“Bank of America Corp., the second- biggest U.S. lender by assets, agreed to pay Fannie Mae$3.6 billion to resolve home-loan repurchase claims.

The lender will also pay $6.75 billion to repurchase residential mortgages sold to Fannie Mae,Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America said today in a statement. The deal will “substantially resolve outstanding claims for compensatory fees” between the two companies, according to the statement.

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other buyers of mortgages have demanded compensation for loans created by Countrywide Financial Corp., which Bank of America acquired in 2008, claiming the loans were based on flawed data about the properties and borrowers. Losses from Countrywide, the largest U.S. mortgage lender as recently as 2007 before billions of dollars in soured loans prompted its sale to Bank of America, have continued to plague the lender, leading to more than $40 billion in costs.

“These agreements are a significant step in resolving our remaining legacy mortgage issues, further streamlining and simplifying the company and reducing expenses over time,” Bank of America Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan, 53, said in the statement….”

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“Global central bank chiefs gave lenders four more years to meet international liquidity requirements and watered down the measures in a bid to stave off another credit crunch.

Banks won the delay to fully meet the so-called liquidity coverage ratio, or LCR, following a deal struck by regulatory chiefs meeting yesterday in Basel, Switzerland. They’ll be able to pick from a longer list of approved assets including equities and securitized mortgage debt as they seek to build up buffers of liquidity for use in a financial crisis.

“This was a compromise between competing views from around the world,” Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said at a briefing following yesterday’s meeting. King chairs the Group of Governors and Heads of Supervision, or GHOS, which decides on global bank rules. “For the first time in regulatory history we have a truly global minimum standard for bank liquidity.”

Banks and top officials such as European Central Bank President Mario Draghi pushed for changes to the LCR, arguing that it would choke interbank lending and make it harder for authorities to implement monetary policies. Lenders have warned that the measure might force them to cut back loans to businesses and households.

“The new liquidity standard will in no way hinder the ability of the global banking system to finance a global recovery,” King said. “It’s a realistic approach. It certainly did not emanate from an attempt to weaken the standard.”

Shares Rise…”

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“NEW YORK (AP) — PNC Bank has warned customers that its websites are getting hit with high traffic consistent with computer attacks.

In an e-mail to nearly 5 million customers, PNC says the traffic is meant to cause delays for legitimate online banking customers. It says other banks are experiencing similar traffic spikes but did not identify them.

The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer said in a story Thursday that in recent weeks, “websites of several of the largest banks have been hit sporadically by so-called ‘distributed denial-of-service attacks.’ The attacks flood the websites with so much traffic that it makes it difficult for customers to log into their online accounts or get information.” ”

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“U.S. auto sales rose 9 percent in December, led by foreign manufacturers, capping off the best year for the industry since before the recession.

The year’s sales were driven by a slowly recovering economy, more available credit and the need for consumers and businesses to replace aging cars and trucks.

General Motors Co. posted December U.S. sales growth of 5 percent compared with the year-earlier month, Ford Motor Co. increased sales 2 percent and Chrysler Group LLC’s sales rose 10 percent.

Wall Street cheered the results, sending GM and Ford stock to their highest levels since July 2011. GM shares ended 2.4 percent higher at $29.82 and Ford shares were up 2 percent to end at $13.46 on Thursday.

Research and consulting firm Polk said it expects U.S. auto sales to hit 15.3 million vehicles in 2013. GM and Ford both predicted industry sales of more than 15 million vehicles, but Toyota Motor Corp offered a more modest forecast of 14.7 million vehicles.

For the year just ended, U.S. auto sales rose 13.5 percent to nearly 14.5 million new vehicles, the best performance since 2007, according to Reuters calculations.

In the decade prior to 2008 when the recession slowed the industry, U.S. auto sales averaged nearly 17 million vehicles a year….”

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With a sad twist of irony, corporate and government elite dine on safe, organic food while the masses, those very people who are supposedly represented and protected by their governments, are poisoned by hidden genetically modified organisms, pesticides and dangerous contaminants. The presidential family demands organic food in their kitchen, yet behind closed doors, shake hands with the biotech industry. China’s top brass is fed by an exclusive, gated organic garden while the rest of the population consumes GM food, steroid contaminated meat and dairy laced with melamine. Even Monsanto’s own employee’s command non-genetically modified food in their canteen. Access to clean, organic and healthy food is not a given right anymore — it has become a political battleground with the average citizen suffering the loss.

White House double-take

While First Lady Michelle Obama digs up the White House lawn to plant an organic garden, her husband promotes a GMO agenda within his administration. “You know, in my household, over the last year we have just shifted to organic,” she said in a New Yorker interview during Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Organic produce from the garden feeds the Obama family and visiting dignitaries alike. Seems okay so far. But then take a look at Obama’s laundry-list of presidential appointed positions with biotech ties: USDA head Roger Beachy, a former director at Monsanto, FDA food safety czar Michael Taylor, one-time vice president for public policy at Monsanto, Commissioner of the USDA Tom Vilsack who created the Governors’ Biotechnology Partnership. Under President Obama, 10 new GM crops have been approved for ‘safe consumption.’ ”

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“Transocean, the drilling company that owned the oil rig implicated in the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, will plead guilty to violating the Clean Water Act and pay a $1.4 billion fine, the Justice Department said Thursday.

Justice filed the agreement in a Louisiana court Thursday. A judge must approve the settlement.

Shares of Transocean jumped with news of the settlement, closing up more than 6% at $49.20 a share.

The settlement reflects the government’s contention that BP, a multi-national oil company based in London, is ultimately responsible for the April 20, 2010, blowout of the Macondo well that killed 11 rig workers and led to the largest oil spill in U. S. history….”

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“If you think the big banks learned painful lessons about risk-taking during the financial crisis, think again: They’re still taking the same risks, and we don’t even know how big those risks are.

In the latest edition of The Atlantic, Frank Partnoy and Jesse Eisinger have a 9400-word opus on the untold horrors lurking on big-bank balance sheets. The elevator summary: Boy, banks sure do a lot of dodgy trading, and they hide their potential losses from investors.

This may not come as shocking news. But it’s one of those things that we can’t hear often enough, with the momentum for reform cooling every day we get further away from the crisis. Big banks still have the capacity to blow up the financial system, and our inability to trust them makes another disaster even more likely.

Particularly useful is Partnoy and Eisinger’s deep dive into the latest annual report of a supposedly staid, conservative bank, Wells Fargo. The authors discover that the bank is not simply lending money and giving away toasters, like banks used to do. Based on the authors’ accounting, it looks like nearly $20 billion of Wells Fargo’s $81 billion in revenue in 2011 came from one kind of trading or another.

And the bank doesn’t offer much, if any, detail about the potential risks of that trading. How much money could Wells Fargo lose on its trades, which include hard-to-trade and hard-to-value derivatives? In the worst case, could the losses threaten the $148 billion in capital reserves Wells Fargo claims to have? Nobody knows, because Wells Fargo doesn’t tell us, and they’re not required to.

Meanwhile, even more risk is being shoved under the carpet, into entities that don’t show up on bank balance sheets, but for which the banks are nevertheless ultimately on the hook. These are the sorts of accounting tricks used by Enron and by the banks before the crisis, and they’re still in use….”

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“T-Mobile has just announced the BlackBerry Curve 9315, which will be available January 23 for the price of $49 on a 2-year agreement. They’re touting it as the most affordable BlackBerry on the T-Mobile network, and it is, but it’s also maybe the worst deal in smartphones right now. The Curve 9315 is essentially just the Curve 9310, which was launched in July 2012 and is RIM’s low-end phone. To see it rebranded for T-Mobile and introduced at this price on contract, hitting shelves a week before BB10 is officially unveiled is baffling.

BB10 is set to debut officially at a launch event January 30, taking place at a number of different locations worldwide. Reports and rumors suggest that the first phones using that operating system could go on sale shortly after that, possibly as early as February if not before. The Curve 9315 is being marketed as a low-cost device, and in fact “the most affordable BlackBerry smartphone” on T-Mobile’s network, but it will still come with a $49.99 “out-of-pocket down payment,” followed by 20 equal monthly payments of $10 and require that customers sign up for a 2-year special value agreement on T-Mobile’s Equipment Installment Plan. Or, if you’re going with a traditional contract plan (not the value variety), it’ll still cost you $49.99 (and that’s after a $50 mail-in rebate)…”

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“DEARBORN, Mich., Jan. 3, 2013 /PRNewswire/ —

• Ford Motor Company delivers U.S. sales gains across its lineup in 2012 – with cars up 5 percent, utilities up 7 percent and trucks up 2 percent
• F-Series sales up 10 percent for year; now America’s best-selling pickup for 36 years and best-selling vehicle for 31 years
• Ford commercial truck sales up 7 percent in 2012, marking the best sales year since 2008
• December total company sales up 2 percent – with the strongest December since 2006

Ford Motor Company’s U.S. sales grew across the board in 2012, with cars up 5 percent, utilities up 7 percent, and trucks up 2 percent for the year. Overall, the Ford brand ended 2012 with 2,168,015 vehicles sold – the only brand to top 2 million U.S. sales.

“Ford finished 2012 strong, with retail sales showing improved strength as more customers returned to dealer showrooms,” said Ken Czubay, Ford vice president, U.S. Marketing, Sales and Service. “Ford’s fuel-efficient cars and hybrid vehicles showed the most dramatic growth for the year, and we achieved our best year for commercial vehicle sales since 2008.”

Sales of Ford’s small cars were up 29 percent in 2012, with 316,006 vehicles sold, and overall car sales were up 5 percent in 2012, with 760,646 sold. Focus sales gained 40 percent during the year, and the all-new C-MAX continues its strong selling rate. In the first four months of sales, 13,309 C-MAX vehicles were sold, making it the fastest sales start of any hybrid vehicle in the industry.

Ford again became America’s best-selling brand of utility vehicles in 2012, with 619,470 vehicles sold. Escape broke its 2011 record sales levels with 261,008 vehicles sold, up 3 percent. Explorer gained 17 percent for the year, with 158,344 vehicles sold….”

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“(Reuters) – Some major U.S. retailers had a tough December, with chains like Target and Family Dollar feeling the pinch as consumers were cautious in their holiday spending.

The economy took a toll on shoppers in the most important quarter of the year for retailers. The holiday season was never expected to be stellar, but even the single-digit growth anticipated by chains and analysts came under pressure as Superstorm Sandy, the ever-present headlines about the “fiscal cliff” and the Connecticut school shootings affected consumers’ moods.

“The consumers’ confidence is off a bit, and I don’t think you can point to a single individual thing. It’s a culmination of things that hit their psyche,” said Madison Riley, managing director of retail consulting firm Kurt Salmon.

Among the chains reporting December sales at stores open at least a year on Thursday, Costco Wholesale Corp stood out with growth that topped expectations. Limited Brands Inc’s sales rose less than anticipated, marking a rare miss for the owner of the Victoria’s Secret chain.

Target Corp’s same-store sales were essentially flat, while analysts anticipated a 0.8 percent increase, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Target said fourth-quarter earnings should meet or somewhat exceed the low end of its forecast. It said the number of transactions at existing stores slipped in the quarter, while the average transaction size increased. Food was its best seller.

Overall, analysts looked for 3.3 percent same-store sales growth for December across 17 chains, down from 4.2 percent growth in December 2011, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Chains also had a somewhat rough November, with same-store sales up a disappointing 1.6 percent.

Still, Kurt Salmon’s Riley predicted that if the upcoming debt ceiling debate goes better than the Washington wrangling to avoid the cliff, there could be a bigger uptick in consumer spending in 2013.

HITS AND MISSES…”

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“SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Gap Inc. said Thursday that its December revenue at stores open at least a year increased 5 percent, with a big sales jump at its North American Old Navy stores.

The increase beat Wall Street’s prediction for a 3.5 percent gain, and shares rose more than 4 percent in premarket trading.

The metric is a key measure of a retailer’s health, because it excludes revenue at stores that recently opened or closed.

Gap also on Thursday said that it was adding a luxury division to its brand line-up with the purchase of women’s clothing boutique Intermix. Gap bought the chain for $130 million on Monday. Intermix runs 32 stores in the U.S. and Canada and a website.

For the five week period ended Dec. 31, North American Gap revenue at stores open at least a year rose 2 percent. The metric rose 1 percent at North American Banana Republic and 13 percent at North American Old Navy stores. It fell 6 percent at international stores….”

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“Macy’s, Inc. (NYSE:M) today reported total sales of $5.102 billion for the five weeks ended Dec. 29, 2012, an increase of 3.6 percent compared with total sales of $4.923 billion in the five weeks ended Dec. 31, 2011. On a same-store basis, Macy’s, Inc. sales were up 4.1 percent in December as compared to December 2011.

Same-store sales increased by 2.5 percent for November and December 2012 combined as compared to the same period in 2011.

“Last month was our fourth consecutive December with same-store sales growth, which is indicative of the sustainability of our key business strategies,” said Terry J. Lundgren, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Macy’s, Inc. “While the rate of growth was somewhat less than we had expected in the first two months of the fourth quarter, it came amid some significant headwinds from uncertain economic news and the lingering effects of Hurricane Sandy. All said, we are proud of our accomplishments in driving growth this holiday season and we believe we continued to gain market share….”

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“Biogen Idec Inc. (BIIB) declined as much as 8 percent in early trading after the third-biggest biotechnology company said its experimental drug for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis failed to help patients in a clinical trial.

Biogen sank $11.95 to $138.05 at 7:34 a.m. New York time after saying it will end development of the medicine. The shares of the Weston, Massachusetts-based drugmaker gained 36 percent in the 12 months through yesterday.

Biogen’s drug, dexpramipexole, was in the third and final stages of clinical trials generally required for approval. It didn’t show any efficacy in improving patients’ function or survival, Biogen said in a statement today…”

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“Jan 3 (Reuters) – U.S. retailer Costco Wholesale Corp has posted a better-than-expected 9 percent rise in December sales at stores open at least a year, mainly helped by an additional sales day in the reporting period.

“This year’s December retail month had one additional day compared to last year … As a result, December total and comparable sales results benefited by approximately 2 percent,” said David Sherwood, director offinance and investor relations.

Costco’s January sales period will include 34 selling days, as opposed to 35 days last year, he also said on Thursday….”

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“Rambus Inc. (RMBS), the designer of high- speed memory chips, was barred by a judge from using 12 of its patents to demand royalties from Micron Technology Inc. because it improperly destroyed documents tied to intellectual-property litigation.

U.S. District Judge Sue Robinson in Wilmington, Delaware, said yesterday the patents are unenforceable as a sanction against Rambus officials who engaged in a document-destruction campaign designed to “gain a litigation advantage” in a patent-infringement lawsuit over technology for high-speed memory chips. Robinson made her ruling after an appeals court sent the case back for her consideration.

“Rambus’s destruction of evidence was of the worst type: intentional, widespread, advantage-seeking and concealed,” Robinson concluded in a 46-page ruling. The judge said the “only appropriate sanction” was to find the patents unenforceable.

The ruling comes after a California judge found in September that Rambus should be sanctioned for destroying documents in a patent case involving SK Hynix Inc. (000660), a South Korean company that is the world’s second-largest maker of computer memory chips….”

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“Google Inc. (GOOG) will resolve a 20-month antitrust probe by U.S. regulators today with a voluntary agreement and a consent decree on the company’s alleged misuse of patents, three people familiar with the matter said.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is poised to announce that Google has agreed to voluntarily change some business practices and settle allegations it misused patents to thwart competitors in smartphone technology, said the people, who asked not to be named because the decision isn’t public.

The FTC is expected to close its investigation into whether Google, operator of the world’s most popular search engine, skews its search results to favor its own services without enforcement action, the people said. The FTC’s decision not to take action is a blow to competitors including Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Yelp Inc. (YELP) and Expedia Inc. (EXPE) and comes at a time when the European Union is seeking a “detailed commitment” on search to end its probe into allegations that Google discriminates against rivals….”

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“Bankers fear good times for bad debt might come to an end in 2013…”

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