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New Zealand house prices climbed for a fifth month in February, fueled by increased demand for property in the nation’s largest cities as the economy emerges from a recession.

Prices rose 5.5 percent from a year earlier, following a 4.4 percent annual gain in January, according to a Quotable Value New Zealand Ltd. index. Prices in the 17 largest cities rose 7.3 percent, the Wellington-based government valuation agency said in an e-mailed report.

Further gains in house prices may be curbed by the prospect of higher interest rates and changes to taxation of investment property that will be announced in the May 20 budget. Prices in rural areas fell in February and the pace of increases in provincial cities and some urban areas is slowing, said Glenda Whitehead, valuation manager at Quotable Value.

“Values in the last few months have flattened in many areas,” she said. “The market remains patchy and buyers cautious.”

Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard said on Jan. 28 he expected to raise the official cash rate from a record-low 2.5 percent around the middle of the year.

Property sales and listings of houses for sale improved in February as the market approaches its busiest time of the year in late summer, Whitehead said.

“We expect values to stabilize over the coming months, reflecting the ongoing uncertainty around employment, pending interest-rate rises and continued tight lending criteria,” she said. “We may see more certainty in the market after the budget announcement.”

Unemployment

Damping consumer confidence, New Zealand’s jobless rate rose to a 10-year high of 7.3 percent in the fourth quarter. Banks are taking a careful approach to lending and are requesting fresh valuations where the borrower has a low deposit, Whitehead said.

The number of home-loan approvals in the three months ended Feb. 26 slumped 20 percent from a year earlier, according to central bank figures published March 3.

A separate report prepared by the Real Estate Institute last month said that house prices fell for a second month in January. The institute releases February figures on March 12.

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AMSTERDAM–Dutch sports car maker Spyker denied Sunday it had plans to jointly bid for General Motors’ Saab with Luxembourg investment firm Genii Capital.

German WirtschaftsWoche business weekly, in abstracts of a story to be published on Jan. 18, said the two companies, which have been trying individually to clinch a deal to buy the money-losing Swedish automaker, had now teamed up.

Spyker chief executive Victor Muller, in a reply to Reuters via text message, responded "No," when asked if Spyker was in contact with Genii about a joint bid for Saab or had changed its strategy.

Genii is backed by Formula 1 mogul Bernie Ecclestone.

Lars Carlstrom, who is coordinating the bid for Saab by Genii Capital and Ecclestone, told Reuters there had been some talks with Spyker’s Muller last week but that he could not confirm nor deny anything related to a joint bid.

GM Europe spokesman Stephan Weinmann said GM was in talks about Saab but he declined to comment whether discussions were ongoing with one or several bidders.

GM said on Monday it would move ahead with closing Saab down. On Tuesday, it appointed two supervisors to oversee a wind-down, though it said it would continue to consider "several purchase proposals it has received for Saab."

The magazine’s abstract said: "According to WirtschaftsWoche information, Spyker Cars and Genii Capital have been in contact in order to make a last-second joint offer." It did not give other details.

On Tuesday, Muller said GM’s decision on Saab was a matter of "days not weeks."

Meanwhile, more than 2,000 Saab drivers gathered in their cars in the Swedish brand’s hometown Sunday to show support for the iconic mark.

"It’s hard to know exactly how many cars there were, but an estimate we’ve done puts the number at 2,500," Claes Robertsson, the head of Saab Turbo Club of Sweden, a group of Saab admirers, told AFP.

Robertsson said both Saab employees and brand enthusiasts had attended the rally, in which drivers from Germany, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and Britain also took part.

Swedish news agency TT said the demonstration started at the Saab museum in its southwestern Swedish hometown of Trollhaettan and ended at the Saab factory.

According to police, the four-kilometre stretch was entirely filled by Saab cars, TT reported.

In the Netherlands, more than 500 Dutch Saab lovers rallied.

Saab, which employs 3,400 people in Sweden, is one of four major brands being sold by GM as part of a massive restructuring that began in 2005 and accelerated last year when the largest U.S. automaker went bankrupt.

Analysts have warned some 8,000 jobs could be lost with Saab’s closure.

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Antitrust enforcers have intensified their probe of Monsanto Co.’s dominance in genetically modified seeds, ordering the company to turn over information related to its Roundup Ready genetic trait in soybeans.

Monsanto disclosed Thursday that the Department of Justice issued a civil investigative demand, a formal request for information, which follows an informal probe begun by government lawyers last year. Company spokeswoman Kelli Powers declined to specify what information is being sought.

Creve Coeur-based Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company, said it has provided access to millions of pages of documents and will continue to cooperate with the government.

"We believe our business practices are fair, pro-competitive and in compliance with the law," Monsanto Chief Deputy Counsel Scott Partridge said in a statement.

The Justice Department’s probe of Monsanto coincides with claims by the company’s chief rival, Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc., and other critics who say Monsanto’s leading position in the multibillion-dollar biotech seed market and business practices are stifling innovation that could benefit farmers.

The Justice Department has shown an increasing interest in the genetically modified seed business, leading to this week’s demand to Monsanto for additional information.

Thomas L. Greaney, a law professor at St. Louis University, said civil investigative demands like those received by Monsanto represent the second step in an antitrust investigation and are used by government lawyers to obtain specific documents, depositions and internal memoranda that the company wouldn’t voluntarily hand over and that could be useful in preparing an antitrust case.

"They don’t do it lightly," said Greaney, who spent 10 years at the Justice Department, including a stint as assistant chief in charge of antitrust matters in health care.

It does not suggest, however, that such a lawsuit is imminent, he said.

Thursday marked the first time the Justice Department has confirmed an investigation of possible anti-competitive practices in the seed industry. Department spokeswoman Gina Talamona declined to be more specific about the scope of the investigation or to name the companies involved.

However, Pioneer’s parent, DuPont, acknowledged that it received a civil investigative demand from the Justice Department, spokesman Dan Turner said.

And two other big seed companies, Dow AgroSciences and Syngenta, have also spoken with the department regarding the probe, spokesmen said.

Peter Carstensen, a University of Wisconsin law professor who previously worked as a staff attorney at the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, said the government’s demand for information is a sign that it has "ratcheted up its investigation" of Monsanto.

Carstensen is an expert witness for a farmer being sued by Monsanto and believes there’s a valid antitrust argument to be made against the seed giant need a personal loan with bad credit.

Still, the intersection of intellectual property rights and antitrust law makes any case a complex one that could be difficult for the government to prove in court.

"There are going to be some very hard legal questions with respect to how much right does Monsanto have to use its patent rights in a way that is exempt from antitrust review," he said.

Allegations by Monsanto’s critics focus mainly on the company’s biotech soybeans, which are genetically modified to resist Roundup and other glyphosate-based weed killers. The technology allows farmers to spray entire fields with herbicide without killing crops.

Today, the Roundup Ready genetic trait is found in more than 90 percent of the U.S. soybean crop, including seeds sold by DuPont’s Pioneer unit and other competitors. Monsanto collects a technology fee for licensing the trait.

DuPont has complained to the government that its agricultural subsidiary Pioneer is not being allowed to develop seeds that combine Monsanto’s patented Roundup Ready genetic trait with a separate Pioneer-developed trait for herbicide resistance.

"The ag biotech trait market is firmly in the grip of a single supplier, acting as a bottleneck to competition and choice," DuPont said in formal comments submitted Friday to the Justice Department.

The companies have waged a legal battle since last spring when Monsanto sued DuPont for patent infringement related to their licensing agreement. DuPont countersued weeks later, claiming that Monsanto is using anti-competitive tactics to preserve its market share. The case is pending in U.S. District Court in St. Louis.

Monsanto is currently trying to persuade seed companies to switch to its new, higher priced biotech soybean called Roundup Ready 2 Yield.

DuPont has alleged that Monsanto is trying to force independent seed companies and farmers to make the switch to eliminate the potential for competition from a generic alternative.

To diffuse criticism, Monsanto sent farm groups and seed companies a letter on Dec. 15 stating that farmers would be allowed to continue growing first-generation Roundup Ready soybeans after the herbicide resistance trait patent expires in 2014.

Monsanto said the Justice Department’s demand for information seeks confirmation that it will follow through on that promise.

The Monsanto investigation is part of a broad look at the state of competition in agriculture by President Barack Obama’s administration.

The Justice Department and Department of Agriculture last year announced a nationwide series of workshops in 2010 to hear farmers concerns.

The first session will be held in Iowa on March 12 and focus on issues related to row crops, including biotech seed.

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Colorado once again ranks high among the states in a report on business climate — this one from the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, a lobbying and policy group.

The SBE Council's "Small Business Survival Index 2009" rates the states on their public policy climates for small business and entrepreneurship, particularly on their tax structures. It ranks Colorado No. 8, up from 10th last year and 11th the year before.

Besides taxes, factors in the ranking — released Tuesday — include regulatory costs, government spending, property rights policies, crime rate and health care and energy costs.

"Most politicians talk a good game when it comes to small business, but their actions don’t often match their rhetoric," SBE Council chief economist Raymond Keating said in a statement. " … Small businesses, of course, drive innovation, economic growth and job creation. If we want to get our economy back on a solid, robust growth track, then we need pro-entrepreneur policies at the federal, state and local levels.”

The council assigned index numbers ranging from 25.693 for South Dakota — deemed the friendliest state for small business — to 84.795 to the District of Columbia — deemed the least friendly.

Colorado's index is 48.250.

Among the Centennial State's individual rankings in the report are:

• 8th for lowest top corporate income tax rates.

• 10th for lowest top corporate capital gains tax rates.

• 15th for lowest state and local sales and excise taxes.

• 18th for lowest electric utility costs.

• 20th for fewest state and local government employees.

• 20th for lowest state and local property taxes.

• 22nd for lowest crime rate.

• 28th for lowest state and local government spend, 2006-07.

• 36th for fewest "health insurance mandates."

Rated ahead of Colorado as most friendly to small business are South Dakota, Nevada, Texas, Wyoming, Washington, Florida and South Carolina.

New the bottom along with D.C. are New Jersey, California and New York.

The Oakton, Va.-based SBE Council is a business advocacy group that says it "works to educate elected officials, policy makers, business leaders and the public to advance initiatives that enhance the environment for entrepreneurship, business start-up and growth."

The group has been visible recently in its opposition to the health-care reform measure that has passed the U.S. House and another that is before the U.S. Senate, calling them overly burdensome to business.

Click here to download the SBEC's summary of its report in PDF format.

And click here for the full report.

In September, Colorado was ranked in fourth place by Forbes.com as among the best states for business in a report assessing business costs, labor supply, regulatory environment, economic climate, growth prospects and quality of life. State officials have been crowing about that ranking ever since. (DBJ report.)

Also in September, the Washington-based Tax Foundation said Colorado has the 13th most business-friendly tax system in the country. (DBJ report.)

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European exports to China, the world’s fastest-growing major economy, fell 5.3 percent in the first half of the year as the euro’s appreciation made the goods from the region less competitive abroad.

The value of exports from the 27-nation European Union to China declined to 37.4 billion euros ($55.8 billion) from 39.5 billion euros in the year-earlier period, the EU’s statistics office in Luxembourg said today. EU imports from China fell 8.4 percent to 102.7 billion euros, narrowing the trade deficit to 65.3 billion euros from 72.7 billion euros.

European officials have called on China to let the yuan strengthen and European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet will travel to China this weekend to discuss the matter cheap payday loan. The euro has gained 15 percent against the Chinese currency in the past year, fueling complaints that yuan’s peg to the weakening U.S. dollar is creating an unfair advantage for China’s exporters.

China is the EU’s second-largest trading partner, after the U.S., with machinery and vehicles accounting for about 60 percent of European goods shipped to the Asian nation. The value of German exports to China decreased to 16.2 billion euros in the first half from 16.8 billion a year earlier, according to today’s report.

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U.S. companies hurt by the global credit crisis are continuing to hold more cash, even as the economy begins to show signs of improvement, the Wall Street Journal said, citing its analysis of company filings.

In the second quarter, the 500 largest non-financial U.S. companies by total assets held about $994 billion in cash and short-term investments, or 9.8 percent of their assets, according to the paper’s analysis of corporate filings.

In contrast, the companies held $846 billion, or 7.9 percent of assets, a year ago, the paper said.

The trend seems to have continued in the third quarter, despite an improving economy, the paper said companies making payday loans.

The 248 companies that have reported third-quarter results so far saw their cash holdings go up by a percentage point sequentially to 11.1 percent of assets, the paper said.

Companies such as Alcoa Inc, Google Inc, PepsiCo Inc and Texas Instruments Inc reported big third-quarter increases in cash holdings, the paper said.

(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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Bank of New York Mellon Corp reported a third-quarter net loss amid higher loan loss provisions, but earnings excluding one-time items topped expectations.

The world’s largest trust bank said on Tuesday it lost a net $2.5 billion, or $2.05 per share, in the quarter, compared with earnings of $303 million, or 26 cents a share, a year earlier.

Excluding investment securities losses and other special items, the company earned 54 cents per share. On that basis, analysts had forecast 48 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Revenue, excluding securities losses, rose to 3.3 billion from $3.2 billion. Provisions for credit losses jumped to $147 million from $23 million.

The bank’s shares were at $28.00 in premarket trade, up 2.8 percent from a Monday close at $27.23 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Like other banks and insurers, Bank of New York Mellon, which focuses on securities services for institutional clients and asset management, has been hurt by losses on complex debt and mortgage-related securities during the financial crisis.

It said it is restructuring $8.5 billion of these securities in a bid to reduce risk in this investment portfolio.

“We took advantage of the recent strength in the fixed income markets by selling or recognizing losses on a significant portion of our investment securities portfolio,” said Chief Executive Officer Robert Kelly.

Bank of New York Mellon in August paid $136 million to redeem U.S. Treasury Department warrants to buy its stock. The warrants, which would have let the government buy 14.5 million shares, were issued under the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Bank of New York Mellon in June bought back $3 billion of preferred shares it had issued to the government.

(Reporting by Christopher Kaufman and Elinor Comlay; editing by John Wallace)

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This year, Wal-Mart Stores Inc is supersizing its $10 holiday toy offering.

Last October, the world’s biggest retailer cut its prices and began selling 10 popular toys for $10 each in its U.S. Walmart stores to win sales from early bargain hunting holiday shoppers.

This year, the retailer has ramped up the program and is offering more than 100 toys, including Barbie dolls and board games, for $10 each, throughout the Christmas shopping season.

The $10 assortment includes newly introduced toys, such as certain Transformers action figures and a Play-Doh burger builder set, as well as existing items, such as Monopoly and Connect 4, whose prices have been cut 20 percent to 50 percent.

“What we learned from last holiday was that price mattered more than ever,” said Laura Phillips, the retailer’s vice president of toys.

That is expected to be the case again this year as the retailer surveyed shoppers and found the No. 1 priority for mothers this holiday season is finding gifts that fit their budget, Phillips said.

The year-end holiday season is a crucial one for U.S. retailers and can account for 25 percent to 40 percent of annual revenue. But last year’s holiday season marked the worst in nearly 40 years by some measures and early forecasts for the 2009 holiday season call for sales to be anywhere from up 2 percent to down 1 percent.

But Wal-Mart has been gaining market share amid the recession as shoppers seek out low prices on everything from food to paper towels to popular electronics.

Last year, Phillips said Wal-Mart sold out of its $10 toys because it underestimated how early its shoppers were in its stores, buying gifts for Christmas.

“About 70 percent of our Wal-Mart shoppers start their holiday toy shopping before Halloween and, in fact, about 20 percent finish by Halloween,” she said.

So Wal-Mart spent the past year working with toy makers, such as Mattel Inc and Hasbro Inc to develop new toys or cut prices on existing items so it could stock a much wider selection of $10 offerings this year.

It said the $10 toy offering is the first of several programs it will announce in the next 12 weeks leading up to Christmas “to bring added savings” to shoppers.

(Reporting by Nicole Maestri; editing by Andre Grenon)

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Canadian food processors and restaurant chains could cut out a lot more salt and help save lives without adversely affecting the quality, shelf life or texture of their ketchup, French fries, soups and sauces, a leading health advocacy group says.

Citing new research that shows salt levels vary widely among similar products, a study by the Centre for Science in the Public Interest, to be released today, challenges the food industry’s argument that high levels of salt are needed to preserve product integrity and flavour.

"The report shows most uses of salt are gratuitous. More efforts by food companies and more political resolve by federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq could save thousands of Canadians’ lives," said Bill Jeffery, author of the report, called "Salty to a Fault."

The average Canadian consumes more than 3,000 mg of sodium per day, according to Statistics Canada. That’s nearly a third more than the maximum daily intake recommended by Health Canada.

There is growing evidence that ingesting excessive amounts of salt contributes to high blood pressure and is a risk for heart disease, the report says. Cutting average salt consumption in half would avert 14,500 heart failures and strokes a year, it adds.

Yet, Health Canada has done little to force the $140 billion-a-year food industry to reduce its dependence on sodium chloride, Jeffery said, relying instead on voluntary initiatives.

"What we hear from a lot of food manufacturers and restaurants is that you have to add a lot of salt to food in order to preserve it for a long enough period of time, to give it a certain texture, like to make dough rise," Jeffery said in a telephone interview.

He said the study, which compares a variety of brand-name products and restaurant meals, proves that’s not true. It found salt levels within the same product category vary widely.

For example, in the frozen French fry category, McCain’s Xtra Crispy Superfries contain 450 mg of sodium per 85-gram serving. That’s 900 per cent more than in the No Name Crinkle Cut Fries, which was considered the benchmark.

(The study used the product with the lowest sodium content in its category as the benchmark. The benchmark product could not be one that made a specific sodium-reduction marketing claim.)

Organic labels were no guarantee that salt levels would be lower, the study also found. Presidents’ Choice Organic Ketchup, for example, contained 50 per cent more salt than Heinz.

Loopholes in the federal nutrition labelling system make it difficult for consumers to figure this out for themselves, Jeffery said. Different manufacturers use different serving sizes on their labels, making direct comparisons difficult even when the products are in the same category.

Comparing restaurant meals is even more difficult as companies are not required to disclose their nutrition information, though many do so.

Several leading food companies say they have taken steps to voluntarily reduce sodium levels.

Kraft Foods has invested well over $20 million in research and development over the last several years to reduce salt, spokeswoman Lynne Galia said. "Sodium reduction is extremely challenging since it impacts food safety, the taste and textures of foods," Galia said. "We’re reducing sodium in our products one milligram at a time."

Kraft has rolled out reduced-sodium versions of some of its most popular products, including Triscuit crackers, Ritz Crackers and Stove Top Chicken Stuffing Mix.

Canadian supermarket leader Loblaw Cos. Ltd. said it has reduced the amount of sodium in many of its President’s Choice Blue Menu better-for-you products.

"We take sodium so seriously that we’ve created a sodium task force, challenging our product developers to reformulate customers’ favourite products without affecting flavour," Loblaw spokeswoman Sheri Helman wrote in an email. "Over the year, we’ll remove 2.3 billion milligrams of salt from our (PC blue Menu) dressings alone – without affecting the rich, bold flavours."

McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada said it is working with experts to learn more about sodium issues.

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The first responsibility of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is to protect long-term investors if their interests conflict with short-term traders, the head of the SEC said in a letter revealed on Monday.

“I firmly agree that the commission’s focus must be on the protection of long-term investors,” SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro said in a Sept 10 letter to Senator Ted Kaufman, Democrat of Delaware.

Kaufman had asked the SEC to review what he called “questionable” developments in the structure of capital markets such as so-called dark pools, flashes, and co-location.

Schapiro said that vigorous competition among short-term traders can lead to important benefits for long-term investors but that if their interests conflicted, the SEC had a “clear responsibility” to uphold the interests of long-term investors.

The SEC has been examining market structure issues and is probing aspects of trading and transparency at “dark pools,” where large block trades are done away from central exchanges.

It is also reviewing co-location, where firms rent space at exchanges like NYSE Euronext in an attempt to shave valuable microsecond from trading times.

On Thursday, the SEC is expected to consider a proposal that would ban the use of flashes, or when exchanges flash buy and sell orders to member firms before revealing them publicly.

Schapiro said the SEC must keep a careful watch on the rapid advancements in trading technology to ensure that sophisticated traders are not favored and that federal rules keep pace with market developments.

(Reporting by Rachelle Younglai, editing by Leslie Gevirtz)

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