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JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is facing shareholders five days after disclosing a $2 billion trading loss.

Dimon will speak Tuesday morning at the bank’s annual meeting in Tampa, Fla.

Shareholders will vote on whether to separate the bank’s chairman and CEO positions, both held by Dimon. They will also vote their approval or disapproval of Dimon’s $23 million pay package from last year.

Analysts say Dimon is unlikely to lose those votes.

Investors have pummeled JPMorgan’s stock price since Dimon disclosed the trading loss on Thursday. The stock has dropped 12 percent and lost almost $20 billion in market value.

Dimon got something of a vote of confidence from President Barack Obama, who appeared on ABC’s “The View” for an episode to be aired Tuesday. Obama used the appearance to press for tighter regulation of Wall Street.

“JPMorgan is one of the best-managed banks there is,” the president said. “Jamie Dimon, the head of it, is one of the smartest bankers we got, and they still lost $2 billion and counting.”

Obama said the bank was “making bets” in the market for the complex financial instruments known as derivatives. Dimon has said the bank was hedging against financial risk.

A part of the 2010 financial overhaul known as the Volcker rule would restrict banks from some trading for their own profit. Dimon and critics of the financial industry have disagreed over whether the trading in question would violate that rule.

Dimon is likely to repeat his acceptance of responsibility for the bad trade. He said in a TV interview Sunday that he was “dead wrong” when he dismissed concerns about the bank’s trading last month.

“We made a terrible, egregious mistake,” Dimon told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “There’s almost no excuse for it.”

On Monday, Ina Drew, the bank’s chief investment officer and one of the highest-ranking women on Wall Street, left the bank. Drew oversaw the trading group responsible for the $2 billion loss.

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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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Dubai says it now has full control of the Atlantis resort hotel perched atop its palm-shaped island.

State-run investment firm Istithmar World said late Friday it paid $250 million to buy out financially troubled business partner Kerzner International Holdings Ltd., which had held a 50 percent stake in the coral-colored hotel. Istithmar already owned half of the property.

Kerzner will continue to operate the resort, which includes a waterpark and 18 restaurants, Istithmar said.

It agreed to give up its stake in the Dubai property and a similar resort in the Bahamas after struggling to restructure $2.6 billion in debt. Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management acquired the Bahamas property in a previously announced deal by agreeing to waive $175 million in debt owed by Kerzner.

Kerzner said it plans to use proceeds from the Dubai sale to reduce its debt load.

Istithmar is part of Dubai state conglomerate Dubai World, which has struggled with high-profile debt troubles of its own. It owns upscale retailer Barneys New York and has a stake in performance company Cirque du Soleil.

“This acquisition is in line with our strategy of managing our assets for value and investing selectively where growth opportunities exist,” Dubai World’s chairman, Sheik Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, said in a statement cheapest personal loan rates.

Istithmar’s parent Dubai World was at the heart of Dubai’s financial meltdown in 2009. It signed an agreement to restructure some $25 billion in debt last March.

The Atlantis is one of Dubai’s better-known tourist destinations. It is a mainstay of city tours, vying for attention with the world’s tallest tower, Burj Khalifa, and more traditional offerings such as the old gold and spice markets. Ads for the hotel greet Dubai airport passengers on arrival.

Atlantis opened for business in September 2008, shortly after a construction fire damaged part of the brightly painted lobby.

A lavish coming-out party for the resort two months later cost $20 million and featured a celebrity guest list that included Robert DeNiro and Lindsay Lohan. Australian pop star Kylie Minogue provided the entertainment.

The 1,537-room hotel is at the top of the Palm Jumeirah, the first of Dubai’s palm-shaped manmade islands and the only one that is developed. Visitors arrive by monorail or by traveling through an underwater tunnel.

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Budget Minister Cristobal Montoro said Spain would damage European and global growth if it misses budget-deficit targets and threatened to take over the accounts of regions that don

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.

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"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

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The raspberry-colored walls are up — as is the large “American Girl” sign with stars dotting the “i”s.

When the highly-anticipated store opens later this week in Chesterfield Mall, lines of devoted fans are expected to snake outside the store as they wait to buy $100 dolls. But many parents haven’t waited for the grand opening to book children’s birthday parties there, with reservations already scheduled for several months out.

The store’s arrival — and the diehard following it brings along — is being welcomed with open arms by Chesterfield Mall. The shopping center has struggled in recent years with declining sales and a lower occupancy rate than many other area malls.

Katie Reinsmidt, spokeswoman for CBL & Associates, the mall’s owner, said the mall has already been moving in a positive direction this year with a rise in both traffic and sales.

“I think things are turning the corner,” she said.

And the American Girl store can’t do anything but help bring more visitors and buzz, she added.

“Other retailers at the center are anticipating some additional traffic — it will definitely have some cross benefit,” she said. “There’s nothing like it in the mall today.”

That’s what Angie Sicard hopes. Her specialty toy store, Toy Tyme, caters to both girls and boys.

“Families are going to spend so much on girls (at American Girl), that the boys are going to want something, too,” she said. “So they are going to come to our store” or other retailers in the mall.

Wade Opland, American Girl’s vice president of retail, said retailers near new American Girl stores usually see a double-digit sales lift regardless of whether it’s a cookie store or clothing store.

“We’re like the Apple of girls business for a mall,” he said, referring to the high traffic and sales that Apple brings to mall-based stores. “That’s why we’re so sought after.”

Whereas most mall stores pull from an area of about 20 miles, American Girl stores draw customers from a 150 to 200-mile radius, Opland said.

The Chesterfield store is one of three stores American Girl will open this year; the other two slated to open later this year are in Miami and Houston.

But while the retailer, which began as a direct-to-consumer catalog company, has been growing its bricks-and-mortar footprints in recent years, it doesn’t expect to have more than 20 stores nationwide, Opland said. The Chesterfield store is American Girl’s 12th store nationwide and will be the retailer’s only store in Missouri.

The retailer was drawn to Chesterfield Mall for its “premier” mix of stores and because it is in the midst of a growing community with many young families, Opland said.

“Part of our strategy is we want to put these stores where mom, girls, and families live,” he said guaranteed pay day loans. “At Chesterfield Mall, we’re in a prime location where mom can see us and it has a plethora of parking.”

The 10,850 square-foot store, which has an exterior entrance to the mall, is going into the space formerly occupied by the restaurant Wapango.

CBL’s Reinsmidt said Chesterfield Mall has a great location in an area with attractive demographics.

“But Chesterfield had unfortunate luck going into the recession,” she said. “Pretty much anytime a national bankruptcy announcement was made, there was one of those stores at Chesterfield.”

Borders and The Sharper Image are two examples. And some retailers — such as Abercrombie & Fitch, which shuttered its store in Chesterfield Mall earlier this year — have been paring back their number of mall stores nationwide, she said.

In late 2009, the mall began inviting local artists to fill some empty spaces in the mall as part of Artropolis — similar to ailing Crestwood Court’s now mostly-defunct ArtSpace.

By the end of 2011, Chesterfield Mall’s store space was 93 percent leased, up from 84 percent in 2007, according to CBL’s annual report.

But even though it has fewer vacancies, the mall’s sales per square foot in those mall stores (not including anchors) dropped 17 percent to $270 during that same time period. By comparison, sales per square feet at other CBL malls in the area range from $475 at West County Center to $400 at St. Claire Square to $364 at South County Center.

Reinsmidt said one of the challenges for Chesterfield Mall is that there is a lot of space to fill — nearly 500,000 square feet of store space not including anchors. That is more than any of CBL’s other four malls in the region.

And when the mall’s previous owner, Westfield, refurbished the mall in a $71 million project in 2006, it added more store space with a wing that includes the movie theater, food court, stores and restaurants like the Cheesecake Factory.

“They expanded the small shop space rather than contracting it,” she said.

With so much space, many of Chesterfield’s stores are a bit larger than in other malls, which lowers the mall’s sales-per-square-foot number, she said.

“The stores are really profitable and have great volumes,” she said.

As some stores leave, new tenants continue to come to the mall. Francesca’s Collections opened in the last week or so. And Monsoon, a London-based children’s retailer, is planning to open a store there this summer.

And, of course, there is American Girl. It plans a “soft” opening on Wednesday followed by a grand opening celebration on Saturday and Sunday.

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Concerns about the economy pushed oil prices lower on Monday.

West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark crude, gave up 85 cents to end at $102.46 per barrel. Brent crude, which is used to price oil imported by U.S. refineries, fell by 76 cents to finish at $122.67 per barrel.

The U.S. economy added just 120,000 jobs in March _ half as much as each of the previous three months. The government reported the disappointing data on Friday, but Monday was the first day oil markets could react. Stocks also fell.

Analysts said the slower pace of hiring could be a symptom of a weakening economy. It also hints at a slowdown in gasoline usage.

Iran also weighed on oil markets. OPEC’s No. 2 oil producer agreed to hold talks about its nuclear program with the West starting Friday. That eased fears of a prolonged standoff that could further squeeze world oil supplies. Already, international sanctions have forced some of the biggest importers of Iranian oil to find other sources.

Renewed negotiations could lead to an agreement that lifts those sanctions. The talks also reduce the risk, for now, that Iran will try to choke off exports from other oil producers by closing shipping routes out of the Persian Gulf guaranteed approval cash loans.

Concerns about a prolonged standoff with Iran have added about $13 to $14 to the price of a barrel of oil, independent analyst Jim Ritterbusch said. Oil should fall further if Iran works with the West, although Ritterbusch expects the price to remain elevated “for months to come.”

“As long as the regime stays in place, the nuclear threat is always going to be there,” he said.

In the U.S., gasoline prices fell by about a penny over the weekend to $3.927 per gallon, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. Pump prices have eased after nearing $3.94 a gallon last week.

Experts still say that prices could peak this month between $4.25 and $4.35 per gallon.

In other energy trading, heating oil fell by 2.33 cents to $3.1459 per gallon while gasoline futures fell by 4.38 cents to finish at $3.2967 per gallon. Natural gas added 1.8 cents to end at $2.107 per 1,000 cubic feet.

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The man polls say has the best shot at becoming France’s next president wants to hire thousands more teachers, renegotiate Europe’s expensive, hard-won bailout package, and re-assess his country’s role in both Afghanistan and NATO.

But Socialist Francois Hollande appeals less for his platform than for his persona: the innocuous, intellectual everyman is many things that conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy is not.

Hollande, 57, is tapping into a French zeitgeist wary of international finance, weary of Sarkozy’s “bling-bling” personality and eager for change. While countries in struggling Europe shift to the right, France may hand the presidency to the left for the first time in a generation, with repercussions for the continent’s direction and France’s future.

Part of Hollande’s appeal is his Mr. Nice Guy image, but he still must convince voters that he’s got what it takes to run a complex, nuclear-armed nation and one of the world’s biggest economies.

Hollande isn’t the only leftist making headlines in this campaign: Firebrand far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon has amassed some of the biggest crowds so far at rallies blanketed in red communist flags. Melenchon, with the charisma that the mainstream Hollande lacks, is complicating the political calculus.

French voters kick off the balloting in two weeks, with 10 candidates from across the political spectrum facing off in a first-round vote on April 22 that will winnow the race down to two.

While Hollande has slipped a little in recent weeks, polls have suggested for months that he would win the expected two-man finale against Sarkozy on May 6 by a broad margin.

The economic crisis in Europe has felled many governments in recent years. A Hollande victory could break from a recent rightward trend in the continent, and put France out of step with other big European countries like Germany, Spain, Britain and Poland _ all run by center-right or conservative leaders. Italy, hobbled by a debt crisis, is led by technocrat Mario Monti.

Some of Hollande’s major proposals could raise eyebrows abroad: As governments enact austerity measures elsewhere in Europe, he wants to hire thousands more teachers. He wants to scrap a European bailout package led by Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He has pledged to pull all French combat troops out of Afghanistan by year-end, and says that pledge would be the first thing he tells allies at a NATO summit in Chicago in May.

For many in France, the time seems ripe for a return to a Socialist president: the only one in postwar France was Francois Mitterrand, from 1981 to 1995; throw-the-bums-out has been an election theme in Europe; Sarkozy, in part for reasons of personal style, has been unpopular for years; and the financial crisis and debt crises in Europe have emboldened the left.

Hollande is seen as more of a consensus manager and a listener than visionary. For much of his tenure as party first secretary from 1997 to 2008, he served mostly as a water carrier for party elders _ and only now is coming into his own.

His advisers insist to a foreign reporter that Hollande is no old-school Socialist, but a social democrat wary of the economic challenges coming from 21st-century powers like China and India.

Yet while major parties of the left in Europe reformed and tacked toward the political center in recent years _ like Gerhard Schroeder’s Socialists in Germany, or Britain’s Labour party under Tony Blair, the Socialists in France eschewed such a move.

And when he speaks to the French faithful, Hollande’s class-warfare style rhetoric _ inveighing against the financial world that he calls his “adversary”, and demanding justice for the underclass _ often draws cheers.

Hollande, who once quipped “I don’t like the rich” on TV, got a recent boost in the polls after he announced a proposal to slap a 75-percent tax on income beyond the first (EURO)1 million ($1.3 million) earned each year.

Hollande on Wednesday drew thousands who spilled out of two warehouses at a convention center near the city of Rennes, in the heart of the left-leaning region of Brittany.

The highlight was Hollande’s appearance alongside Segolene Royal, his longtime partner and mother of his four children. Royal, who is also Socialist, was the party’s nominee in 2007 _ and lost handily to Sarkozy payday advance. Hollande and Royal split not long after that election.

On stage, Hollande and Royal appeared just seconds together, and the body language was uncomfortable: they clasped hands from a distance, and smiled to the cheering throng. But the message _ party unity _ was clear. His new romantic partner, political journalist Valerie Trierweiler, looked on from a seat in the crowd.

Hollande’s near 90-minute speech covered his platform: A focus on education, job support for French youths facing high jobless rates, equal pay for women, respect for culture and ethnic diversity. Sarkozy has structured his campaign on a theme of a “strong France.”

Hollande claimed that Sarkozy, who took office promising economic growth, fiscal responsibility and competitiveness in France, had failed on all _ and promised more responsible Socialist leadership.

“People say to us, ‘Watch out, the left is back, it’s going to empty the (state) coffers.’ It’s already happened! ‘Watch out, if the left is back, it’ll raise the debt’. It’s already happened! ‘The Left will hurt competitiveness’ _ It’s already happened,” he thundered. “Well, we’ll do the opposite.”

The rich, he said, will be asked to pay more, and more money will be redistributed “to allow France to pick itself up.”

Unlike Sarkozy rallies, where a preppier crowd often hoists tricolor French flags in abundance, the Rennes gathering mostly brought out young students and retirees.

His campaign has been textbook: He launched a 60-point platform months ago, hewing to many Socialist tenets. At times, he comes across as stiff and cautious, but has made no big gaffes.

Hollande’s biggest challenge has been to try to project presidential caliber. While his pedigree is top-tier as a graduate of the Ecole National d’Administration _ the French breeding-ground school for both political and corporate elites like former President Jacques Chirac _ he has never run a government ministry.

Under his tenure as party boss, the Socialists suffered one of the biggest shockers in recent French political history: Lionel Jospin lost the first round to far-right nationalist Jean-Marie Le Pen in the 2002 presidential race, later won by Chirac. Hollande calls it the biggest blow of his career and one he won’t soon forget.

Hollande was born in the Normandy city of Rouen, the son of a social-worker mother who he admired and a doctor father who backed the political right and whose ideas “forced me to construct my ideas,” Hollande writes in his campaign-season book entitled “Changer de Destin” (Change Destiny).

On Les Guignols de l’Info, a satirical fake news show with puppets, Hollande has long been depicted as innocent, wide-eyed and soft-in-the-middle _ with a dopey, hollow laugh.

But in the Sarkozy era, he’s tapped into frustration about unemployment and perceived economic inequality. While Sarkozy, a former hard-charging Interior Minister, has trotted out his longtime formula of playing up his security credentials, Hollande has focused on what polls show worry the French most: joblessness and the economy.

The body language at the lectern _ where both Sarkozy and Hollande can excel _ speaks volumes. Hollande often leans on his elbows, or flails his arms about in the air, and laughs. Sarkozy cuts the air in crisp movements, and is seemingly less about engaging his audience than displaying resoluteness.

People who have known Hollande for years say his human touch and his assiduousness _ often unseen _ at the ground game of politics set him apart.

“What you notice most about Francois is that he’s well-balanced, has integrity, and feels good about himself,” said Frederic Bourcier, the Socialist Party’s First Secretary in the region around Rennes, alluding to the image of Sarkozy as hasty, tempestuous and aggressive. “We need something new.”

He also said Hollande had reworked himself, with an image makeover ahead of the campaign that included trimming his midsection, and that could serve as an inspiration for the country.

“This guy is tailor-made for France nowadays,” Bourcier said.

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