Finance and Economic

The president’s signature foreclosure rescue plan is losing its punch, according to a federal report released Friday.

Only 36,695 troubled homeowners received long-term mortgage modifications in July under the Obama administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program, known as HAMP. This brings the total to 434,717 borrowers who have successfully made it out of the trial phase.

A month ago, 51,205 delinquent borrowers were given long-term assistance.

The number of people falling out of the program, however, is on the rise. Some 12,912 homeowners had their permanent modifications canceled in July, 272 of whom paid off their loans.

Obama officials acknowledge that the foreclosure rescue program will not help every troubled homeowner and that it may be a while before the housing market stabilizes. They are shifting their focus to initiatives that are targeted to those who have been hit by the recession and declining home prices.

"While there has been some stabilization in the housing market, it remains clear that we have more work ahead," said Raphael Bostic, assistant housing secretary. "We know that we must continue to provide support to underwater borrowers, unemployed homeowners, and to the nation’s hardest hit neighborhoods."

Foreclosure prevention programs have taken on renewed importance with the housing market on shaky ground again. A spike in foreclosures, combined with weak housing sales, could send home prices plummeting again.

In July, foreclosures were up 3.6% from the month before but down 9.7% from the year earlier period, according to RealtyTrac.

Defaults on the rise

The latest report comes two weeks after the government had to revise its June redefault figures sharply higher, after analysts called the initial numbers misleading.

The revision showed that nearly 20% of homeowners were at least two months delinquent nine months after receiving a permanent modification. The initial figure showed that 7.7% had fallen behind.

The government did not provide redefault statistics for July in the current report. Officials said the data would be released quarterly.

Analysts at Barclay’s Capital said last month said 60% of homeowners may ultimately redefault instant personal loans guaranteed.

Status of trial mods

Some 96,025 people in trial modifications were canceled in July, bringing the total to 616,839 since the program began in the spring of 2009.

Homeowners usually are kicked out of the trial program because they do not make the required payments, meet the qualifications or submit the needed paperwork. Going forward, loan servicers will gather the necessary documents and review homeowners’ eligibility before entering them in trial modifications.

Once their trials are canceled, about 45.4% of homeowners receive alternate modifications, often one from their loan servicer. Some 9.8% had foreclosure proceedings started against them and 1.8% lost their home in foreclosure.

Only 255,934 troubled borrowers remain in the trial phase, some 24,577 of whom entered the program in July. Nearly 118,000 have been in trials for at least six months, though loan servicers should address these homeowners in the next month, administration officials said.

Another new program

Launched with great fanfare, the president’s foreclosure prevention plan calls for servicers to reduce eligible troubled homeowners’ monthly payments to no more than 31% of their pre-tax income. However, it has come under persistent fire for being slow to launch and for not helping enough people.

Meanwhile, the government is set to roll out yet another fix for the housing market. Borrowers can start applying for the FHA Short Refinance option starting Sept. 7.

The program allows those who owe more than their homes are worth to refinance into a Federal Housing Administration-backed loan provided they are current on their mortgages and their lender agrees to write off at least 10% of their principal balance. The initiative is open to those who do not currently have an FHA loan and who have a credit score of 500 or more.

In recent months, the administration has stressed the wide range of housing programs it has underway, including initiatives to keep interest rates low and to provide tax credits to first-time homebuyers.  

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GE announced Friday it will raise the quarterly dividend by 20% and will resume its share buyback program at the end of the quarter.

The Fairbanks, Conn.-based company will pay a dividend of 12 cents per share, up from 10 cents, on Oct. 25 to investors on record when the market closes Sept. 20.

The board also said it will extend the company’s $15 billion share repurchase program through 2013. The plan, which was originally set to expire at the end of the year but was suspended in 2008, has $11.6 billion in remaining authorization.

"We are able to restore the GE dividend at a historical payout level for 2010, earlier than previously anticipated," said GE chief executive Jeff Immelt, "and to extend our share buyback program because of continued strong cash generation, recovery at GE Capital and solid underlying performance in our industrial businesses through the first half of 2010 Online payday loans."

Last week, GE reported quarterly earnings that jumped 16% from a year earlier to $3.1 billion, as its finance arm GE Capital showed signs of stabilization.

Shares of GE (GE, Fortune 500) were up 3.4% in afternoon trading.  

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The University of Hawaii Board of Regents approved on Monday construction of the world’s largest telescope atop Mauna Kea on the Big Island.

The unanimous vote, required because UH is leasing the land from the state, clears the way for project developers to file for a building permit with the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

The telescope will be able to collect nine times more area, have a spatial resolution 12 times sharper and provide up to 100 times the image clarity of the most powerful telescopes currently in existence, according to the project’s website. Scientists hope the telescope will in part provide insight into the physics of the universe’s early formation as well as massive black holes.

A joint project between the University of California, the California Institute of Technology and the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy, the project has attracted excitement within the scientific community, but also controversy.

Some Native Hawaiians argue that it will disrupt sacred land. Kealoha Tiscotti of Mauna Kea Aina Hou said the telescope threatens Native Hawaiian burial grounds and important ceremonial land.

“It’s a huge footprint,” Tiscotti said in reference to the size of the proposed telescope low rate payday loans.

Conservation groups, including Kahea: The Hawaiian Environmental Alliance, also have expressed concern over the disruption of the ecosystem.

Marti Townsend, program director for Kahea, said her organization plans to continue protesting the telescope and will register opposition with the DLNR when the building permit is filed.

The project’s directors say they have reached out to the community, meeting with Native Hawaiians, local schools, labor unions and local officials.

“We believe this partnership will benefit the Big Island and Hawaii in so many ways, with jobs, the economy, work-force development, education, the environment, culture and, of course, science,” said Henry Yang, chairman of the project’s board of directors, in a prepared statement. “The world-class stature of astronomical education and research of the University of Hawaii on all its campuses statewide will benefit, and discoveries made by this telescope will benefit not only the international science community, but all of humankind.”

The proposed telescope is projected to begin operations in 2018.

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Shares of rig operator Transocean Ltd. rose more than 10 percent Friday after analysts downplayed the company’s liability in the Gulf oil spill.

As Congress continues its investigation of the disaster, analysts say that Transocean’s potential liability appears to be declining. The rise in shares helps recover at least some losses after Transocean’s stock began its slide from about $90 per share just before the explosion of the April 20 Deepwater Horizon rig, which Transocean operated for BP.

Shares of Transocean (NYSE: RIG) closed Friday at $54.61, up $5.18 from its previous close.

The company, which has its corporate headquarters in Switzerland but maintains a significant presence in Houston, is faring better than other firms involved in the Gulf oil spill.

Both BP and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. suffered downgrades from rating agencies this week.

BP (NYSE: BP) took a downgrade by Moody’s Friday when the agency lowered the company’s rating from A2 to Aa2 on fears of the escalating cleanup and liability costs. That’s the third downgrade by a rating agency this week for BP.

Anadarko (NYSE: APC), which holds a 25 percent stake in the Macondo well where the Deepwater Horizon exploded, was downgraded by Fitch to “negative” from “stable” earlier this week after the agency estimated the spill could cost Anadarko up to $6 billion.

The Houston Business Journal is providing continuous coverage of the Gulf oil spill.

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A split-session job fair is being held Tuesday, June at Fairgrounds Gaming & Raceway in Hamburg.

The first session runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and then from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Available positions will be filled between July and August.

The facility, located on the fairgrounds in Hamburg, is operated by Delaware North Companies Inc faxless payday advance.

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Need a cab? Just text.

St. Louis County Cab/Yellow Cab, the area’s largest taxi company, has rolled “text for taxi.”

Customers can text their pick-up address and ZIP code to 971-TAXI (8294).

President Basil Rudawsky said the company was the first locally to offer the text service.

Customers also can order a cab online.

“We have received great feedback from our customers,” Rudawsky said.

St. Louis County Cab/Yellow Cab is owned and operated by Tom Gregerson and has a fleet of more than 250 vehicles.

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Facebook unveiled a host of changes at its f8 developers conference that are already ruffling some users’ feathers.

Many of the changes take advantage of big revisions that Facebook made to its privacy settings in late March. Those changes opened the door to allow select third-party Web sites the ability to access and store some users’ personal information. (See correction below)

Those sites can use that information to show what a user’s Facebook friends have been doing on their sites. CNN, IMDB.com and ESPN.com are among the first sites signing up to use the technology. So if you’re a Facebook user reading CNN.com, you’ll be able to see what all your Facebook friends are looking at, view recommended stories and see which friends liked which stories.

Users will be able to share more of the outside Web with their social network.

"This is the most transformative thing we’ve ever done for the Web," said Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg in his keynote address Wednesday. "These new technologies will help create instantly social and personalized experiences on the Web."

But even before the announcement, critics expressed concern about the privacy implications of such a service. A similar program called Beacon, unveiled in 2007, caused such a stir among users that the company canned it last year.

Some experts say Facebook learned from its mistakes with Beacon, but it still needs to frame the argument better to get its customers on board. Instead of waiting until Wednesday, Facebook somewhat covertly made the proposed change to its privacy policy late last month and opened it up for public comment.

"It’s not a surprise that the feedback has been quite negative so far," said Augie Ray, social networking analyst for Forrester Research. "Facebook needs to start framing these issues in ways that make the benefits to consumers clear. They’re being much more transparent, but there’s still a lot of room for improvement."

Despite some pushback from users, the move is part of a big effort from Facebook to continue to grow beyond facebook.com.

"It’s evident that Facebook wishes to expand its reach," said Ray. "Facebook has created a very effective and valuable destination site that eats up enormous amounts of users’ time, but for the most part, users have to go to facebook.com to get that value."

Big changes

Universal "like" button: One of the major new items that users will see is a "like" button displayed on Web sites outside of Facebook. The social network will collect that data to better understand and map its users preferences.

The "like" button on Facebook broadcasts what photos, comments or posts a user likes. Facebook announced Wednesday that "like" buttons will start to show up across the Internet, enabling users to share items with friends even when they’re not physically on facebook.com.

For instance, liking "The Godfather" on IMDB.com will put that movie in a user’s movie interests section of their Facebook page. Liking a baseball player on ESPN.com will put up-to-date information about that player in a user’s news feed.

To compliment the universal "like" button, Facebook has changed its internal "Become a Fan" button to "like" as well.

Facebook also will provide a Facebook "social bar" tool that third-party Web sites can display at the bottom of a page, which will let users access some Facebook features without leaving the site, including chat, and activity streams. Similarly, Facebook said third-party Web sites will soon be able to host a number of Facebook features on their sites.

New profiles, new pages: Facebook is changing users’ profile pages so that the "pages" section will no longer appear in a separate section on the bottom of the "info" page. Those pages will be brought up to the "interests" section.

Users will be asked to convert their interests into fan pages: Is one of your interests "The Beatles?" Well, now you can become a fan of The Beatles in a single click. By default, users will receive notifications from their fan pages in their news feed.

Facebook also added new privacy settings that allow a user to control who sees all of those connections.

Community pages: So what about interests like "hiking," "napping" or "cooking," which don’t have Facebook pages? Now they do.

Facebook unveiled about 6.5 million "community pages" this week, which take the "fan page" concept and apply them to ideas, locations or interests.

Currently, community pages are pretty rudimentary. A user can see posts from friends related to that topic as well as what the overall public is saying about it. There is also a link to a Wikipedia article on the subject. Users can’t yet add any content to these pages, but that ability will come soon.

Real-time search: Also among the biggest announcements is real-time search on third-party search sites, similar to Twitter’s service. Facebook announced that users’ public posts will be available for search on sites like Google and Bing.

"It remains to be seen how consumers would adopt real-time search of Facebook feeds," said Ray. "It’s a different kind of search from Google and Twitter — would you want to search on Google to see what your friends say?"

Correction: An earlier version of this story failed to state when the privacy changes were made. They were made on March 26. 

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Bruton Smith, chief executive of Speedway Motorsports Inc., saw a drop in his compensation last year to $1.7 million.

Smith received $1.9 million in 2008.

According to a company filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Smith was paid a salary of $600,000 and received nonequity incentives of $1.1 million last year.

He received a salary of $600,000 and nonequity incentives of $1.3 million in 2008.

Speedway Motorsports (NYSE:TRK) is a Concord-based promoter of motorsports entertainment. The company owns and operates Charlotte Motor Speedway, Atlanta Motor Speedway, Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee, Infineon Raceway in California, Kentucky Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, New Hampshire Motor Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway near Fort Worth.

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St. Louis — Eminent domain might yet be used to give land to developer Paul McKee.

But it could also be used to take his land away.

That prospect was raised recently when the Missouri Department of Transportation launched eminent domain proceedings against a McKee-owned holding company over five properties it owns around the foot of the yet-to-be-built Mississippi River bridge.

And while both MoDOT and McKee say the actual use of the controversial land-taking process is unlikely, the filing serves as a reminder that the developer doesn’t hold all the cards in his $8.1 billion plan to rebuild a distressed swath of north St. Louis.

The case, filed in St. Louis Circuit Court on Friday, concerns roughly three acres McKee’s Northside Regeneration LLC owns along Cass Avenue and Mullanphy Street, north of downtown, in the planned footprint of the new bridge. For months, McKee has been negotiating with MoDOT over price and rights-of-way, but the two sides haven’t reached a deal yet.

To meet requirements for federal funding on the $640 million bridge, MoDOT must make clear that it will acquire all the land it needs, said regional counsel Philip Morgan. So, the department filed paperwork to start eminent domain.

"It’s just part of our normal process. We acquire real estate all the time," he said. "Most of it we acquire by negotiation. Some of it invariably ends up in my office."

A hearing has been set for May 24, and the process will go forward from there. In the meantime, Morris said, talks continue and MoDOT is open to a deal. McKee said one is near.

"We’re very, very close," he said. "I think we’re days away from having it settled."

The threat of eminent domain — used by McKee, not upon him — has hung over NorthSide since it was unveiled last year. Despite repeated promises by both the developer and city officials that it won’t be used on owner-occupied homes, fear remains that people will be forced to move to make way for the project.

That fear is behind a lawsuit against NorthSide, which is now being considered in St. Louis Circuit Court. A ruling is expected in May by Judge Robert Dierker, the same judge who now may be asked to consider MoDOT’s request for McKee’s land, if an agreement is not reached.

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It turns out that Google isn’t the only U.S. tech company that’s fed up with China.

Go Daddy, the Internet domain registration site, announced Wednesday it is no longer offering new ".cn" Chinese Web domains, citing tough new government rules requiring extensive personal information from applicants.

The move makes Go Daddy the first U.S. Internet company to shut down some of its business in China after Google shipped off its Chinese search site to Hong Kong on Monday. Like Google (GOOG, Fortune 500), Go Daddy said access to its site has been spotty in China since its announcement.

At a hearing held by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, Go Daddy’s general counsel, Christine Jones, told lawmakers that China recently implemented new laws requiring Go Daddy to collect color headshot photos, business ID numbers and signed registration forms from new registrants of ".cn" domain names. Go Daddy, in turn, was required to surrender that information to government authorities.

Jones said China’s new rules also applied retroactively, so the company would have to go back to Chinese customers that had already registered, asking them to provide photos, business ID numbers and registration forms.

China’s Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), the government-controlled Internet regulator, informed Go Daddy that if existing customers did not comply, their domain names would no longer work.

"We were immediately concerned about the motives behind the increased level of registrant verification being required by CNNIC," said Jones in her testimony cash advances pay day loan. "The intent of the new procedures appeared, to us, to be based on a desire by the Chinese authorities to exercise increased control over the subject matter of domain name registrations by Chinese nationals."

Go Daddy found that its users weren’t willing to play along: Only about 20% of Go Daddy’s 27,000 affected customers submitted the required documentation and gave Go Daddy the OK to submit it to the Chinese authorities, Jones said. As a result, the company anticipated that thousands of Web sites registered by Go Daddy could be disabled by the Chinese government.

The company said it would continue to host and provide services to its existing customers with ".cn" addresses. Jones told lawmakers that the company would consider providing new ".cn." addresses if the Chinese government rescinds its new law.

Go Daddy was widely applauded by lawmakers for its actions in China, as was Google. The same can’t be said for Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500): at the hearing, Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., accused the company of "enabling tyranny" for continuing to censor search results in China.

Known for its sex-themed television commercials, Go Daddy is the largest Internet domain registration site in the world, managing more than 40 million domain names. Go Daddy also hosts about 7 million Web sites. Go Daddy began its business in China in 2005. 

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