Business and Finance news

Fitch Ratings has assigned its AAA rating to Mecklenburg County’s $116 million in general obligation refunding bonds, series 2010.
The debt is slated for sale on Feb. 23.
The outlook is stable.
Fitch cites the county’s broad, diverse economic base, solid reserve levels and debt policies business card.
Source

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Just a few years ago you could count on getting the bulk of your money back for almost any home-improvement project you took on. Today merely replacing a toilet seat can feel like throwing caution, and cash, to the wind. According to a study from Remodeling magazine, the average return on value for an […]

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Little more than a decade ago, Monsanto Co. began selling the corn seed with a novel gene to help farmers ward off a pest known as the European corn borer.
This year, the Creve Coeur-based agricultural biotech giant expects to sell 4 million acres worth of a new line of corn seed called […]

Paul McKee got his tax credits.
In the final hours of 2009, Missouri officials awarded the developer $19.6 million, a key piece of financing for McKee’s ambitious plan to rebuild a big chunk of north St. Louis.
The funds come in the form of tax credits that pay McKee back for buying hundreds of […]

Stifel Financial Co. will speed up its repurchase of auction rate securities under a settlement reached with Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan. The settlement will bring earlier relief for hundreds of Stifel customers who have been stuck with securities that they can’t sell.
The settlement also ends a nasty, public spat between St. […]

Dutch consumer confidence climbed to the highest in 21 months in December as a recovery of global trade helped boost exports.
The consumer-sentiment index in the euro area’s fifth- largest economy rose to minus 11 from minus 14 in the previous month, the national statistics bureau in The Hague said on its Web site […]

Solar module maker Canadian Solar Inc. is preparing to establish a manufacturing facility in Ontario that will create 500 direct jobs to take advantage of a provincial green-energy program that mandates local content.
The Kitchener-based company made the announcement this morning.
Canadian Solar, founded in 2001, said the new facility will be capable of manufacturing 200 megawatts […]

To Val Sklarov, giving tax breaks and millions of dollars in city loans to move a law firm a few blocks across downtown is basically un-American.
But is it legal?
That’s now a question for the courts to decide, after Sklarov filed a lawsuit last week challenging St. Louis city incentives for the redevelopment […]

Creditor protection for your registered retirement savings plan has been delayed again by political posturing over Ontario’s plan to adopt a harmonized sales tax.
The HST, a combined federal and provincial sales tax totalling 13 per cent on most goods and services as of next July, would also whittle away your retirement savings.
But it would do […]

Federal Reserve officials on Thursday downplayed the consequences of the falling U.S. dollar, underscoring that deflation is still a threat, especially with commercial real estate prices falling.
Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher said in an interview with Market News International that the weakening dollar, which hit a 15-month low against major currencies on Monday, is […]