Finance topics

EverBank is branching out with a new wealth management company based in Brentwood that is targeting affluent customers.

EverBank Financial Corp., a Jacksonville, Fla.-based financial services firm, formed the wealth management subsidiary to provide wealthy customers looking for institutional-caliber investment advice.

“We see that as lacking in the market,” EverBank Wealth Management’s CEO Frank Trotter said in an interview.

Launched Monday, EverBank Wealth Management Inc. joins many other financial institutions that are seeking to grow revenue by broadening investment services for the wealthy.

EverBank’s wealth management subsidiary is based at 8300 Eager Road, where the bank’s World Markets division and some other bank operations are based. Some wealth management executives are based here, including Trotter, and some are based in Jacksonville.

Locally, EverBank employs about 150 people in Brentwood, which will grow as the wealth management business expands, Trotter said.

Companywide, EverBank has 575,000 customers nationwide and $10.3 billion in assets as of the end of 2011. The wealth management company formation came the same week EverBank launched an initial public offering of its stock.

Trotter, a longtime St. Louis banker, formed EverBank as an Internet-based bank in 1999. In 2002, EverBank was acquired by Alliance Capital Partners, a holding company based in Jacksonville, which later changed its name to EverBank Financial.

Through its World Markets division in Brentwood, EverBank offers investments in foreign currencies and in precious metals.

EverBank already works with more than 200 broker-dealer and investment advisory firms nationwide, matching customers with advisors through its Advisor Services unit, which is also based in Brentwood.

But the bank lacked its own in-house advisory services after EverBank sold in 2002 its investment advisory business, Acropolis Investment Management, which is based locally.

“People have always asked: can’t you just manage my money for me,” Trotter said.

“We wanted to get back into it,”he said of EverBanks’ return to offering investment advice.

David Conover, EverBank Wealth Management’s president and chief operating officer, said the concentration of investment advisors in the St. Louis area — which is home to a mass of financial services firms including Wells Fargo Advisors and Edward Jones — will help in recruitment efforts for the subsidiary.

“There’s a concentration of talent in St. Louis and economies of scale” with EverBank’s existing operations, Conover said.

EverBank’s push into wealth management comes as other banks, including U.S. Bank, Commerce Bank, and Enterprise Bank & Trust, have added new services or added staff to increase their wealth management offerings as the population of high net worth individuals, or those with at least $1 million in invest-able assets, continues to grow.

Trotter said EverBank Wealth Management’s strategy is to offer a simple fee structure based on a customers’ assets and to put an emphasis on listening to customers.

“We’ve observed over the years that some brokers say ‘this is the way I do it,’” Trotter said. “We want to listen to the client and hear the way they approach investing and how they feel about the economic situation – we want to have a conversation with them and I feel that’s radically different than what’s available.”

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Asian stocks fell Monday after budget talks in the Netherlands collapsed over the weekend and a Socialist who wants to put France’s austerity plans in reverse won the first round of the country’s presidential election.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index fell 0.3 percent to 9,533.48, as a strengthening yen hurt high-tech exporters. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.7 percent to 20,871.23 and South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.3 percent to 1,969.69. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 dropped 0.2 percent to 4,357.70.

Over the weekend, Dutch lawmakers failed to resolve differences over budget cuts needed to bring the Dutch deficit back within the European Union limit of 3 percent of gross domestic product.

The government is expected to resign within the coming days and call elections later this year, making it the latest European government forced out of office by the continent’s financial crisis.

Markets were also rattled by first-round results in France’s presidential election. Socialist candidate Francois Hollande garnered more votes than incumbent conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Hollande wants to renegotiate a European treaty intended to limit excessive government spending in order to emphasize growth over austerity low interest personal loan.

If Hollande wins a second-round election May 6, economists fear those steps would upset France’s delicate cooperation with Germany that has been key to Europe’s efforts to resolve its financial crisis.

U.S. stocks rose Friday on the back of stronger profits from Microsoft, McDonald’s and other major U.S. corporations.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.5 percent to close at 13,029.26. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 0.1 percent to 1,378.53. The Nasdaq composite index fell 0.2 percent to 3,000.45.

In energy trading, benchmark oil for June delivery was down 13 cents to $103.75 a barrel Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.16 to settle at $103.88 in New York on Friday.

The euro fell to $1.3187 from $1.3215 late Friday in New York. The dollar fell to 81.27 yen from 81.58 yen.

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The housing market continued to struggle in March, despite low home prices and record low interest rates, an industry report revealed Thursday.

Sales of existing homes fell 2.6% compared with a month earlier, to an annualized rate of 4.48 million homes, the National Association of Realtors said.

Gus Faucher, a senior economist at PNC Financial, called the report disappointing.

"We were expecting an increase," he said. "We need a turnaround to help the economy recover."

The Realtors’ group’s chief economist, Lawrence Yun, opted to look on the bright side of the report — sales were up 5.2% year-over-year.

It’s safe to sell your home again

"We have seen nine consecutive months of year-over-year sales increases," he said. "Existing-home sales are moving up and down in a fairly narrow range that is well above the level of activity during the first half of last year."

The choppy market stands in contrast to the continuing gains made in affordability.

Factoring in price declines that have averaged about 34% nationally, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index, and record low mortgage rates, homebuying is more affordable than ever.

"For buyers who can qualify for a mortgage, now is a very good time to become a homeowner," said Realtors’ president Moe Veissi.

According to Yun, better economic conditions will push sales higher as the year goes on.

"With job growth, low interest rates, bargain home prices and an improving economy, the pent-up demand is coming to market and we expect housing to be notably better this year," he said.

As the year goes on, buyers may find fewer properties to choose from.

The number of homes for sale dropped 1.3% in March to 2.37 million existing homes. That’s a 6.3-month supply at the current sales pace. Inventory declined 21.8% compared with March 2011 and is well below the record of 4.04 million in July 2007.

Ironically, the tighter supply may have cut into sales, with house hunters in some areas of the nation having trouble finding homes to suit their needs or tastes.

"We’re already seeing this in the Western states and in South Florida," said Yun.

If the tightness in inventory spreads, it could signal a rebirth for home builders, who would have to step up development to fill the gap. And putting construction workers back on the job would be a shot in the arm for the overall economy as well as the housing market.

"Conditions are in place for a turnaround," said Faucher. "We’re just waiting for more confidence among buyers. We expect that to happen over the next few months." 

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More Americans than forecast filed applications for unemployment benefits last week, a sign the improvement in labor-market conditions may be stalling.

Jobless claims fell by 2,000 to 386,000 in the week ended April 14 from a revised 388,000 the prior period that was higher than initially estimated, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 47 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News called for a drop to 370,000. Revisions to previous data have been larger than normal and the government is trying to determine the cause, a Labor Department spokesman said as the figures were released to the press.

The claims figures raise the possibility the payroll gains that have helped push unemployment down to a three-year low may cool, weighing on consumer spending. Federal Reserve officials, awaiting evidence of a more robust job market and economic growth, have said they

Global financial regulators have failed to create clear standards for banks, meaning lenders are hoarding cash instead of providing loans needed to drive growth, European Banking Federation President Christian Clausen said.

President Obama made a broad push Tuesday for increasing taxes on the wealthy and in particular proposed Buffett Rule.

His address to college students in Florida came on the heels of a White House report that laid out its case, arguing that the Buffett Rule would make the tax code fairer and make it harder for the very rich to lower their tax bills.

Quiz: What the rich really pay in taxes

"What drags our entire economy down is when the benefits of economic growth and productivity go only to the few … and the gap between those at the very, very top and everybody else keeps growing wider and wider," Obama said.

The Buffett Rule is a key talking point in Obama’s re-election bid. The general principle behind it is that millionaires and billionaires like investor Warren Buffett shouldn’t pay a lower percentage of their income in federal taxes than middle-class households.

Obama has even set a threshold for how much they should pay: At least 30% of their income.

Obama’s Buffett Rule: FAQ

Most millionaires today already pay a higher percentage of their income in federal taxes than the vast majority of all Americans. But roughly 25% of them end up with a lower effective tax rate than 10% of middle-income households, according to the Congressional Research Service.

And a very small number — fewer than 1,500 households in 2009, according to the IRS — end up owing no federal income tax at all.

Obama’s Buffett Rule is targeted specifically at those high-income households that are in a position to structure their income and engage in legal tax strategies to minimize their tax bite.

Millionaires who owe no federal income tax

"The idea behind the Buffett Rule is to have a tax on high-income earners who manage to avoid paying a large share of their income in taxes," Alan Krueger, director of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, said in a call with reporters.

They can do so if much of their income comes from capital gains and dividends — which are taxed at a lower rate than ordinary paychecks. The same is true if they have made tax-free or tax-sheltered investments.

And a number of other tax breaks on the books end up disproportionately benefiting high-income households.

Krueger asserted that the Buffett Rule would also make for good tax policy by making the tax code more efficient. That is, there would be less incentive for the wealthy to choose one investment or financial activity over another or to recharacterize their income simply to reduce their tax bills.

Tax experts, however, say the goals of the Buffett Rule could be accomplished more simply through a complete overhaul of the tax code.

Indeed, Obama initially proposed the Buffett Rule as a guiding principle for reform. But Senate Democrats are now pushing a bill to implement a version of the rule in today’s tax code. And the White House is now endorsing that push.

Tax reform is likely to be a long slog, and implementing a Buffett Rule now would be a "simple and common sense" step toward reform, said Jason Furman, the principal deputy director of the National Economic Council. 

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It wasn’t the stock market debut that BATS Global Markets was hoping for.

The stock exchange operator on Thursday night announced it would sell 6.3 million shares at $16 apiece when it went public the following morning. Then, the next day, the shares plunged to 4 cents before trading was halted.

The reasons weren’t immediately clear. The exchange issued a statement on its website saying it would cancel all orders for stocks in the symbol range of A to BFZZZ for 10 minutes in the early afternoon.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the rapid-fire, computerized stocks trading platforms and whether they give traders an unfair advantage. The Journal, which cited people familiar with the matter, said the investigation includes BATS.

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European stock markets and the euro gave up some earlier gains Wednesday after the European Central Bank revealed that it lent slightly more than anticipated in its super-cheap three-year loan offering to banks.

The ECB said it made euro529.5 billion ($712.4 billion) in low-interest loans to banks in the second round of its long-term credit infusion, which has been widely credited with easing the eurozone debt crisis.

The uptake of the long-term refinancing operation, or LTRO, was modestly higher than the euro489 billion ($657.9 billion) handed out to 523 banks at a first offering on Dec. 21, and was slightly higher than market expectations. The offer of credit for three years was taken up by 800 banks, again more than anticipated.

After the details of the offering, the euro and stocks dropped slightly as investors worried that the higher take-up may be a sign of continued stress in Europe’s banking system.

“While this will ease the crisis in the short term, an LTRO of this size is disturbing in what it reveals about the depth of banking problems in the EU,” said Sony Kapoor, managing director of economic think-tank Re-Define.

The euro was trading 0.2 percent lower at $1.3440, having traded flat before the results were announced.

In stock markets, Europe’s main indexes fell too but remained up on the day. Germany’s DAX was up 0.5 percent at 6,294 while the CAC-40 in France was 0.4 percent higher at 3,468. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was 0.1 percent higher at 5,933.

Most of the world’s leading indexes are back at levels they were trading at before last summer’s massive sell-off. Stronger-than-anticipated U.S. consumer confidence figures on Tuesday also helped push the Dow to close at 13,005.12 on Tuesday. The last time the benchmark closed above 13,000 was in May 2008, four months before the fall of the Lehman Brothers investment bank and the worst of the financial crisis.

The ECB’s first round of three-year loans last December is often cited as one of the reasons why markets been so buoyant this year as they eased concerns of an imminent credit crunch in Europe.

Banks used some of the money from the first round of loans to buy government bonds. That lowered borrowing costs for hard-pressed governments struggling to maintain large amounts of debt, and eased fears of a market meltdown from Europe’s troubles with too much government debt.

“The ECB will certainly be hoping that the even stronger take up of its second unlimited three-year refinancing operation will help to ease credit conditions significantly,” said Howard Archer, chief European economist at IHS Global Insight.

Wall Street was poised to open slightly higher later _ both Dow futures and the broader S&P 500 futures were 0.1 percent higher.

Earlier in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index edged up slightly to close at 9,723.24 after the government released a report that showed factory production rising for a second straight month in January.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.5 percent to 21,680.08 and South Korea’s Kospi gained 1.3 percent to 2,030.25.

But on mainland China, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index lost 1 percent to 2,428.49 while the Shenzhen Composite Index fell 1.3 percent to 956.99.

Mainland Chinese shares fell after Shanghai announced that _ contrary to recent reports _ it would not ease restrictions on

Investors are also anticipating the Federal Reserve’s so-called Beige Book report on economic activity, due later Wednesday. The report is expected to reflect a slowly improving U.S. economy.

Oil prices ticked higher alongside equities _ benchmark oil for April delivery was up 49 cents at $107.40 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

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President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s agreement to step down failed to halt anti-government demonstrations or prevent violence Thursday as regime supporters killed five protesters demanding that the ousted leader be put on trial for crimes ranging from corruption to bloodshed during the current uprising.

Saleh signed the U.S.-backed power-transfer deal, brokered by neighboring countries, Wednesday in the Saudi capital Riyadh in exchange for immunity from prosecution. It sets in motion a number of changes designed to stop the uprising that has battered Yemen’s economy and caused a nationwide security lapse that al-Qaida linked militants have exploited to step up operations.

Saleh passed his presidential duties to his vice president Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, effectively ending his 33-year rule. If the deal holds, he’ll be the fourth leader to lose power in the wave of Arab Spring uprisings this year, following longtime dictators in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

In the coming days, the opposition is supposed to name a prime minister, who will be sworn in by Hadi. The prime minister will then form a national unity government, evenly divided between the opposition and the ruling party. Hadi also is to announce a date for presidential elections, to be held within 90 days.

Observers note that the deal does not include a number of Yemen’s biggest power brokers, including Saleh’s relatives who head elite security forces, powerful tribal chiefs and military commanders who have joined the protesters.

Many of the protesters, who have camped out in public square for months to call for sweeping democratic reforms, rejected the deal immediately, saying the opposition parties that agreed to it were compromised by their long association with Saleh.

Thousands took to the streets again Thursday in the capital Sanaa, the central city of Taiz and elsewhere, protesting the deal and calling for Saleh to be tried for charges of corruption and for the killing of protesters during the uprising.

They chanted “No immunity for the killer” and vowed to continue their protests.

Security forces and government supporters opened fire on Sanaa’s main protest camp Thursday, killing five protesters with live ammunition, said Gameela Abdullah, a medic at the local field hospital.

A video posted online by activists showed men in long robes and Arab head scarves firing assault rifles at protesters, who scramble for cover. Some throw rocks and carrying large pictures of Saleh payday advance low fees.

“We’ll keep fighting until Saleh is tried for all the crimes he has committed against the people in his capacity as the head of the armed forces,” said activist Bushra al-Maqtari in Taiz, which has seen some of the most violent crackdowns on anti-regime protesters. Hundreds of demonstrators have been killed nationwide since January.

Abdullah Obal, a leader in the coalition that signed the deal, said the opposition intended to meet with protest leaders to address their demands.

“The agreement does not cancel the youth’s demands or go against them,” he said. “It is their right to protest.”

Some doubt that the deal marks the end of political life for Saleh, who has proved to be a wily politician and suggested in remarks after the signing ceremony that he could play a future political role in the country, along with his ruling party. He had agreed to sign the deal three times before, only to back away at the last minute.

Saleh had stubbornly clung to power despite nearly 10 months of huge street protests in which hundreds of people were killed by his security forces. At one point, Saleh’s palace mosque was bombed and he was treated in Saudi Arabia for severe burns.

“The signature is not what is important,” Saleh said after signing the agreement. “What is important is good intentions and dedication to serious, loyal work at true participation to rebuild what has been destroyed by the crisis during the last 10 months.”

International leaders who had long pushed for the deal applauded Saleh’s signature, many hoping it would help end a security breakdown that has allowed Yemen’s active al-Qaida branch to step up operations in the country’s weakly governed provinces.

President Barack Obama welcomed the decision, saying the U.S. would stand by the Yemeni people “as they embark on this historic transition.”

King Abdullah also praised Saleh, telling Yemenis the plan would “open a new page in your history” and lead to greater freedom and prosperity.

Italy’s foreign minister, Giulio Terzi, lauded the agreement and called for an end to violence.

“Now it is necessary that the accord is fully implemented and that all violence cease,” he said.

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