cash-strapped country’s oil reserves.

Maduro on Friday said his government would issue nearly $6 billion of petros as a way to raise hard currency and to evade financial sanctions imposed by Washington.

Cryptocurrency experts say Venezuela’s mismanagement of its own economy, combined with the ruling Socialist Party’s historic lack of respect for private property rights, will likely leave investors uninterested in acquiring petros.

“This is not a cryptocurrency, this is a forward sale of Venezuelan oil,” said legislator Jorge Millan. “It is tailor-made for corruption.”

Legislators warned investors that the petro would be seen as null and void once Maduro, who is up for re-election this year, is no longer in office. They added that the petro issue violates constitutional requirements that the legislature approve borrowing.

The Information Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Maduro has routinely ignored the legislature since his party lost control of it in 2016, and the pro-government Supreme Court has shot down nearly every measure passed since then.

In July, the country elected an all-powerful legislative body called the Constituent Assembly, a vote that was boycotted by the opposition.

The government of U.S. President Donald Trump described the new Constituent Assembly as the consolidation of a dictatorship, and issued sanctions barring U.S. financial institutions from acquiring any debt issued by Venezuela after mid-2017.

That has effectively blocked Maduro’s government from refinancing its hefty debt burden, and would likely add to investor concern about the petro, although it was not specifically mentioned in the sanctions measure.

Maduro hopes it will serve as a payment mechanism for foreign suppliers and avoid the payments delays that have grown more acute since the sanctions went into place.

The government plans in the coming weeks to issue 100 million petros, backed by 100 million barrels of oil reserves.

The petro’s price is initially to be pegged to the value of Venezuela’s basket of oil and fuel exports, which last week closed at $59.07.
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Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos is now the richest person of all time, with a fortune of $105.1 billion, according to financial news outlet Bloomberg.

With the stock market soaring to new heights in the first few days of 2018, Bezos’ fortune rocketed upward, growing $6.1 billion in just five trading days.

That happened because most of Bezos’ wealth is contained in shares of Amazon.com, the online retail giant. Shares of Amazon rose 56 percent in 2017 and more than 6 percent since the start of this year.

Financial news trackers differ on whether Bezos is the richest man in history, or if his nearest rival, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, holds that record.

Bezos surpassed Gates briefly last year before taking the lead for good in October and crossing the $100-billion mark by November, buoyed by the holiday shopping season.

Gates is worth more than $90 billion, but financial experts say he would be worth far more if he had not given away so much in cash and shares of Microsoft to charity. Bloomberg reports that if Gates had not given away some $36 billion of stock to charity, his fortune would be worth more than $150 billion.

In addition to Amazon, Bezos’ holdings include The Washington Post and the space exploration company, Blue Origin.
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Oil prices surged to a three-year high Tuesday on rising expectations that OPEC member countries will comply with oil production cuts to the end of 2018.

Brent Crude prices are headed toward $70 a barrel, West Texas Crude settled at $62.96 bbl, the highest since December 2014. But other factors could derail OPEC member agreement on production quotas, including continued expansion of U.S. shale production and the likelihood of stronger global demand. 

Analysts say rapid changes in supply and demand could trigger an early exit or prompt member countries to cheat on production quotas, especially when prices start to rise.

Meanwhile, the United States is increasingly less dependent on foreign oil, thanks in part to the shale boom and the influx of cheap natural gas. U.S. Energy Information Administration forecasts U.S. crude oil production will climb to more than 10 million barrels per day by the first quarter of 2018, exceeding 11 million bpd in 2019.  

The American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. trade group that represents the oil and natural gas industry, boasted Tuesday about helping to create “U.S. energy abundance” but said the industry was focused on minimizing the harmful effects of greenhouse gases associated with fossil fuels.

In his 2018 State of American Energy address, API president and CEO Jack Girard said it was time to move beyond the debate over climate change.

“I think we’re at the point where we need to get over the conversation of who believes and who doesn’t, and move to a conversation about solutions,” he said.

The U.S. is now the world’s biggest natural gas producer. Despite a 30 percent increase in domestic natural gas production since 2008, Girard says CO2 emissions in the U.S. are near 25-year lows, and key air pollutants have declined 73 percent since 1970.
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Ecuador’s comptroller’s office on Monday announced it will open an audit of debt contracted in the last five years of the government of former President Rafael Correa to determine the legality of the operations and the use of the funds.

The move follows a report by the comptroller’s office revealing that some documentation relating to debt operations had been declared secret and that official reports on public debt had excluded some of the operations.

President Lenin Moreno, a former Correa protege, since his election last year been has criticized the ex-president’s handling of the economy and is seeking to unwind some Correa-era reforms. Correa says such efforts constitute a “coup” by Moreno.

A team of economists, lawyers and businessmen will analyze debt operations carried out between January 2012 and May 2017 and will present recommendations in April.

Comptroller Pablo Celi said Correa and former Finance Ministry officials had been notified about investigation.

Shortly after taking office last May, Moreno said that total public debt was $42 billion dollars, plus additional liabilities including some associated with payments to oil services companies.

I have just learned of a supposed preliminary report on the audit of the debt and a commission that includes several haters of the (Citizen’s Revolution),” Correa said via Twitter, referring to his political movement.

During a later speech in the city of Guayaquil he described the probe as “persecution.”

The former president is leading a campaign for the “No” vote in a Feb. 4 referendum on constitutional reforms include a measure to prohibit indefinite re-election, a measure Correa created that allowed him to run for a second term.

Correa himself in 2008 commissioned a team of experts to study the country’s prior debt operations. The experts concluded that several debt operations were “illegitimate,” leading his government to declare a default.
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One person was killed Monday during clashes between security forces and protesters in a Tunisian town, a security official and residents said, as demonstrations over rising prices and tax increases spread in the North African country.

A man was killed during a demonstration against government austerity measures in Tebourba, 40 km (25 miles) west of Tunis, the security official said, without giving details.

The protest had turned violent when security forces tried stopping some youths from burning down a government building, witnesses said. Five people were wounded and taken to a hospital, state news agency TAP said.

Tunisia, widely seen in the West as the only democratic success among nations where Arab Spring revolts took place in 2011, is suffering increasing economic hardship.

Anger has been building up since the government said that from Jan. 1, it would increase the price of gasoil, some goods and taxes on cars, phone calls, the internet, hotel accommodations and other items, part of austerity measures agreed with its foreign lenders.

The 2018 budget also raises customs taxes on some products imported from abroad, such as cosmetics, and some agricultural products.

The economy has been in crisis since a 2011 uprising unseated the government and two major militant attacks in 2015 damaged tourism, which comprises 8 percent of GDP. Tunisia is under pressure from the International Monetary Fund to speed up policy changes and help the economy recover from the attacks.

Violent protests spread in the evening to at least 10 towns with police and crowds clashing in Fernaneh, Bouhajla, Ouslatia, Moulouche, Sabitla, Gtar and Kef.

There was also a protest turning violent in Ettadamen district in the capital, residents said. Security forces had already dispersed small protests in Tunis late Sunday.

On Monday, about 300 people also took to the streets in the central Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, cradle of the country’s Arab Spring revolution, carrying banners aloft with slogans denouncing high prices.

A lack of tourists and new foreign investors pushed the trade deficit up by 23.5 percent year-on-year in the first 11 months of 2017 to a record high $5.8 billion, official data showed at the end of December.

Weakened dinar

Concerns about the rising deficit have hurt the dinar, sending it to 3.011 versus the euro Monday, breaking the psychologically important 3 dinar mark for the first time, traders said.

The currency is likely to weaken further, said Tunisian financial risk expert Mourad Hattab.

“The sharp decline of the dinar threatens to deepen the trade deficit and make debt service payments tighter, which will increase Tunisia’s financial difficulties,” he said.

Hattab said the dinar may fall to 3.3 versus the euro in the coming months because of high demand for foreign currency and little expectation of intervention from the authorities.

Last year, former Finance Minister Lamia Zribi said the central bank would reduce its interventions so that the dinar steadily declined in value, but it would prevent any dramatic slide.

The central bank has denied any plans to liberalize the currency, but Hattab said Monday’s decline showed there was an “undeclared float” of the dinar.

A weaker currency could further drive up the cost of imported food after the annual inflation rate rose to 6.4 percent in December, its highest rate since July 2014, from 6.3 percent in November, data showed Monday.
…

As Britain’s 2019 exit from the European Union edges closer, it is looking to carve out a new role for itself on the world stage. Many analysts say it could struggle to retain its influence as other world powers demand greater representation in global bodies like the United Nations. But the British government insists it is looking to build global alliances beyond Europe.

“Britain punches above its weight” – a boxing analogy once used by a former foreign secretary to describe his country’s role on the world stage, and often repeated since. But the punch could be losing power, says Luke McDonagh of City University London.

“Leaving the EU means that the UK could now be seen as a medium-sized economy in an increasingly polarized world where there are massive economic blocs,” he said. ” You have the United States, you have China, you have the EU. In the coming century, you will also have India, the rise of South America and Africa to compete, as well. What will the UK’s place be?”

McDonagh says a measure of Britain’s fading clout was its November loss of a judge at the International Court of Justice. After a long battle at the United Nations, London withdrew its candidate, allowing an Indian judge to take the place occupied by Britain since the ICJ’s inception in 1946.

“The way the powers game works now is decidedly different from that of 1945. And we have to question whether the U.N. Security Council will continue in this form for much longer,” he said.

But it is unlikely Britain will lose its permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council any time soon, says U.N. expert Richard Gowan of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

“Most of the big powers in the Security Council, including the United States and China, do not want to see any serious reforms to the institution in the foreseeable future,” noted Gowan.

Britain insists it is not turning inward. The government’s post-Brexit ambition is to create what it terms a “Global Britain.”

“On the one hand, the British foreign service will be able to invest more resources in U.N. affairs now that they are going to be less focused on the EU. ,” Gowan said. “But on the other hand, without the support of 27 other (EU) countries, the British are going to find it much harder to influence debates over humanitarian affairs, development or security through the U.N.”

A foretaste came in June, when many EU countries failed to vote with Britain on its claim to the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean.

Britain needs to keep Europe onside, argues Gowan.

“If the British are seen to be simply cozying up to the Americans, they are going to lose a lot of goodwill from their European partners pretty quickly,” he said.

In seeking a new role on the world stage, analysts say Britain will need to forge new alliances, while keeping old friends close, and try to weather turmoil back home.

 
…

A US entrepreneur is taking advantage of a demand for American goods in Africa — creating an online portal for cross border trade between the two countries. As VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports.
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Eritrea has temporarily shut down nearly 450 private businesses, the latest in a series of moves that has sent shockwaves through the economy of the Red Sea nation.

The closures were a response to companies hoarding cash and “failing to do business through checks and other banking systems,” according to a Dec. 29 editorial published by Eritrea’s Ministry of Information on the state-run website Shabait.com.

Most of the affected businesses operate in the hospitality sector, according to the announcement, and they will remain closed for up to eight months, depending on the severity of the violations.

About 58,000 private businesses operate across the country, according to the government; less than 1 percent was affected by the recent closures.

Replacing the currency

The government has taken other steps in recent years to reassert control over the economy.

In 2015, Eritrea mandated that citizens exchange all notes of the currency, the nakfa, for new notes. The government also imposed financial restrictions, including limits on the amount of cash that could be withdrawn from bank accounts or kept in private hands, according to multiple reports.

Business owners complained about the restrictions, and reports from inside the country indicate the rules have altered Eritrea’s black market exchange rate, which affects the price of many goods.

State control

Tesfa Mehari, a professor of economics in England, said the Eritrean government wants a state-owned economy. That’s a trap many other countries have fallen into that generally leads to economic failure, Mehari said.

“The government cannot develop the economy. Only the people can do that,” Mehari told VOA’s Tigrigna service. “The government can only be a facilitator. There hasn’t been a country in the world that developed because of government control.”

He also said that the closures harm people’s trust in the government and in banking institutions. 

“At the end of the day, if the people of Eritrea want to develop the economy of the country, they can only work based on trust, especially with banks. What you have with banks is a matter of oath,” Mehari said.

Compounding this mistrust, he added, is that the government’s actions aren’t backed by a specific law or decree that is publicly available for all to read.

In a statement, the government also acknowledged shortcomings in modernizing its banking sector with up-to-date technology and relevant expertise, another potential impediment to confidence in the system.

In contrast, Ibrahim Ibrahim, an Eritrean-born accountant who supports the government, said the actions are needed to fight inflation and stabilize the currency.

“I don’t think the Eritrean government is trying to control the economy, and I don’t think that’s the current environment,” said Ibrahim, who is based in Washington, D.C. “However, there might be a situation where the government is taking measures to adjust things that are not normal and turn it into normalcy as per usual.”

He said any government has the right to regulate its currency and the businesses operating within its borders.

“When these businesses are given permission to work, that means they’re entering a contract,” he said. “At the core of entering into such agreements is that the businesses work within the legalities and the laws in place. If these businesses are not working according to the law, the government is going to take appropriate measures.”
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The Iranian town of Doroud should be a prosperous place — nestled in a valley at the junction of two rivers in the Zagros Mountains, it’s in an area rich in metals to be mined and stone to be quarried. Last year, a military factory on the outskirts of town unveiled production of an advanced model of tanks.

Yet local officials have been pleading for months for the government to rescue its stagnant economy. Unemployment is around 30 percent, far above the official national rate of more than 12 percent. Young people graduate and find no work. The local steel and cement factories stopped production long ago, and their workers haven’t been paid for months. The military factory’s employees are mainly outsiders who live on its grounds, separate from the local economy.

“Unemployment is on an upward path,” Majid Kiyanpour, the local parliament representative for the town of 170,000, told Iranian media in August. “Unfortunately, the state is not paying attention.”

​It’s the economy

That’s a major reason Doroud has been a front line in the protests that have flared across Iran. Several thousand residents have been shown in online videos marching down Doroud’s main street, shouting, “Death to the dictator!” At night, young men set fires outside the gates of the mayor’s office and hurl stones at banks.

Anger and frustration over the economy have been the main fuel for the eruption of protests that began Dec. 28. 

President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate, had promised that lifting most international sanctions under Iran’s landmark 2015 nuclear deal with the West would revive Iran’s long-suffering economy. But while the end of sanctions did open up a new influx of cash from increased oil exports, little has trickled down to the wider population. At the same time, Rouhani has enforced austerity policies that hit households hard.

Demonstrations have broken out mainly in dozens of smaller cities and towns like Doroud, where unemployment has been most painful and where many in the working class feel ignored.

​Fury at ruling class

The working classes have long been a base of support for Iran’s hard-liners. But protesters have turned their fury against the ruling clerics and the elite Revolutionary Guard, accusing them of monopolizing the economy and soaking up the country’s wealth. 

Many protests have seen a startlingly overt rejection of Iran’s system of government by Islamic clerics.

“They make a man into god and a nation into beggars!” goes the cry heard in videos of several marches. “Clerics with capital, give us our money back!”

Food prices jump

The initial spark for the protests was a sudden jump in food prices. It is believed that hard-line opponents of Rouhani instigated the first demonstrations in the conservative city of Mashhad in eastern Iran, trying to direct public anger at the president. But as protests spread from town to town, the backlash turned against the entire ruling class.

Further stoking the anger was the budget for the coming year that Rouhani unveiled in mid-December, calling for significant cuts in cash payouts established by Rouhani’s predecessor as a form of direct welfare. Since he came to office in 2013, Rouhani has been paring them back. The budget also envisaged a new jump in fuel prices.

But amid the cutbacks, the budget revealed large increases in funding for religious foundations that are a key part of the clerical state-above-the-state, which receive hundreds of millions of dollars each year from the public coffers. 

After the lifting of most sanctions in early 2016, the economy saw a major boost — 13.4 percent growth in the GDP in 2016, compared to a 1.3 percent contraction the year before, according to the World Bank. But almost all that growth was in the oil sector.

Growth outside the oil sector was at 3.3 percent. Major foreign investment has failed to materialize, in part because of continued U.S. sanctions hampering access to international banking and the fear other sanctions could eventually return.

Iran’s official unemployment rate is at 12.4 percent, and unemployment among the young, those 19 to 29, has reached 28.8 percent, according to the government-run Statistical Center of Iran.

The provinces face more economic hardship, but the pain has been felt in the capital, Tehran, and other major cities as well. But there it’s been more cushioned within a large middle class. Many can ignore those picking through trash for food. However, in December 2016, Iranians expressed shock over a series of photographs in a local newspaper showing homeless drug addicts sleeping in open graves in Shahriar, on Tehran’s western outskirts.
…

The U.S. economy ended 2017 by adding 148,000 new jobs in December. Despite the modest gain, hiring was strong enough to suggest the economic momentum will continue. But while the national unemployment rate remained unchanged at a 17-year low of 4.1 percent, analysts say the pace of job growth may be slowing down. Mil Arcega has more.
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Britain should charge a 25-pence ($0.34) levy on disposable coffee cups to cut down waste and use the money to improve recycling facilities, a committee of lawmakers said Friday.

Chains Pret A Manger, Costa Coffee, Caffe Nero and Greggs alongside U.S. firm Starbucks are among the biggest coffee-sellers in Britain, rapidly expanding in the last 10 years to meet increasing demand.

Although some outlets give a discount to customers using their own cup, only 1-2 percent of buyers take up the offer, according to parliament’s environmental audit committee, which said a “latte levy” was needed instead.

2.5 billion cups a year

“The UK throws away 2.5 billion disposable coffee cups every year; enough to circle the planet 5½ times,” said chair of the committee, Mary Creagh.

“We’re calling for action to reduce the number of single-use cups, promote reusable cups over disposable cups and to recycle all coffee cups by 2023,” she said.

The committee said that if the recycling target is not met then disposable coffee cups should be banned.

Bag levy success

In October 2015, Britain introduced a charge of 5-pence on all single-use plastic bags provided by large shops, which led to an 83 percent reduction in UK plastic bags used in the first year.

On Friday the environment ministry said the government was working closely with the sector and had made progress in increasing recycling rates.

“We are encouraged by industry action to increase the recycling of paper cups with some major retail chains now offering discounts to customers with reusable cups,” said a spokeswoman.

“We will carefully consider the committee’s recommendations and respond shortly,” she said.
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Marijuana-related stocks plummeted, cannabis boosters worried about the industry’s future and defiant growers and sellers vowed to keep operating after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions signaled a tougher approach Thursday to federal pot enforcement.

The plunging stock prices reversed a weekslong rally driven by optimism for legal recreational sales that started Monday in California. Several marijuana stocks saw double-digit losses in the hours after Sessions’ announcement, including the largest pot-producing company that is publicly traded.

Canopy Growth, a Canada-based company with the ticker symbol WEED, lost $3.58 a share, or 10 percent, to close at $32.32 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Shares of garden-supply company Scotts Miracle-Gro also skidded Thursday, following a steady rise last year after it added fertilizer, lights and other products to serve marijuana growers. The company’s share price fell by as much as 7 percent before closing down 2.3 percent, or $2.49, to $106.17 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Investors spooked

“Jeff Sessions’ decision to rescind the Cole memoranda puts the marijuana industry and marijuana legalization efforts in a precarious position,” said Aaron Herzberg, a California lawyer and founder of the cannabis investment company CalCann Holding, referring to an Obama-era memo that limited U.S. crackdowns on pot in states where it’s legal.

Brent Kenyon, a consultant who helps advise and establish recreational marijuana businesses in Oregon, said his phone had been ringing all Thursday with calls from worried clients. Investors, including some who are involved in his businesses, are spooked, he said.

“I’m just telling people to hold off. We need more information, we need to see what the president is going to say about this,” he said by phone from a cannabis conference in Hawaii.

Andy Williams, CEO of the Medicine Man Denver dispensary, is taking a wait-and-see approach to the new policy but pointed out the economic impact of legal pot.

“This industry around the United States has attracted a lot of investment. Billions of dollars in investment,” he said. “Just talking about what Sessions wants to do today has dropped the market.”

​’Business as usual’

Steve DeAngelo, owner of California’s largest marijuana retailer, said it will be “business as usual” at his Harborside dispensary in Oakland.

“I think the main impact of this is really going to be on investors, more than anything else,” he said. “Some investors might get a bit nervous about putting more money into the cannabis industry until the situation resolves itself.”

Another of California’s largest marijuana operators said it also plans no changes in response to Sessions’ announcement.

“For this industry and for this community, we are really based on resilience, going against the tide. This is no different,” said Michael Steinmetz, CEO of Flow Kana, which distributes cannabis products from small, outdoor farmers. “From my perspective, things don’t change.”
…

Wall Street sure loves the tax bill, even if polls show most Americans don’t.

The Dow Jones industrial average surged past 25,000 Thursday, a strong signal of investor enthusiasm for President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion tax cut. The milestone comes less than a year after the Dow topped 20,000.

“We broke a very, very big barrier,” Trump said Thursday at the White House. “Every time you see that number go up on Wall Street it means jobs, it means success, it means 401(k)s that are flourishing.”

It’s easy to see why investors like the tax overhaul: Businesses will benefit from a steep cut in the corporate tax rate. They’ll also be able to fully deduct the cost of major purchases from their taxable income, reducing the amount they owe. And companies with large stockpiles of cash overseas can bring the money back to the United States at new, lower rates.

All told, Wall Street analysts estimate the tax package should boost earnings for companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index by roughly 8 percent this year. That’s much more generous than the average tax cut of 1.6 percent that middle-class families will receive, according to the Tax Policy Center.

“All else being equal, this should go straight to the bottom line,” said David Joy, chief market strategist for Ameriprise Financial, a financial services company based in Minneapolis. Improved corporate profits contributed to the market’s gains last year.

The public has been less enthusiastic about the tax law. A Monmouth University poll last month found that nearly half of Americans disapproved of it, with only 26 percent in support.

Where profits will go

Still, some workers have seen a benefit: So far, nearly 20 large companies have announced bonuses and higher minimum wages as a result of the tax cut. AT&T, Comcast, Bank of America, and American Airlines have all pledged to pay $1,000 bonuses to their employees.

Investors also appear less concerned than many politicians about how the additional profits will be used. The Trump administration says it expects companies will plow much of the extra profit back into their businesses, purchasing more software, machinery, and other equipment. Those investments will make workers more productive and provide a key boost to the economy’s long-run growth. They should also boost wages and salaries for employees.

Opponents of the tax law respond that companies are more likely to pass the windfall on to shareholders in the form of higher dividend payments and share buybacks, which raise the price of those shares still in investors’ hands. Previous cuts in corporate tax rates, in the U.S. and overseas, haven’t always led to higher wages.

For Wall Street, it’s all good, at least in the short run. Most analysts take the view that either way, companies and the economy will benefit. Whether businesses pass most of the extra money to workers or to shareholders, consumer spending should increase and lift economic growth.

Trump has repeatedly made highly optimistic claims about the impact of his tax cuts and other policies on the economy, speculating that they would lead to annual growth of 4 percent or higher.

Expectations

Last month, the Treasury Department estimated that the economy will expand at a 2.9 percent annual rate for the next decade.

Private economists, as well as the Federal Reserve, forecast a more modest impact. Most expect growth will be closer to 2.5 percent in 2018 and slower than that in subsequent years.

Some companies and sectors will likely benefit more than others, particularly if they derive most of their income from the United States. Analysts at Goldman Sachs estimate that large banks will see their earnings rise by 13 percent as a result of the corporate rate cut. Wells Fargo will likely see the biggest gain, at 18 percent.

Analysts at Stifel, an investment bank, project that some restaurant chains could see earnings boosts of 20 percent or more, including Chipotle, Wingstop and Domino’s Pizza.

Barclays, another bank, says that technology and pharmaceutical firms, which are already paying lower taxes because they have lots of cash overseas, will see much smaller increases of less than 4 percent.

The legislation’s corporate tax cut is not necessarily as dramatic as it seems, because most corporations don’t end up paying the full 35 percent rate. Barclays estimates that the “effective” tax rate — what companies actually pay — will drop from 26 percent to 20.1 percent.

Shareholders vs. investment

Joy and other analysts think that most of the money brought back from other countries will go to shareholders, rather than investment. That’s what happened in 2004, when companies were given a one-time low rate on repatriated cash as an inducement.

Opinions differ, however, when it comes to the additional profits that result from the tax cut. Many economists expect that most of those dollars will also be passed on to shareholders.

Glenn Hubbard, an economist at Columbia Business School and former top economist for President George W. Bush, says the corporate tax cut will eventually benefit workers through higher pay. That will also boost the economy and most businesses by lifting spending.

“Any way you slice it, it’s good for companies,” Hubbard said.

For much of last year, the stock market’s gains were helped by a synchronized global recovery, with economies from Europe to Asia to Latin America expanding simultaneously for the first time in a decade.

Since November, investors’ anticipation of a tax cut has pushed markets higher, said Keith Parker, an analyst at UBS.

Still, the market’s outsize return only benefits a narrow slice of the population. According to research by Edward Wolff, an economist at New York University, just 10 percent of the population owns 84 percent of the stock market’s value.

“That benefit won’t accrue to everybody, certainly,” Joy said.
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The Dow Jones Industrial Average broke through the 25,000-threshold for the first time Thursday, and notched another 1,000-point milestone. The index of blue-chip stocks is studded with industrial heavyweights such as Boeing and Caterpillar.

Among the biggest gainers were technology companies and banks. Wells Fargo jumped 1.9 percent and Microsoft rose 0.7 percent.

U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted Thursday morning, “Dow just crashes through 25,000. Congrats! Big cuts in unnecessary regulations continuing.”

The Dow increased 118 points, or 0.5 percent, to 25,037. The Nasdaq edged up 16 points to 7,081.

This latest record came in early trading Thursday — only five weeks after closing above 24,000 points for the first time.

Other major indexes also rose to new levels, driven by a strong report on private jobs.

The recent rally has been spurred by faster economic gains around the world, along with a more optimistic outlook from businesses and consumers.
…

Australia said Thursday it planned to become the fourth country in the world to legalize medicinal marijuana exports in a bid to score a piece of the estimated $55 billion global market.

Cannabis cultivation in Australia is still relatively small, as recreational use remains illegal. But the government hopes domestic medicinal use, legalized last year, and exports will rapidly boost production.

“Our goal is very clear: to give farmers and producers the best shot at being the world’s No. 1 exporter of medicinal cannabis,” Health Minister Greg Hunt told reporters in Melbourne.

Company shares rise

Shares in the more than a dozen Australian cannabis producers listed on the local exchange soared after the announcement.

Cann Group ended the day up 35 percent; AusCann Group rose nearly 54 percent; and BOD Australia closed up about 39 percent. All were record highs for those companies. Hydroponics Company finished up 30 percent, hitting its highest price in five weeks.

Peter Crock, chief executive of Cann Group, which cultivates cannabis for medicinal and research purposes, said medicinal marijuana production had been stymied by limited demand from Australian patients.

“While the Australian patient base is growing, it is very small,” Crock told Reuters. “Being able to export will allow us to have the scale to increase production.”

Hunt said the new legislation would include a requirement that growers first meet demand from local patients before exporting the remainder of their crop.

Three countries export

Despite growing demand, only Uruguay, Canada and the Netherlands have so far legalized the export of medicinal marijuana. Israel has said it intends to do so within months.

The Australian government’s proposal needs to pass federal parliament when it returns to session in February. The country’s main opposition Labor Party has signaled it would support the move. Exports would then likely begin within months.

Fuelled by a growing acceptance of the benefits of marijuana to manage chronic pain, moderate the impact of multiple sclerosis and to soften the effects of cancer treatment, several countries and 29 states in the United States have legalized cannabis for medicinal use.

Australia’s chief commodity forecaster does not publish data on cannabis production, but rough estimates by the University of Sydney estimated the legal industry at A$100 million ($78 million), well below the C$4 billion ($3.19 billion) that Canada estimates its market to be worth.

U.S. consultants Grand View Research last year forecast the global medicinal cannabis market would be worth $55.8 billion by 2025.
…

Auto sales in the United States fell by 2 percent in 2017, the first decline in seven years.

Ford Motor reported Wednesday that its new vehicle sales fell 1 percent, as did those of General Motors. Fiat Chrysler reported a decline of 8 percent compared with 2016. Volkswagen said its sales in the U.S. rose by 5 percent.

But even with the decline, the industry sold 17.2 million cars, making 2017 the fourth-best sales year in U.S. history, after 2000, 2015 and 2016, according to Kelley Blue Book.

For the 36th straight year, Ford’s F-Series pickup truck remained the top-selling vehicle in the country. Mercedes-Benz was the top selling luxury brand, even with a sales decline of 1 percent.

Analysts expect auto sales to fall in 2018 because of higher interest rates. But they say the vehicles themselves are to blame for some of the decline. The newer models are more durable so drivers are holding on to their cars longer. The average age of vehicles on the road has climbed to 11.6 years, up from 8.8 years in 1998.

Despite the decline, the industry remains robust. The average price of a new vehicle reached an all-time high last year of $36,113, as drivers bought bigger SUVs with more sophisticated technology.

“It’s still a buoyant industry and the underlying factors that drive it are still very positive,” Ford’s U.S. sales chief, Mark LaNeve, said.
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A music publisher is seeking at least $1.6 billion from Spotify for alleged copyright violations, the latest lawsuit to hit the fast-growing streaming company.

Wixen Music Publishing Inc., which holds rights to songs of major artists including Neil Young, the Doors, Tom Petty and Santana, charged in a lawsuit that Spotify failed to seek licenses for significant parts of its 30 million-song catalog.

“While Spotify has become a multibillion-dollar company, songwriters and their publishers, such as Wixen, have not been able to fairly and rightfully share in Spotify’s success, as Spotify has in many cases used their music without a license and without compensation,” said the lawsuit filed last week in a federal court in Los Angeles.

The lawsuit said that Spotify initially tried to work with record labels but, “in a race to be first to market, made insufficient efforts to collect the required musical composition information.”

Wixen, which is seeking a jury trial against the Swedish company, presented a list of 10,784 songs for which it questioned Spotify’s permission to stream.

The publisher said it was seeking the maximum allowed $150,000 in damages for copyright damages for each song, meaning an award of at least $1.6 billion, along with the fees of its lawyers.

Spotify did not immediately comment on the latest suit. In May, it reached an agreement to settle a pair of two similar lawsuits under which Spotify said it would set up a $43.45 million fund to compensate songwriters.

Wixen called the settlement, which still needs final approval from a judge, “grossly insufficient” and said that it would opt out of the deal insofar as possible.

Even if unsuccessful, lawsuits amount to a headache for Spotify as the company considers going public.

Spotify, which has been valued at anywhere from $8 billion to $16 billion, has maintained its dominance as streaming rapidly grows and transforms the recorded music market.

Spotify said in July that it had 60 million users worldwide who pay for subscriptions, with 80 million more using its free tier.
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Brazil’s road to economic recovery has passed another milestone with official data showing Tuesday that the country finished 2017 with a record trade surplus 40.5 percent higher than in the previous year.

The $67 billion surplus was in line with market projections and within the $65 billion to $70 billion range forecast by the government.

Brazil’s economy is projected to grow 2 percent this year, according to an annual report by the United Nations-backed Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) released last month.

That is unspectacular but solid — and far better than the 0.2 percent expected for 2017, or the two years of its worst-ever recession preceding that.

The government’s own projections are slightly more optimistic: 3 percent in 2018 and 1.1 percent in 2017.

Economy Minister Henrique Meirelles said last month that the improvement was owed to better “fiscal control, the approval of a freeze on public spending and reforms in general.”

The country’s key interest rate is now at a record low of 7 percent, half of what it was in late 2016. Inflation is now considered a minimal risk.

Brazil’s center-right president, Michel Temer, has spearheaded austerity cuts, looser labor laws and a big privatization program to boost the economy, Latin America’s largest.

But Temer remains unpopular with voters, clouding the political outlook ahead of presidential election this year.

The front-runners for the election are leftist former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and rightwing former army officer Jair Bolsonaro. Neither man is much welcomed by investors.
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Coal mining deaths surged in the U.S. in 2017, one year after they hit a record low.

The nation’s coal mines recorded 15 deaths last year, including eight in West Virginia. Kentucky had two deaths, and there were one each in Alabama, Colorado, Montana, Pennsylvania and Wyoming. In 2016 there were eight U.S. coal mine deaths.

West Virginia has led the nation in coal mining deaths in six of the past eight years. That includes 2010, when 29 miners were killed in an explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in southern West Virginia.

In September, President Donald Trump appointed retired coal company executive David Zatezalo as the new chief of the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Most of the deaths this year occurred before his appointment. The Wheeling resident retired in 2014 as chairman of Rhino Resources.

Zatezalo was narrowly approved by the Senate in November. His appointment was opposed by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who said he was not convinced Zatezalo was suited to oversee the federal agency that implements and enforces mine safety laws and standards.

Last month the Trump administration brought up for review standards implemented by Barack Obama’s administration that lowered the allowable limits for miners’ exposure to coal dust. MSHA indicated it is reconsidering rules meant to protect underground miners from breathing coal and rock dust — the cause of black lung — and diesel exhaust, which can cause cancer.

Eight coal mining deaths this year involved hauling vehicles and two others involved machinery. None were attributed to an explosion of gas or dust, which was to blame for the Upper Big Branch disaster.

The number of coal mining fatalities was under 20 for the fourth straight year after reaching exactly 20 in 2011, 2012 and 2013. By comparison, in 1966, the mining industry counted 233 deaths. A century ago there were 2,226.

MSHA has attributed low numbers in previous years to far fewer coal mining jobs and tougher enforcement of mining safety rules. Zatezalo, who said in October that his first priority was preventing people from getting hurt, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment left with MSHA on Tuesday.

There have been 13 fatalities in 2017 in non-coal mines that produce gravel, sand, limestone and mineable metals. There also were 17 such deaths in 2015 and 30 in 2014.

Coal production

Appalachia has been especially hit hard by the closing of dozens of mines in recent years, but there was a turnaround in production in 2017.

According to the Energy Information Administration’s weekly estimates, U.S. coal production increased 8.9 percent in the 52 weeks ending Dec. 23, the latest available. Production in West Virginia increased 16 percent, including 25 percent in coal-rich southern West Virginia.

Wyoming, the top coal-producing state, saw a 10.7 percent increase and Pennsylvania had an 11.6 percent hike.

There were about 92,000 working miners in the United States in 2011, compared with about 52,000 in 2016, the lowest figure since the Energy Information Administration began collecting data in 1978. The 2017 numbers are not yet available.
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Airlines recorded zero accident deaths in commercial passenger jets last year, according to a Dutch consulting firm and an aviation safety group that tracks crashes, making 2017 the safest year on record for commercial air travel.

Dutch aviation consulting firm To70 and the Aviation Safety Network both reported Monday there were no commercial passenger jet fatalities in 2017. “2017 was the safest year for aviation ever,” said Adrian Young of To70.

To70 estimated that the fatal accident rate for large commercial passenger flights is 0.06 per million flights, or one fatal accident for every 16 million flights.

The Aviation Safety Network also reported there were no commercial passenger jet deaths in 2017, but 10 fatal airliner accidents resulting in 44 fatalities onboard and 35 persons on the ground, including cargo planes and commercial passenger turbo prop aircraft.

That figure includes 12 people killed on Dec. 31 when a Nature Air Cessna 208B Grand Caravan aircraft crashed minutes after takeoff into a mountainous area off the beach town of Punta Islita, Costa Rica.

In comparison, there were 16 accidents and 303 deaths in 2016 among airliners.

The deadliest incident last year occurred in January when a Turkish cargo jet smashed into a village in Kyrgyzstan as it tried to land at a nearby airport in dense fog, killing 35 on the ground and all four onboard.

The Aviation Safety Network said 2017 was “the safest year ever, both by the number of fatal accidents as well as in terms of fatalities.”

Over the last two decades aviation deaths around the world have been steadily falling. As recently as 2005, there were 1,015 deaths aboard commercial passenger flights worldwide, the Aviation Safety Network said.

The United States last recorded a fatal airline passenger jet crash in February 2009, when Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed short of the runway in Clarence Center, New York, killing 49 onboard and one person on the ground.

In 2016, 412 people were killed in the United States in aviation accidents — nearly all in general aviation accidents and none on commercial passenger airlines.

The last fatal passenger jet airliner accident worldwide took place in November 2016 near Medellin, Colombia and the last commercial passenger aircraft crash to kill more than 100 people occurred in October 2015 in Egypt.
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More than two decades after California became the first U.S. state to legalize medical marijuana use, on January first it becomes the final West Coast state to legalize pot for recreational purposes — a move approved by California voters in November 2016, in a referendum known as Prop 64.

While this is good news for cannabis enthusiasts, those with visions of unencumbered marijuana use in the California sunshine will find that reality is not quite so cut-and-dried — meaning, simple — referring to the processing of tobacco leaves.

Most importantly, while seven U.S. states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational marijuana use, the U.S. federal government still considers it a controlled substance, classified with heroin and LSD as illegal drugs. Elsewhere, 29 states have legalized medical marijuana, and Maine and Massachusetts are set to legalize recreational pot in 2018.

Federal versus state law

Former White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters in February 2017 that the Department of Justice may be looking into legal marijuana use in the future.

“When you see something like the opioid addiction crisis blossoming around so many states… the last thing we should be doing is encouraging people,” Spicer said.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, an opponent of legalized pot, said in November that he is taking a close look at federal enforcement of anti-drug laws that include marijuana. “Good people don’t smoke marijuana,” he said at a Senate hearing in 2016.

Federal and state laws come more into play in California, which has several U.S. Border Patrol checkpoints, at which federal agents, mainly searching for illegal immigrants, are also empowered to seize pot stashes and prosecute the owners.

The Associated Press quotes Ronald Vitiello, acting deputy commissioner of the federal Customs and Border Protection agency, as calling drug seizures at border checkpoints an “ancillary effect”of enforcing immigration laws.

In addition to 34 permanent checkpoints along the U.S. border with Mexico, Border Patrol operates more than 100 “tactical” stops that may appear or disappear as needed, as far as 161 kilometers inside the U.S. border.

AP reports that people found with pot at those checkpoints are typically photographed and fingerprinted, and their stashes seized. The report says those people often aren’t charged with a crime, however, because pot possession in small amounts is considered a low-priority offense.

The checkpoints are legal. Border Patrol agents say they help catch illegal immigrants who have made it past the U.S. border and might disappear into a large city; and the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that agents can question people at checkpoints even if they have no reason to believe anyone inside the car is in the country illegally.

Bureau of Cannabis Control

Meanwhile, California has created its own Bureau of Cannabis Control to regulate the growing and sale of cannabis.

Bureau spokesman Alex Traverso told the Los Angeles Times that about eight enforcement officers will be in place by January 1.

The bureau has issued fewer than 200 temporary business licenses so far, although cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco are expected later to issue their own local licenses, which will be required to get a state permit. Only a few dozen retail outlets are expected to be up and running by January 1.

Many localities inside California have not yet approved recreational pot use — and some may choose not to do so at all. Cannabis Control did not start issuing licenses to sell recreational cannabis until mid-December, so many applications are still in the works.

San Diego, San Jose, Oakland, Berkeley and Eureka are among the towns where pot stores can open on January 1.

Still proponents of legalized pot say bringing the drug out into the open makes it possible to tax sales of cannabis — which lawmakers hope will result in $1 billion a year in new tax revenue for the state. The money will come from a 15 percent state excise tax on every cannabis purchase. Local governments can place additional taxes on top of that — or they can ban pot shops entirely, if they choose.

Daniel Yi, a spokesman for the L.A.-area dispensary Med Men, says he expects an eighth of an ounce of pot to go for about $35 when two Med Men shops begin selling to recreational users on January 2. He told Reuters news agency that three other locations will probably not begin selling to recreational users for a few more weeks.

Keeping out of trouble

Further moves to keep control on the industry include guidelines for retailers, and age and use limits for consumers.

Pot sales will be restricted to people who are age 21 or older, but anyone visiting the state who is of age may buy and consume marijuana at legal outlets. Prop 64 specifically prohibits marketing of pot products to minors.

Pot shops cannot be within 180 meters (600 feet) of a school and they must maintain 24-hour surveillance. They also cannot open before 6 a.m. and must close by 10 p.m.

California anti-smoking laws make it illegal to smoke pot in places where regular tobacco smoking is banned. Employers may still subject employees to drug tests to ensure a drug-free workplace.

Drivers are being warned not to drive after using pot. While it is harder to measure a person’s intoxication level after smoking pot than it is after alcohol consumption, Hound Labs of Oakland is developing what it says is a “marijuana breathalyzer” for cops and employers to gauge whether a person has been using while driving or on the job.

L.A. County Sheriff Jim McDonnell says he worries about people getting behind the wheel while high.

“The public’s perception is that weed is innocuous, that this is something they did 40 years ago and it is no big deal,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “Well, today’s marijuana is not yesterday’s marijuana. The active ingredient, THC, is so much higher today than back 40 years ago.”

As for food products containing THC, Californians will be able to consume them in any public place where food is normally consumed. The publishers of Mother Jones magazine say at least one of their readers wrote in to ask if there will be cannabis ice cream — and the answer, they say, is yes. Medical marijuana users have been consuming it for years. But there’s a catch: the amount of THC allowable in such items is limited to 10 milligrams per serving.

One other effect of the new pot law is that it will reduce penalties on people who have been convicted for pot crimes in the past. In addition to making pot more available, the law that legalized it, known as Prop 64, also makes pot crimes once viewed as felonies into lower-level misdemeanors. That means some people currently in California jails for selling or possessing pot could see their sentences reduced.
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China’s total domestic movie ticket sales rose 13.5 percent in 2017 to 55.9 billion yuan ($8.6 billion), a state news agency said Monday.

The top-grossing title was the mainland-made action picture “Wolf Warrior 2,” which took in 5.7 billion yuan ($875 million), the Xinhua News Agency said, citing data from the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.

China is the second-largest global film market and is narrowing the gap with the United States, where last year’s domestic box office is estimated to have declined 2.6 percent from 2016 to $11.1 billion.

Mainland-made movies accounted for 54 percent of 2017 ticket sales, or 30.1 billion yuan ($4.6 billion), according to Xinhua.

The No. 2-grossing title was the Hollywood action movie “The Fate of the Furious,” which earned 2.7 billion yuan.
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North America couldn’t catch a break in 2017. Parts of the United States were on fire, underwater or lashed by hurricane winds. Mexico shook with back-to-back earthquakes. The Caribbean got hit with a string of hurricanes.

The rest of the world, however, fared better. Preliminary research shows there were fewer disasters and deaths this year than on average, but economic damages were much higher.

While overall disasters were down, they smacked big cities, which were more vulnerable because of increased development, said economist and geophysicist Chuck Watson of the consulting firm Enki Research.

In a year where U.S. and Caribbean hurricanes caused a record $215 billion worth of damage, according to insurance giant Munich Re, no one in the continental U.S. died from storm surge, which traditionally is the No. 1 killer during hurricanes. Forecasters gave residents plenty of advance warning during a season where storms set records for strength and duration.

“It’s certainly one of the worst hurricane seasons we’ve had,” National Weather Service Director Louis Uccellini said.

The globe typically averages about 325 disasters a year, but this year’s total through November was fewer than 250, according to the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters at the University of Louvain in Belgium. They included flooding and monsoons in South Asia, landslides in Africa, a hurricane in Ireland, and cyclones in Australia and Central America. Colombia experienced two different bouts of floods and mudslides.

Lower tolls

Disasters kill about 30,000 people and affect about 215 million people a year. This year’s estimated toll was lower — about 6,000 people killed and 75 million affected.

Was it a statistical quirk or the result of better preparedness? Experts aren’t certain, but say perhaps it’s a little bit of each.

“This has been a particularly quiet year,” said Debarati Guha-Sapir, who heads the disaster research center. “The thing is not to be … complacent about this.”

But quiet depends on where you live.

The U.S. had gone more than a decade without a Category 3 storm or larger making landfall on the mainland. The last few Septembers — normally peak hurricane month — had been particularly quiet, but this year, Harvey, Irma, Jose and later Maria popped up and grew to super strength in no time, said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.

“September was just bonkers. It was just one after the other. You couldn’t catch a break,” he said.

There were six major Atlantic hurricanes this year; the average is 2.7. A pair of recent studies found fingerprints of man-made global warming were all over the torrential rains from Harvey that flooded Houston.

Researchers at the University of South Carolina estimated that economic damage from this year’s disasters, adjusted for inflation, were more than 40 percent higher than normal, mostly because of Harvey, Irma and Maria. By many private measures, Harvey overtook Katrina as the costliest U.S. hurricane, but the weather service hasn’t finished its calculations yet.

Much of the hurricane-related damage and deaths in the Caribbean — from storm surge and other causes — is still unknown. The National Hurricane Center hasn’t finished tallying its data.

Uccellini of the weather service said warmer than normal waters and unusual steering currents made the hurricanes especially damaging, combined with booming development in disaster-prone areas. 

“We are building in the wrong places. We are building in areas that are increasing in risks,” said Susan Cutter, director of the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute at the University of South Carolina.

​Devastating wildfires

Wildfires blazed nearly year-round in the U.S., fanned by relentless winds and parched conditions. About 9.8 million acres of land have burned, mostly in the West, nearly 50 percent more than the average in the past decade. A wildfire that ignited in early December in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties northwest of Los Angeles grew to be the largest in California history.

Scientists connect drier weather after heavy rains — leading to buildup of fuel that can catch fire and burn easily — to a combination of man-made warming and a natural La Nina, the climate phenomenon that’s the flip side of El Nino, said Georgia Tech climate scientist Kim Cobb.

Worldwide, drought affected significantly less land and fewer people this year, and heat waves were less severe compared with those in the past.

Landslides were more frequent and deadlier this year, mostly because of the Sierra Leone landslide that killed 915 people, Guha-Sapir said.

Earthquakes worldwide were dramatically down. As of mid-December, there had been only seven earthquakes of magnitude 7 or larger compared with about 15 in a normal year. Two powerful quakes struck Mexico in September, including one that hit on the anniversary of the devastating 1985 Mexico City quake.

The back-to-back Mexico quakes were unrelated, said geophysicist Ross Stein of Temblor Inc., a company that provides information about seismic risk. 

“We have to remember that coincidences really do happen,” he said. 
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There were no fireworks on Wall Street for the last trading day of the year, as U.S. stocks closed out their best year since 2013 on a down note, with losses in technology and financial stocks keeping equities in negative territory for the session.

Major indexes hit a series of record highs in 2017, lifted by a combination of strong economic growth, solid corporate earnings, low interest rates and hopes for a tax cut from U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.

The benchmark S&P 500 surged 19.5 percent this year, the blue-chip Dow 25.2 percent and Nasdaq 28.2 percent, as each of the major Wall Street indexes scored the best yearly performance since 2013.

The market has also remained resilient in the face of tensions in North Korea and political turmoil in Washington. The S&P 500 only saw four sessions all year with a decline of more than 1 percent while the CBOE Volatility index topped out at 15.96 on a closing basis, well below its long-term average of 20.

What will 2018 bring?

“The real question is what happens as we head into 2018,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research in New York. “There is an awful lot of optimism built into share prices right now that could set us up for disappointment.”

Among sectors, the technology index has been the best performer, up 37 percent and led by a gain of 87.6 percent in Micron Technology.

Telecom services, down 5.7 percent, and energy, down 3.7 percent, were the only two sectors to end the year in the red.

The rally is widely expected to extend into 2018, boosted by gains from a new law that lowers the tax burden on U.S. corporations.

Last day a down day

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 118.29 points, or 0.48 percent, on Friday to close at 24,719.22, the S&P 500 lost 13.93 points, or 0.52 percent, to 2,673.61 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 46.77 points, or 0.67 percent, to 6,903.39.

For the week, the Dow lost 0.13 percent, the S&P 500 shed 0.36 percent and the Nasdaq lost 0.81 percent.

Apple declined 1.08 percent after issuing a rare apology for slowing older iPhones with flagging batteries.

Goldman Sachs lost 0.68 percent after saying its fourth-quarter profit would take a $5 billion hit related to the new tax law.

Amazon fell 1.4 percent after Trump targeted the online retailer in a call for the country’s postal service to raise prices of shipments in order to recoup costs.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 1.46-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.91-to-1 ratio favored decliners.

The S&P 500 posted 36 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 81 new highs and 20 new lows.

Volume on U.S. exchanges was 4.94 billion shares, compared to the 6.4 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.
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