It seems that Wall Street is saying, “Buy, Buy, Buy,” again, but not where stocks are concerned.  Wall Street is hiring again!  It seems that investment banks and brokerages are adding to their ranks after nearly 2 years of layoffs.

Recruiters say this is the busiest hiring season in two years, and not just of top employees. A recent survey from financial training company 7city Learning found that 75% of all Wall Street firms planned to add more recent graduates to their ranks in the next few months than they did a year ago.

“At the end of last year there was a lot of hiring talk but firms were still reluctant,” says top Wall Street recruiter Gary Goldstein of Whitney Group. “Now there is activity. Employers seem much more secure that the market is in recovery.”

The increased hiring activity is coming at a time when a number of firms are repositioning themselves in the wake of the financial crisis. The nation’s largest banks are exiting such risky businesses as derivatives and proprietary trading, and adding to their lending operations. At the same time, smaller financial firms are building up their practices to pick up the trading and underwriting businesses the larger firms are leaving behind.

That’s not to say that layoffs are not still happening. Earlier this week, UBS reportedly made cuts in its wealth management division. And overall, the number of workers in the financial services business in New York State fell by 2,800 in February to 659,800. But that was after two months of gains in employment in the industry. And February’s drop was much smaller than the losses the industry had a year ago.

Among experienced bankers, Goldstein says those who work with clients in the energy and healthcare sectors have the best chance of snagging a job. Many firms are betting those sectors recover first. But top to bottom, financial firms are significantly adding new staff for the first time since the fiscal crisis. Big, guaranteed paychecks are back as well.

Earlier this week, E-Trade hired Steven Freiberg to be the online broker’s chief executive. Freiberg will get paid $1 million a year for his new position plus bonus, which the firm has guaranteed will be $3 million a year for the first two years. Mid-sized investment firm Jefferies has hired nearly 50 bankers in its healthcare industry practice in the past few months. Goldman Sachs, too, says it expects to hire 60% more recent graduates this year than it did a year ago. Even Citigroup, which a year ago looked like it was headed for Wall Street’s dustbin, is on a hiring binge. The bank is reportedly looking to a add workers in trading and hedge fund services.

A number of company’s clients are doubling the length of their new employee development programs to accommodate more people according to 7city Learning, a company that assists in training recruits for financial firms.  In a recent survey completed by 7city, half of the 36 large financial firms plan to hire 20% more junior employees than they did a year ago.

“It’s a pretty good indication that the firms are investing in their people and in their future,” says 7city’s Bob Wieczorek, who works with investment firms.

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My Take: Well, that should reduce the percentage of unemployment, maybe not by much, but at least a little bit.  Of course, that will also mean that Manhattan discrimination lawyers will probably be getting more clients.  If recent news is correct about the moms that are suing.  Of course, I think they may be using New York sexual harassment lawyers.  I could be wrong.

One thing is for sure, any women naked hire will need to find daycare.  I would highly recommend that they get licensed daycare for the safety of their children.  I’m sorry, no job is as important as keeping your children safe.  I don’t care if it’s a new job or an old job, children come first.  That’s one of the problems with this world, families are alienating each other.

Back to the article, these people do need new clothes for work.  And most offices now have casual wear so they can wear Greek clothing to work.  I know there’re some great deals on women’s Greek tees online.  You could probably also find great deals on men’s Greek tees.

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Memories and Movies

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In the federal rescue of banks, Citigroup was the biggest recipient.  Now the US is set to receive $8 million from bailing them out.  According to industry and federal sources, the Obama administration is also making final preparations to sell its stake in the New York bank.

At today’s prices, the sale would net more than $8 billion, by far the largest profit returned from any firm that accepted bailout funds and the transaction would be the second-largest stock sale in history.

On paper, the government’s 27% stake has grown in value to $33 billion. The size of the deal in the works has Wall Street buzzing. Only the stock offering by Japan’s Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, which raised $36.8 billion in 1987, was larger, according to Thomson Reuters.

Leading financial firms, including J.P. Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, are vying to be chosen as the deal’s underwriters to gain the prestige of managing a historic stock sale as well as the fees from investors who buy the shares.

To improve their chances, some banks, such as Goldman Sachs, are offering their services to the Treasury Department at almost no cost, industry officials familiar with the matter said.

Sign of bailout’s success

The windfall expected from the stock sale would amount to a validation of the rescue plan adopted by government officials during the height of the financial panic, when the banking system neared the brink of collapse.

A year ago, Citigroup’s stock hovered around a dollar a share and the bank’s future seemed in doubt. On March 23, the stock closed at $4.31.

If the sale proceeds as planned, Citigroup would be able to cut nearly all of its ties to the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program. Meanwhile, the administration could highlight the profit generated from the rescue of big banks.

“It’s unprecedented to do [a stock sale] of this size right after the financial industry has been so battered,” said an industry official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly. “It’s just a very bullish sign.”

The Treasury, as well as the Wall Street firms, declined to comment on the stock sale.

Citigroup’s performance has lagged behind its rivals in Lower Manhattan. In January, the company announced a $1.6 billion loss for 2009. By comparison, J.P. Morgan Chase earned $11.7 billion. But Citigroup’s executives said at the time that they saw its business stabilizing, allowing the company to set aside less money in the last three months of 2009 to cover losses than it did for the same period of 2008.

Citigroup was among nine major banks that were the first to take bailout funds in October 2008, and all have returned their federal loans. In addition to these repayments, the Treasury has received interest, dividends and about $3.5 billion from the sale of warrants, which are contracts allowing a holder to buy a company’s stock in the future.

Lower than expected costs

The true cost of rescuing the financial system, however, is not yet known. Senior Treasury officials have said that they expect the ultimate cost of TARP to be less than $100 billion. Besides TARP programs, mortgage financiers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have received more than $125 billion in federal aid. There is no indication that either firm will be able to repay the government anytime soon.

Yet many economists say that rescuing large Wall Street firms has come at a much lower cost than expected.

During the height of the financial crisis in October and November of 2008, Citigroup got more than $45 billion in federal aid in exchange for preferred shares. The government later restructured that package. Officials converted $20 billion into a loan, and the remaining $25 billion was converted in September into common stock at the price of $3.25 a share.

Citigroup was the only bank that gave common shares to the government, because the firm was in worse shape than its rivals and couldn’t promise to repay its aid entirely in cash.

In December, the bank announced it would raise money from investors to repay the $20 billion loan. The Treasury said at that time that it would sell its Citigroup shares in phases this year, beginning with a $5 billion deal.  The value of the government’s stake had grown to $33.1 billion at the end of regular trading March 23.

Citigroup diluted the value of its stock that was held by existing stockholders by issuing stock and giving it to the government last year.  However, a reverse stock split to enhance the value of shares could be ratified by the company.  In fact, the bank’s stockholders did approve a proposal by the board of directors to speed a stock reverse split before June 30 last fall.

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My Take: Okay, I can understand the shares part of the deal with Citigroup.  However, if they are losing money, how can they pay back the $20 billion loan?  If I understand this correctly, this has nothing to do with commercial mortgage loans and that it is a straightforward business loan.  I would imagine that as long as they keep the interest paid up, that would keep them from defaulting on it.  I just worry that they are losing money and will not be able to pay back.

Maybe the government would have been better off with commercial mortgages on all the banks they helped out.  At least that way they would have property to sell to recoup any losses.  Maybe these banks should get into one of the many debt settlement services to help them out.  They always complain about the average Joe citizen not paying their bills and getting into a debt settlement program.  Why shouldn’t they follow their own advice?

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Many apparel manufacturers have decided to proceed with their product lifecycle management (PLM) incentives despite the rough economy.  In fact, a couple of IT providers have been signing on some big clients like Madura Garments in India has installed Minneapolis-based Lawson Software, Lawson Fashion PLM.  This is a web-based software application that helps manage preproduction items.  Labels such as Allen Solly, Van Heusen, and Louis Philippe produced by Madura Garments which has been a challenge for the company in managing brands over a large supply chain.  This helps the company with various collections and across multiple seasons to deal with hundreds or thousands of points of information

In addition, the company has been on a growth track, so it was looking for PLM to help it become more efficient in gaining access to information.

“We are already deriving value from the added capabilities [of Lawson PLM] that help us better manage our products from the time we begin designing an item until it’s ready for the retail shelves,” said Neeraj Pal Singh, Madera’s vice president of information systems.  Up to three weeks have been saved for fabric-sample request cycles, company officials said.

The implementation process also gave Madura an opportunity to re-engineer its business processes and help structure systems to provide better transparency of information across the company’s supply chain. In addition, the new system enables product- development activities to work simultaneously, which helps reduce product-development timelines for new collections and reduce time-to-market, Singh added.

Meanwhile, Campbell, Calif.–based Centric Software Inc. is also making inroads on the PLM front, having signed Rigby, Idaho–based Klim USA to use its Centric 8 PLM and sourcing applications to manage Klim’s technical motorcycle- and snowmobile-gear business.

Klim’s suppliers are spread throughout Canada, Sweden and Asia, and the company is looking to product lifecycle management to put everyone on the same page during the sample-making process, explained Blake Summers, director of information technology at Klim.

“This will enable us to maintain our high-quality standards while reducing costs and bringing products to market more quickly,” he said.  Summers said he was drawn to the collaboration aspects of PLM so that crossed signals between various suppliers would not be an issue during sample-making.

Summer is also said that there is compromising on the quality Klim is known for.  The technical equipment used by some of the best dirt-bike and snowmobile riders in the country is produced by Klim.  This is the reason that the collaboration aspects of PLM for keeping communication open between for suppliers.

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My Take: You have to spend money to make money when you own a business.  It seems that there is always something to help business owners expand and grow in the field of technology.  The downside of this is that they pass that expense on to the consumer.

Any company that can expand through technology without passing that expense on to their customers would probably make more money than they would if they did pass on the expense.  That goes a long with an economic studies theory that if you reduce the retail price of an item you will sell more and make more money in the long run.  However, not many business owners like this theory.

There is one business that could possibly do this and make tons of money doing it.  That is the fashion industry!  One thing is definitely sure; everybody needs clothes, unless I lived in a nudist colony.  Let’s take the most popular piece of clothing in America, cool T shirts.  Everybody wears T-shirts!  Whether they are funny T-shirts, offensive T-shirts or the rude offensive tees somebody is wearing one.

There are so many different T-shirt designs on the market today that people have a large for rioting to choose from and yet the price of a T-shirt is outrageous.  That means even if the price were lower you would still be a little find cool T-shirt designs that you would love.  It also means that you would probably buy more than your normal would.

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Senior Citizens are being forced out of retirement and back to work by the worst US economic recession in 70 years, leaving them fighting for jobs against younger people or risk homelessness, according to a private study.  The study released on September 20 by Experience Works, indicated that out of a group of 2000, over 55 people, 46% needed to find work to keep their homes.  The study also indicated that for almost a year they have been looking for work.

Experience Works is the nation’s largest nonprofit provider of community service, training and employment opportunities for older workers. The study was conducted in the past two months and covered 30 states and Puerto Rico.

“These people are at the age where they understandably thought their job-searching years were behind them,” said Cynthia Metzler, president and CEO of Experience Works.  “But here they are, many in their 60s, 70s and beyond, desperate to find work so they can keep a roof over their heads and food on the table.”

According to the study, many of the participants had no intention of working past their 60th birthday, but had to change plans after being laid off or following the death of a spouse. Over a third of the participants had retired.  Also, 90% of respondents 76 years and older planned to continue working for the next five years.

For those who think they may have a problem with an employer or a potential employer . . . A law firm specializing in enforcing the rights of employees in an effort to preserve a fair, equal and just employment environment can be of assistance.  These New York employment lawyers have significant experience representing plaintiffs in all phases of litigation in all forums including New York State and federal courts, arbitration, and before both state and federal administrative agencies.  A NYC attorney for employee rights can handle your legal matters.  No one should have to lose their job or be denied a job because of age or disability.

Huge medical bills due to a personal illness or that of a spouse were also reasons for coming out of retirement, the survey found. The longest and deepest economic slump since the 1930s is making finding a job for the low-income elderly workers a difficult challenge.

According to Labor Department data, there were 2 million unemployed workers over the age of 55 in August, an increase of 69% from the same period last year. Between August 2008 and August this year, the number of unemployed workers 75 years and older increased by 33%.  The unemployment rate among workers 55 years and older was 6.7% in August after shooting to a record 7.1% in July. The national unemployment rate was at 9.7% in August, the highest in 26 years.

The Experience Works study found that 46% of the elderly jobseekers were sometimes forced to choose between paying rent, buying food or medication. Almost three-quarters believed their age made it harder to compete for jobs with younger workers.

“This study underscores the need to create policies that remove barriers to employment for older workers and provide additional programs and services specifically aimed at helping older people re-enter the work force or remain working,” said Metzler.

For many older Americans, retirement is not a viable option; many are postponing retirement, while others are going back into the work force, driven by personal or financial reasons.  The trend is evident in the number of older workers — the number of people 55 and above in the work force rose to 22.7 million in May, up from 22 million in 2003 and 20.7 million the year before that, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The increase in older workers coincides with a shift in employers’ attitudes — while there has long been an aversion in corporate America to hiring seniors, who were deemed expensive or difficult to train, that view is changing somewhat at a time when the government is forecasting a significant labor shortage by the end of the decade.

The AARP estimates that 1-10 Americans age 65 and older lives below the poverty level.  In part, this explains the need to work because of the need of money.  This does not mean that most seniors are poor, they may have limited savings, expensive medications or loss of a spouse that maybe the reason for a lack of funds.

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My Take: I will never understand why people cannot understand that Social Security does not pay enough!  It makes no difference whether it is retirement, disability or widow’s pension; it is never enough to truly live on especially if you have health issues.  They take out $150 a month for Medicare and then Medicare does not pay for everything.

I also do not understand why companies will not hire an older person.  If they are qualified for the position and they have the right amount of experience, it seems that they would be of benefit to the company.  There may be a problem in training because an older person is set in their ways, but that could also highlight problems in the company.  That means the company would improve because of them.

And the reason that Social Security does not provide enough is simply because the cost of living keeps rising and the benefits are only about 75% of what you were earning the last three months of work.  Then those same benefits do not increase as much as they should put the cost of living.  That increase is only about .02% or about $20 a month on average.  It depends on how much you get per month.

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Investors are keeping an eye on the housing market, falling dollar and higher commodities as Wall Street rides a seesaw.  The question on everybody’s mind is if Wall Street collapses will panic prevail.  That is the same question they were asking themselves September 15, 2008 when Lehman Brothers fell.

Stocks struggled at the end of September, as strength in global markets and U.S. commodities vied with some investor caution after the recent rally.  The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) was little changed more than an hour into the session. The S&P 500 (SPX) index added a few points. The NASDAQ composite (COMP) was barely changed.

Stocks were mixed, with only the NASDAQ managing a fresh one-year high, as investors showed some caution after a more than six-month rally.  That hesitation continued, with investors looking to the Federal Reserve meeting, the series of housing reports this week and the Dow’s climb toward 10,000. Although 10,000 is not a key technical level, it is a significant psychological level.

Since bottoming at a 12-year low March 9, the S&P 500 has gained 57.4% and the Dow has gained 49%, as of Monday’s close. After hitting a six-year low, the NASDAQ has gained 68.5%.  Stocks have risen during those 6-1/2 months on signs that the economy is starting to recover — and extraordinary amounts of fiscal and monetary stimulus.

Among early stock movers, financial shares rose, including Dow components American Express (AXP, Fortune 500), Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500).  Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) rose after Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC said it sold half of its stake in the company. GIC had bought a 9% stake in Citigroup at its lows and opted to cash in on the recent market rally to earn $1.6 billion.

Fed: The central bank began its two-day policy meeting Tuesday with an announcement expected Wednesday afternoon. The Fed is expected to hold short-term interest rates unchanged at levels near zero.  Fed chief Ben Bernanke said last week that the recession is likely over, but the labor market still has a long way to go.

Economy: July home prices rose 0.3%, according to a report from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) released shortly after the start of trading. That was short of forecasts for a rise of 0.5%, according to Briefing.com survey of economists. Home prices rose a revised 0.1% in June.

World markets: Global markets rallied. In Europe, London’s FTSE 100, France’s CAC 40 and Germany’s DAX all advanced. Asian markets ended higher.

Forecast: Record low rates hold

Currency and commodities: The dollar fell against the yen and euro, after having advanced for the past few sessions.  The falling greenback lifted dollar-traded commodities such as oil and gold.

U.S. light crude oil for October delivery rose $1.32 to $71.03 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. COMEX gold for December delivery rose $10.90 to $1,015.80 an ounce. Gold closed at a record high of $1,020.20 last week.

Bonds: Treasury prices rose, lowering the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to 3.46% from 3.48% Monday. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.

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My Take: I never was much of a stock market person.  However, I have heard the recent recession compared to the “Great Depression”.  When I heard was that it was almost as bad.  The only difference I can see is that people were not jumping out of windows because of it.

I truly believe that there was in so many greedy people in the financial world, this problem would not have happened.  People like Medoff lied, cheated and stole millions of dollars from people.  There are probably more like him running around, but they have just been lucky enough not to be caught.

One thing is for sure; all those businesses would not need a commercial loan workout if they had not been lied to.  Instead, they would be looking for more commercial real estate loans so they could make more money.  As the saying goes, hindsight is always 20/20.

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