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Cyanotech Corp. of Kona made $605,000 on revenues of $3.9 million for the three months ended Dec. 31, 2009.

That compared with a $514,000 profit on revenues of $3.5 million in the same period in the previous fiscal year.

The Big Island biotech company (Nasdaq: CYAN), which develops and sells microalgae products, attributed the gains to the launch of new products during the quarter, including a multivitamin ay day loans.

“Despite economic challenges, our focus on business fundamentals remains robust,” President and CEO Andrew Jacobson said in a prepared statement.

Shares of Cyanotech were at $3.19 on Thursday, down 12 percent for the day.

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The Bank of Montreal is predicting Canada and the United States will post gross domestic product growth of 2.5 per cent next year.

The growth essentially reverses a similar decline this year.

The bank is also predicting that the era of zero interest rates will come to an end just after mid-year in Canada and not soon afterwards in the U.S.

However, borrowing costs are expected to remain exceptionally low as central banks will wait until they are absolutely certain the recovery has taken root before hiking aggressively wired payday loan.

Despite the growth, the Bank of Montreal is predicting the jobless rate will still average 10 per cent in the United States and 8.5 per cent in Canada next year.

Inflation, however, is expected to remain subdued, averaging 1.5 per cent in Canada and about two per cent in the United States.

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Gary Rodrigues, the former longtime Hawaii director of the United Public Workers Local 646, has paid the labor union $378,103 in restitution as part of a court order resulting from his 2002 embezzlement conviction, the U.S. Attorney’s office said Monday.

A federal jury convicted Rodrigues and his daughter, Robin Haunani Rodrigues Sabatini, of embezzling money from the union and taking kickbacks in connection with an employee welfare benefit plan in November 2002.

Both were also found guilty of mail fraud, health-care fraud, money laundering and conspiracy.

In 2003, Rodrigues was sentenced to more than five years in prison and Sabatini was sentenced to nearly four years but both remained free on bail while they appealed their convictions guaranteed payday loan.

Their appeals were denied by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco in 2007. They tried to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court but the appeals were declined in 2008.

Rodrigues is serving his sentence in a federal prison in Taft, Calif. and his daughter is imprisoned at a federal facility in Dublin, Calif.

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Delinquencies among small and medium-sized U.S. business borrowers fell in October for a third straight month, according to PayNet Inc, which provides risk-management tools to the commercial lending industry.

The improved snapshot of accounts in moderate and severe delinquency is consistent with indications that business conditions bottomed out earlier in the year.

“The financial health of these millions of companies is stabilizing and the ability to repay loans on time is improving,” said Bill Phelan, president and founder of Skokie, Illinois-based PayNet.

Accounts in moderate delinquency, or behind by 30 days or more, fell to 4.07 percent in November from 4.25 percent in October, according to PayNet.

That marked the greatest improvement in the measure since June 2004. Delinquencies were running at the lowest rate since December 2008.

Accounts 90 days or more behind in payment, or in severe delinquency, fell to 1.43 percent from 1.45 percent, a third straight monthly improvement.

Still, accounts behind 180 days or more, or in default, rose to 0.87 percent in October from 0.84 percent in September, yet another new high for the current business cycle.

PayNet’s Small Business Lending Index, which measures the overall volume of financing, fell 18 percent year-over-year in October.

In recent months the level of decline has started to flatten out, but Phelan said many companies don’t see a pressing need for new business investment.

“Demand from the consumer doesn’t exist like it’s done in the past,” he said. “Business owners are not yet comfortable in expanding their companies.”

PayNet collects real-time loan information, such as originations and delinquencies, from more than 225 leading U.S. capital equipment lenders.

The company’s proprietary database encompasses more than 16 million current and historic contracts, worth $700 billion.

More than half the money invested in plants, equipment and software in the United States in any given year is financed with loans, leases and lines of credit.

(Editing by Leslie Adler)

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NEW YORK–As U.S. consumers compile their holiday shopping lists, Motorola Inc.’s Droid smartphone is expected to feature prominently, at the expense of Palm Inc.’s Pre and Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry.

Heavy marketing by Verizon Wireless will help sales of what Motorola hopes is its comeback phone, though the Droid will still lag by far the total sales of BlackBerry or Apple Inc’s iPhone, analysts say.

U.S. market leader Verizon Wireless, owned by Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC, is also looking for a bit of a comeback itself, having lost market share in the third quarter to iPhone carrier AT&T Inc.

"It sounds like early feedback from Droid has been pretty positive," said JPMorgan analyst Michael McCormack. "There’s no question that we’ll see better results from Verizon" than in the third quarter.

Motorola is expected to sell 500,000 to 1 million units of the Droid in the fourth quarter, according to estimates from four analysts. That would be a good start for a company that has been losing ground to rivals for more than two years.

"Droid’s eating into competitor phone sales at Verizon," said Charter Equity Research analyst Ed Snyder, adding that Verizon’s Droid promotions are a problem for RIM.

He said that RIM does not have as exciting a product line this holiday season as it did a year ago, when the BlackBerry Storm was the highest-profile phone on Verizon’s network.

The Storm attracted attention because it was RIM’s first touchscreen phone, whereas the latest batch of BlackBerrys are mostly just upgrades of older phones, analysts said.

Reuters News Agency

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Charles Schwab Corp expects to waive about $100 million in money market fees in the current quarter, up 28 percent from the previous quarter, the largest U.S. discount brokerage said on Thursday.

Management, speaking at a quarterly update for investors, added that the first 100 basis-point rise in interest rates could eliminate fee waivers altogether.

With near-zero interest rates continuing to hamper the online brokerage, it said Thursday it would incrementally move billions of dollars — but no more than $10 billion — from clients’ money market funds into its bank unit in 2010.

Schwab had $178.7 billion in client money market funds at the end of September.

Low interest rates, brought on by the recession, have forced the company to waive the fees it charges clients in managed funds. Schwab, by far the biggest online broker, also runs a fast-growing bank and offers investment advice.

The $100 million in fourth quarter waivers would be up from $78 million in the third quarter, and $36 million in the first half of the year payday loans online. It is also higher than the company’s previous forecast, which suggested $86 million in waivers remained this year.

Schwab shares were little changed after the new forecast. They were up 1.8 percent at $17.25 on the Nasdaq.

Chief Financial Officer Joe Martinetto said the company was preserving capital and flexibility amid market uncertainty, but “we’re now thinking that maybe the worst of that has past us.

“There is a substantial number that still sits out in money funds that we would see migrating toward the bank,” Martinetto said, adding later that $10 billion was the absolute most that could transfer next year.

San Francisco-based Schwab, which broadcasted its investor update online, posted a 34 percent profit drop in the third quarter, meeting Wall Street expectations.

(Reporting by Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

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Europe’s manufacturing expanded for the first time in 17 months and services industries grew at a faster pace in October as evidence mounted that the global economy is pulling out of the recession.

An index of manufacturing increased to 50.7 from 49.3 in September and a services gauge rose to 52.3 from 50.9, London- based Markit Economics said today. Both indexes topped economist forecasts, and the factory gauge climbed above 50, indicating expansion, for the first time since May 2008. German business confidence rose to a 13-month high, a separate report showed.

European companies are stepping up output to meet reviving orders after governments around the world spent $2 trillion in stimulus measures to fight the worst recession in six decades. The International Monetary Fund said on Oct. 1 that the global economy will expand at a faster pace than previously expected in 2010. The euro’s strength may curb the recovery in Europe.

“The second half of the year will be relatively strong,” said Juergen Michels, chief euro-area economist at Citigroup in London. “Looking ahead, there are a lot of reasons for momentum to weaken partly because of a stonger euro.”

The world economy will shrink 1.1 percent this year, less than the 1.4 percent projected in July, the Washington-based IMF forecast. In 2010, the economy may expand 3.1 percent instead of a previously projected 2.5 percent, the fund said. In the euro region, the economy probably returned to growth in the third quarter, the European Commission forecast last month.

Services Industries

A composite index of manufacturing and services industries in the euro-area economy rose to 53 from 51.1 in September, Markit said in today’s report. That was the highest since December 2007 and above the 51.6 that economists had projected in a Bloomberg survey.

Manufacturing in Germany, Europe’s largest economy, expanded in October for the first time in 15 months, Markit said. German business sentiment improved to the highest since September 2008, the Ifo institute in Munich said today in a separate report, citing a survey of 7,000 executives.

Adding to signs of global recovery, confidence in the world economy rose for a third straight month in October, a Bloomberg survey of users on six continents showed earlier this month. In the U.S., industrial output increased more than expected in September and China’s manufacturing expanded at the fastest pace in 17 months.

Monthly Record

Wolfsburg, Germany-based Volkswagen AG, the biggest overseas carmaker in China, sold 150,000 cars in September, a monthly record, as sales for the first nine months surged 37 percent. Hermes International SCA Chief Executive Officer Patrick Thomas said on Oct. 8 that luxury-goods brand sales are “booming” in China and elsewhere in Asia, while the U.S. market has turned “slightly positive.”

Data across Europe today showed some economies are recovering better than others. While French consumer spending rose in September for the first time in three months, the U.K. economy unexpectedly contracted 0.4 percent in the third quarter, separate reports showed.

The European Central Bank has cut its key rate to a record low of 1 percent and started buying as much as 60 billion euros of covered bonds to stimulate bank lending and boost investments and consumption. ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet said on Oct. 9 that it is “not the time to exit yet” with the economy expected to show a “rather uneven” recovery.

Seven Months

The euro has appreciated 18 percent against the dollar since February to a 14-month high above $1.50, making the region’s goods less competitive abroad. In the year’s first seven months, euro-area exports to the U.S., the region’s second-largest trading partner, dropped 20 percent from a year earlier, data showed on Oct. 16. Shipments to the U.K. fell 26 percent and exports to China dropped 4 percent in that period.

“Exchange-rate movements make policy makers sweat,” Marco Annunziata, chief economist at UniCredit Group in London, said in an e-mailed statement. “The euro is already at historically strong levels and will start hitting the recovery at its most fragile juncture, six to nine months from now.”

Siemens AG, Europe’s largest engineering company, has had a “tough” year on slumping orders, Chief Financial Officer Joe Kaeser said last month. ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steelmaker, said markets for metal in the U.S. and Europe won’t “normalize” next year and Chinese growth will slow.

Euro-area unemployment rose to 9.6 percent in August, the highest in more than a decade, and the IMF last week forecast it will reach 11.7 percent next year, higher than in the U.S. or the U.K. While there are “encouraging signs” of a recovery, the world economy remains fragile and labor markets are yet to improve, the Group of Seven ministers and central bankers said on Oct. 3.

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Goldman Sachs Group Inc. today said the economy probably lost more jobs in September than it previously anticipated, citing “disappointing” economic data including the number of people receiving jobless benefits.

Payrolls probably fell by 250,000 workers last month rather than the 200,000 Goldman had previously estimated, chief U.S. economist Jan Hatzius said in a note to clients.

Hatzius said declines in the Monster Worldwide Inc.’s index of online help-wanted ads, the Institute for Supply Management’s factory employment gauge and consumers’ assessments of the labor market from the Conference Board’s confidence survey prompted the change. Additionally, the total number of people receiving jobless benefits, including those getting extended benefits, remains elevated, he said.

The median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News projects the economy lost 175,000 jobs last month, compared with 216,000 in August. The economy has lost about 6.9 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007.

Last month, Goldman projected a 250,000 drop in payrolls for August, exceeding figure reported by the Labor Department. On Aug. 6, Goldman lowered its forecast for July payroll losses to 250,000 from a prior 300,000 projection, putting it in line with the government’s initial estimate of 247,000.

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Paul O’Neill remembers feeling a little short of oxygen at the New York Stock Exchange as the market prepared to open six days after the Sept. 11 attacks.

“I have to tell you I was holding my breath that we weren’t going to blow the fuses,” O’Neill, the Treasury secretary from January 2001 to December 2002, said in an interview today.

Concern about a possible plunge in stock prices — the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day 685 points lower — was secondary to worries that trading systems might not work. “It was functional, which was the point,” he said.

The opening bell on Sept. 17, 2001, was the outcome of efforts by scores of people in and out of government who restored crippled computer networks. For O’Neill, that day capped a weeklong odyssey that cut short meetings with officials in Japan and placed him in the middle of the drive to help Wall Street rebound from the worst terrorist attacks in U.S. history.

As the first plane struck the World Trade Center eight years ago today, O’Neill was settling down in his suite at the Imperial Hotel, in the early evening in Tokyo. He, his staff and reporters covering the trip had just arrived from Beijing, where he met with Chinese officials for talks about the country’s currency policy and other issues.

Tim Adams, O’Neill’s chief of staff, alerted him to the news that a plane had hit one of the towers.

“It was there for us to see” on television, O’Neill said. In a matter of hours, after telephone calls back and forth with the White House, a decision was made that O’Neill would be flown back to Washington in a military plane from the U free instant credit report.S. base at Okinawa, he said.

The next day, as O’Neill’s motorcade left the Imperial Hotel, cooks, housekeepers and waitresses applauded.

Refueling Over Alaska

O’Neill, 73, said the flight was nonstop, refueling in the air over Alaska and landing at Andrews Air Force Base outside the U.S. capital.

“It was eerie,” he said. “You could see that there were no planes on the ramp at National airport and there were no planes in the sky.”

Once back at the Treasury Department, O’Neill said his focus was getting the stock market restarted. The talks included Peter Fisher, the Treasury undersecretary for domestic finance; then-NYSE Chairman Richard Grasso; and Salvatore Sodano, then the chairman of the American Stock Exchange Inc.

“I had endless quick phone calls with Peter Fisher telling me, ‘You’ve got to get the White House to back off, because they’re insisting they want us to open the market tomorrow morning and the computer center in New York is under 30 feet of water,’” he recalled.

More important than the resumption of markets was ensuring the restart wouldn’t fail, he said. “I don’t remember it being a hard sell — I basically said we should not have a failed restart,” he said. “It worked.”

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General Motors said on Sunday it has agreed to set up a light commercial vehicle production venture with major Chinese automaker FAW Group, with total investment of 2 billion yuan ($293 million).

The 50-50 joint venture, based in the northeast China city of Changchun in Jilin province, will make light-duty trucks and vans, GM said in a statement.

“For us in China, this is an important complement to the rest of our portfolio,” Kevin Wale, president and managing director for GM’s China operations, told reporters in a conference call.

“We are well established in passenger vehicles and mini commercial vehicles and we haven’t had a presence in the truck segment. Adding a truck portfolio rounds that out.”

The venture will use two existing FAW plants in Changchun and the city of Harbin, also in the northeast, with combined annual capacity of roughly 90,000 vehicles, Wale said.

A greenfield plant, currently under construction in Harbin, will add 100,000 units of capacity by the end of next year, he said.

Vehicles made at the venture will carry the FAW brand and will focus on supplying the China market, but they could be exported under a GM brand through the Detroit automaker’s global network in the future, Wale said auto car loan.

GM is making Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac models at its flagship China venture with SAIC Motor Corp. It also makes minivans, pickup trucks and the Spark compact car in a three-way tie-up with SAIC and Liuzhou Wuling Automobile.

SAIC-GM-Wuling sold 87,925 vehicles in July, up 90.7 percent from a year earlier, helped by Beijing’s stimulus initiatives to support the industry, including subsidies for buyers in rural areas.

GM, which now holds 34 percent of SAIC-GM-Wuling, has been seeking to raise its stake in the venture.

Domestic media reported earlier this month that GM had secured an initial deal to take over Liuzhou Wuling Auto’s 15.9 percent stake for roughly 300 million yuan ($43.9 million).

Wale reiterated the U.S. automaker’s interest in raising its stake in the venture but made no further comment on the issue.

($1=6.830 Yuan)

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