Fisher Capital Management World News: European stocks rise despite growth warning

Europe’s main stock markets rose on Thursday despite global growth warnings, receiving support from Wall Street that looked ahead to a key jobs speech by US President Barack Obama.

London’s FTSE 100 index of leading companies climbed 0.41 per cent to 5,340.38 points, Paris’ CAC 40 also rose 0.41 per cent to 3,085.83 points, and in Frankfurt the DAX edged up 0.05 per cent to 5,408.46 points.

The euro fell against the dollar ahead of the Obama speech, and after eurozone growth forecasts were lowered. In late London trading the single currency bought $1.3938 compared to $1.4096 late in New York on Wednesday. The dollar rose to 77.42 yen from 77.26 yen.

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Elsewhere in Europe, Swiss stocks rose 0.50 per cent, Milan 0.69 per cent, Brussels 0.92 per cent, Lisbon 1.10 per cent and Madrid 1.49 per cent.

European stocks slumped during the day after European Central Bank and the Bank of England both held rates steady as expected, and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the ECB slashed their eurozone growth forecasts.

While the ECB signalling an end to rates rises was seen positively, many in the market had been looking from the BoE to undertake further stimulus.

The ECB kept its benchmark rate at 1.5 per cent and the BoE held rates at a record low level of 0.5 per cent.

A new recession stalks some rich countries, the OECD said, with debt levels in many major economies blocking their ability to fight recession through spending and tax cuts.

The OECD said it now expects the eurozone is set for third-quarter growth of 1.4 per cent but will switch into a downturn of 0.4 per cent in the final quarter.

It said Germany, the main driving force in the eurozone, could grow by 2.6 per cent in the third quarter but was set to contract by 1.4 per cent in the fourth quarter.

France is now expected to grow 0.9 in the third quarter and 0.4 per cent in the fourth.

“Growth is turning out to be much slower than we thought three months ago and the risk of hitting patches of negative growth has gone up,” OECD chief economist Pier Carlo Padoan said.

ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet said the bank now expects the eurozone 1.6 per cent growth in 2011 and to 1.3 per cent in 2012, compared with 1.7 per cent and 1.9 per cent respectively previously.

Trichet’s comment that “there is an enormous degree of uncertainty surrounding the global economy and the eurozone economy,” also spooked the markets.

European stocks rebounded however after US markets moved into positive territory in the morning.

“The move lower has been tempered ahead of an important jobs speech later this evening in the US by President Obama as markets rebound heading into the close,” said CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson.

Obama was set to unveil plans for a $300 billion infrastructure spending and an extension of a workers payroll tax cut designed to convince small businesses to hire staff.

However by midday US stocks had moved back into the red, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average showing a decline of 0.27 per cent to 11,384.59 points. The broader S&P 500 index was down 0.38 per cent at 1,194.11 points and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.15 per cent to 2,545.19 per cent.

Asian markets closed mostly higher on Thursday, with Tokyo up 0.34 per cent to 8,793.12 points.

Fisher Capital Management World News: IRS warns of tax scam targeting Pa. SS recipients

PHILADELPHIA – The Internal Revenue Service is asking Pennsylvania residents to be on guard against tax scams promoted by individuals trying to persuade them to file false returns. These scams have, in many cases, targeted elderly taxpayers in the Midwest but have since spread nationwide to include Pennsylvania.

The IRS has noted an increase in tax-return-related scams involving unsuspecting seniors and others who normally do not have a filing requirement in the first place. These taxpayers are led to believe they should file a return with the IRS for money of which they are not entitled.

“This scam first hit the Erie area and has since spread across the state targeting the elderly as well as others who receive Social Security benefits. These dishonest return preparers are charging a fee to prepare a false tax return on your behalf promising a large refund or rebate,” said David Stewart, IRS spokesman. “However, these victims do not have any withholding to claim and are not eligible for any credits, refunds or rebates.”

Most paid tax return preparers provide honest and professional services, but there are some who engage in fraud and other illegal activities. Unscrupulous promoters of tax scams often prey upon low income individuals and seniors. They build false hopes of a refund and charge people money for bad advice. In the end, victims of these scams discover their claims are rejected or the refund barely exceeds what they paid the scam promoter. Meanwhile, their money and the promoters are long gone.

Flyers and advertisements for free money from the IRS have been circulated at community organizations including churches and organizations that assist seniors, exploiting their good intentions and credibility.

The flyers suggest that taxpayers can file a return and get a refund with little or no documentation. These fraudulent schemes are often spread by word of mouth among unsuspecting and well-intentioned people telling their friends and relatives.

“Return Preparer fraud is a priority for IRS Criminal Investigation and we have committed resources to investigating and prosecuting these types of cases,” said Thomas Jankowski, Special Agent in Charge, IRS-Criminal Investigation-Pittsburgh Field Office.

“Taxpayers should be very selective in choosing a return preparer, and have confidence knowing that person will prepare accurate tax returns and safeguard their financial information. Remember it is always the taxpayer who is ultimately responsible for what is filed with the IRS.”

Anyone victimized or approached by these scam promoters should contact the local IRS Taxpayer Assistance Center. Others with questions about tax credits or refunds should visit the IRS website at www.IRS.gov or call the IRS toll-free number at 1-800-829-1040.

Fisher Capital Management World News: Police: Australia neck ‘bomb’ is a’very elaborate hoax’

Video: Cops defuse bomb strapped to Sydney teen

SYDNEY — A suspicious device attached to the neck of the 18-year-old daughter of a wealthy Australian businessman contained no explosives and appeared to be part of a “very elaborate hoax,” Australian police said Thursday.

In a scene that could have been straight from a Hollywood thriller, bomb squad specialists worked for 10 horrifying hours to free Madeleine Pulver from a bomb-like device she said was chained to her neck by a ski-mask-clad man who entered her suburban Sydney home Wednesday afternoon. She was not hurt, and officials managed to free her around midnight.

New South Wales state Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Murdoch said Thursday that specialists had determined the device contained no explosives. Murdoch said the man apparently had also left a threatening note in the house with specific demands that police would not describe.

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“A very, very elaborate hoax as it turned out,” Murdoch told reporters. “But it was made and certainly gave the appearance of a legitimate improvised explosive device. We had to treat it seriously until we could prove otherwise and that’s exactly what we did and that’s why it took so long.”

Murdoch said the device had been attached to the girl “by a chain or something similar,” which took officers a long time to remove.

Pulver was reunited with her family Wednesday night and examined by doctors after being returned to her parents, Bill and Belinda Pulver, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Police said they had no idea why Pulver was targeted, but they said the attack did not appear to be random.

“I hardly think that the elaborate nature and sophistication of this device was the result of someone who picked on someone randomly,” Murdoch said.

The family also was at a loss to explain the bizarre attack, he said.

“The offender went to a lot of trouble for a particular reason, but what that reason was, police are still working to determine,” Murdoch said.

Police appealed to the public for clues and motives behind the incident.

Police said Madeleine Pulver called them to the house in the wealthy suburb of Mosman around 2:30 p.m.

Officials had kept a tight lid on information throughout the ordeal while consulting with federal and British bomb-disposal experts, officials said. The device was still intact upon its removal from the girl, Murdoch said.

A policeman wearing protective equipment walks near a house where bomb squad officers freed an 18-year-old girl.

“There were some instructions left by the offender at the scene last afternoon and those instructions will provide us with further lines for inquiry,” Murdoch told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. “Those instructions also limited us somewhat last night in how quickly we could proceed. Certainly the instructions were precise, they were such that led us to believe that we were dealing with a very serious and legitimate threat.”

The Morning Herald described Bill Pulver, 53, as a wealthy businessman who runs an international software company, Appen Butler Hill, a linguistic solutions company. Pulver and his wife also have three sons.

Murdoch earlier described the device as “very elaborate, very sophisticated.”

Police described the scenario as one never before experienced in Australia.

“This type of extortion, this type of bomb, we have never seen before,” a senior police officer reportedly explained.

Neighbors in the well-to-do enclave were asked to leave their homes while police worked on the device.

Fisher Capital Management World News: Trojan asteroid tags along on Earth’s orbit

The asteroid in the Earth’s orbit around the sun has been hiding from view, mostly overhead during daylight, study finds.

By Amina Khan, Los Angeles Times

July 28, 2011

The Trojan asteroid travels with the Earth as they both orbit the sun. (Paul Wiegert / University of Western Ontario/July 28,2011)

Turns out the moon’s not the Earth’s only traveling companion. Space scientists have discovered an asteroid that’s been following our fair planet for thousands of years, at least — and there may be many more where it came from, according to a recent study.

If other so-called Trojan asteroids are found, they could turn out to be ideal candidates for a visit from astronauts, something NASA hopes will be possible within the next 15 years.

Most of the asteroids in the solar system populate the belt of rocky debris between Mars and Jupiter. But planets can pull asteroids into their orbits, too. More than 4,000 Trojan asteroids have been discovered around the gas giant Jupiter, along with a few around Neptune and Mars.

But no such asteroid had ever been found near Earth. That led some scientists to believe that our planet lacked an entourage.

But others proposed a different explanation: Perhaps there were Trojan asteroids in Earth’s orbit around the sun, but they were simply hidden from view.

The problem was this: In order for an asteroid to attain a stable position in a planet’s orbit, it must find the spot where the gravitational pull of the planet and that of the sun cancel each other out. Two of these spots, called Lagrangian points, lie along a planet’s orbit — one ahead of the planet and one behind it. Drawing straight lines between the Earth, the sun and a Lagrangian point produces a triangle whose sides are equal in length. An asteroid there would hover in the sky at a 60-degree angle from the sun.

Any object that close to the sun would be difficult to see from Earth because it would be overhead mostly during broad daylight, as invisible as the stars.

But Martin Connors, a space scientist at Athabasca University in Alberta, Canada, had an idea. Maybe NASA’s Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, which aims its lens 90 degrees away from the sun, would be able to pick up an oddball Trojan with an eccentric orbit.

Indeed it did. Connors found one candidate whose strange path over six days in late 2010 seemed to match the unevenly elongated orbit typical of Trojans. His team confirmed the Trojan’s identity by spotting it a few months later with another telescope in Hawaii.

“This is pretty cool,” said Amy Mainzer, a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory who wasn’t involved in the study, which was published online Wednesday by the journal Nature. “It’s a new class of near-Earth object that’s been hypothesized to exist.”

And if more Trojan asteroids can be found, researchers said, they could be ideal for astronaut visits and the mining of precious resources. (This particular asteroid is too tilted with respect to the solar system to make a good candidate, Mainzer said.)

Stuffed into a forgotten closet in the sky, such relics could also give scientists a fresh glimpse into the early formation of the solar system.