Money

Utilities have been busy this week, making major moves to maximize profit potential. From regulatory wins to new boosts for renewables, here's what you need to know to stay on top of your dividend stocks' latest moves. Rocking regulationAcross the nation (and beyond), utilities won key regulatory battles this week. PPL's profits are split between U.S. and U.K. utilities, and the Supreme Court ruled this week that a U.K. tax PPL pays should count toward its U.S. income tax. Not only does this allow the utility to tack on a $40 million tax benefit to its Q2 earnings, but it also sets a precedent for a more responsible and reliable tax policy for internationally oriented utilities. Illinois' state House of Representatives overturned Gov. Pat Quinn's veto of a controversial smart-grid bill was on Wednesday. Senate Bill 9 allows Illinois utilities such as Ameren and Exelon to partially pass on modernization and energy efficiency project costs to consumers. Proponents of the bill see it as a way to effectively invest in the future of the states' electricity infrastructure, while opponents view it as another profiteering method that will hurt cash-strapped consumers. Looking ahead in Illinois, Integrys released a statement this week voicing its support for a newly introduced bill that would speed up its $2.5 billion in planned natural gas infrastructure investments. Solar salesSempra Energy and Consolidated Edison announced this week that the two utilities will split ownership of two of Sempra's 150 MW solar farms. With Pacific Gas & Electric locked in to long-term purchasing contracts, the agreement allows Sempra to make some cash while ConEd can add to its renewables portfolio. It's getting windyThe Energy Information Administration released a report Tuesday recalculating wind production projections after Congress' extension of the "renewable electricity production tax credit." Estimates jumped 9% higher for the next three years, with new generation making up as much as 34% of total production by 2016. Source: eia.gov  While the extension doesn't equate to an unequivocal win for any one company, it does open the door to wind-oriented utilities such as NextEra, Exelon, and Duke Energy to increase their economies of scale for this energy. Stay current on electricityThe world of utilities is changing fast, and dividend stocks aren't the stable stalwarts they once were. Be sure to check back weekly for the latest on your portfolio's moves, and you'll be well on your way to electrifying earnings. As the nation moves increasingly toward clean energy, Exelon is perfectly positioned to capitalize on having the largest nuclear fleet in North America. This strength, combined with an increased focus on balance sheet health and its recent merger with Constellation, places Exelon and its resized dividend on a short list of the top utilities. To determine if Exelon is a good long-term fit for your portfolio, you're invited to check out The Motley Fool's premium research report on the company. Simply click here now for instant access.

Gloom, despair, and agony. Shareholders of at least three health-care stocks experienced one or more of these feelings over the past few days. Here are three of the most horrendous health-care stocks of the week. Friendly fireShares of biotech Aveo Pharmaceuticals dropped 10% this week. A decision by the company's partner, Astellas Pharma, caused the damage. Astellas told Aveo that it wouldn't pursue European approval for kidney drug tivozanib and would not fund any further studies for the drug in renal cancer. The two companies partnered in 2011 to jointly market tivozanib.  This marked yet another setback for Aveo. An advisory committee with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration voted 13-1 against recommending approval for tivozanib earlier in May. Before that point, FDA staff stated that the drug didn't improve survival rates for patients compared to currently approved drug Nexavar, which is marketed by Bayer AG and Onyx Pharmaceuticals.  Swiss messAmag Pharmaceuticals shares fell around 12% this week. The company announced that its partner Takeda was recalling a batch of anemia drug Rienso after a Swiss patient who took the drug died. Several other patients taking Rienso suffered from adverse reactions after taking the drug. The problems appear to be related to only one batch sold in Switzerland. Rienso received approval for sale in the country last August. Amag and Takeda are investigating the batch and collecting data on the adverse reactions. Takeda markets Rienso in Europe and in Canada under the brand name Feraheme. Amag sells Feraheme in the United States. The company reported 2012 sales of $58.3 million for the drug, up 12% from the prior year. Dilution solutionIronwood Pharmaceuticals this week ran into one of the most common dilemmas for biotech companies. It needed to raise cash, but doing so caused shares to fall -- by around 11% in this case. The company announced a secondary offering of 10.5 million shares at a price of $13 per share. With around 108 million shares outstanding currently, that reflects dilution of almost 10%. Ironwood's goal in raising more money is to help fund the launch of Linzess and further the company's pipeline development. Linzess, which treats irritable bowel syndrome with constipation or chronic idiopathic constipation, first hit the market in late 2012. Ironwood partners with Forest Labs in the commercialization of the drug. Forest Labs reported Linzess sales of $4.5 million during the first quarter. That's a drop from the $19.2 million recorded in the fourth quarter of 2012. However, a large portion of those sales stemmed from initial stocking of the drug. Worst of the worstWhich of this week's horrendous stocks looks to be the worst? I'd have to go with Aveo right now. The outlook for tivozanib doesn't appear too bright -- at least for renal cancer. Amag's recall woes probably will be short-lived. The same is true for Ironwood's share pullback related to the secondary offering. Gloom, despair, and agony could just be temporary for at least two of these stocks. While you can certainly make huge gains in biotech and pharmaceuticals, the best investing approach is to choose great companies and stick with them for the long term. The Motley Fool's free report "3 Stocks That Will Help You Retire Rich" names stocks that could help you build long-term wealth and retire well, along with some winning wealth-building strategies that every investor should be aware of. Click here now to keep reading.

Things never get dull for the country's lone satellite-radio provider. Shares of Sirius XM Radio moved nicely higher this week, gaining 2.3% to hit $3.58. The media darling's rise contrasts the negative week for the markets in general, as the Dow and Nasdaq closed out the week lower. There was more going on beyond the share-price gyrations, though, even as Sirius XM wrapped up the week at its highest close in more than five years. Pandora posted a well-received quarterly report, and before that it announced a sponsored channel and deeper integration with Facebook . There were also reports that Apple is hitting snags with publishers to roll out its competing streaming service. Let's take a closer look. Higher ground After hitting five-year intraday highs in each of the three previous weeks, Sirius XM failed to top the prior week's $3.59 mark. However, it may have done something even better by closing Friday at $3.58. That's the highest the shares have closed out a trading day since early 2008. Pandora thinks outside of the boxPandora saw its shares hit a new 52-week high after posting encouraging quarterly results. Adjusted revenue for the leading music-streaming service rose 58% to $128.5 million, well ahead of the $123.8 million Wall Street was expecting. Pandora's loss matched Wall Street's target of $0.10 a share, but there were plenty of other impressive tidbits in the report. For starters, subscription revenue more than doubled, as Pandora now has more than 2.5 million premium Pandora One subscribers. Yes, more than 96% of Pandora's 70 million active monthly listeners continue to stick only to the free service, but things are moving in the right direction. Pandora also scored some interesting deals earlier in the week. First, it introduced Pandora Premieres, a new streaming channel that will feature notable upcoming music releases. This is pretty potent, as labels will give access to Pandora to music that won't be available through other outlets. In a smart twist, Pandora has a sponsor for this channel. T-Mobile -- the country's fourth largest wireless carrier -- is paying for branding rights and exposure. Pandora has struggled with profitability with its conventional online advertising model, but if it's able to land channel sponsorships as incremental revenue at the same time it's gaining ground as a premium service, the bears will be silenced. Pandora also announced more seamless sharing on Facebook. Pandora users have been able to share the music they're listening to through Facebook Music posts on the world's leading social-networking website, but a new update makes sharing automatic for those who want to let their friends know what they're streaming these days. Spotify also cashed in by announcing that it will begin publishing a list of its 50 most streamed and shared songs as an embedded link for anyone to broadcast. Those checking out the list will be able to stream any of the tracks without even having to sign up for Spotify. Watch your back, Billboard. It will be interesting to see whether Sirius XM's MySXM follows any of these moves to give its online platform the viral kick it lacks relative to the competition. Apple needs to win the publishers' clearinghouse sweepstakes We're still waiting for Apple to make its inevitable plunge into streaming. Sources tell The Verge that now it's music publishers that are holding up the rollout of iRadio. Negotiating licensing deals with the record labels is hard enough, but now Apple is getting some resistance in securing the publishing royalties that go out to the songwriters and composers. Reports earlier this month suggested that another thing holding back the service is track skipping, or the right to pass by a song if it's one the listener doesn't like. Lack of skipping is part of the limits Pandora puts on its free users, and it leads one to believe that iRadio will be more like Pandora or MySXM and less like the Spotify clone that All Access will be. Apple had b

If you've got a knack for fan fiction, the folks at Amazon.com have great news for you. In a press release Thursday, Amazon Publishing officially took the wraps off Kindle Worlds, "the first commercial publishing platform that will enable any writer to create fan fiction based on a range of original stories and characters and earn royalties for doing so." More specifically, if you write a fan-fiction story of at least 10,000 words, you stand to earn a royalty rate of 35% of net revenue for your efforts. The remainder, of course, will be split between Amazon and the licensed property owners. Still, that's plenty generous considering Amazon has taken much of the difficult publishing and licensing work out of the equation for fan-fiction writers. What's more, Amazon is also piloting an experimental new program for shorter works between 5,000 and 10,000 words, for which authors can earn a royalty rate of 20%. Hold your horses...But before you go digging up that awesome Batman storyline you wrote years ago, don't get too excited just yet. So far Amazon has only secured licenses from Warner Brothers Television Group's Alloy Entertainment division for its three best-selling book series Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and Vampire Diaries. Then again, that's not entirely disappointing: Those properties alone still open the floodgates for literally millions upon millions of fans to enjoy both writing and reading new original works of fan fiction. Of course, for years Amazon has allowed authors to publish original works and to receive up to 70% royalties through its Kindle Direct Publishing segment (formerly known as the "Kindle Digital Text Platform"), which provides an easy way for anyone to self-publish... well... anything they want and at the price they choose: More to comeGoing back to the Kindle Worlds announcement, Amazon's press release Thursday also vaguely stated that the company has "plans to announce more licenses soon."  So what would the holy grail of fan-fiction licenses entail? I'm sure I'm not alone in hoping Amazon will wrangle a deal enabling enthusiasts to write about any number of comic book properties from either DC comics or Disney's Marvel Entertainment. While they're at it, a deal with Disney's Lucasfilm to write about Star Wars and Indiana Jones would also produce an incredible amount of fanboy material, since there are more than 26,000 characters in the Star Wars and Marvel universes combined. Heck, we already know Disney doesn't mind licensing its newest properties after the House of Mouse put together a multiyear deal with Electronic Arts allowing the video game giant to develop and publish games based on Star Wars characters and storylines. A Marvel/Lucasfilm license with Kindle Worlds, then, would be a great way for Disney to milk even more from its recently acquired properties. In addition, with so much material to cover, Disney could also potentially use the platform to identify its next big franchise from the minds of any particularly talented fan-fiction writers. The bottom line, however, is that the potential of Kindle Worlds is mind-bogglingly huge. Personally, I can't wait to see where it goes from here. What do you think? Are there any other Kindle Worlds licenses you'd love to see?In the meantime, read up on AmazonThe Motley Fool's premium report will tell you what's driving the company's growth, and fill you in on reasons to buy and reasons to sell Amazon. The report also has you covered with a full year of free analyst updates to keep you informed as the company's story changes, so click here now to read more.

Someday, Warren Buffett will depart from Berkshire Hathaway. Should investors be concerned? As Matt Koppenheffer and David Hanson discuss, Buffett has created a corporate culture at Berkshire that won't evaporate when Buffett is gone, thanks to a culture that's been meticulous with its day-to-day operations, capital, and succession plans. Matt and David argue that Berkshire is likely to benefit shareholders with its disciplined approach for years to come. For more details, check out the following video. Thanks to the savvy of investing legend Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway's book value per share has grown a mind-blowing 586,817% over the past 48 years. But with Buffett aging and Berkshire rapidly evolving, is this insurance conglomerate still a buy today? In The Motley Fool's premium report on the company, Berkshire expert Joe Magyer provides investors with key reasons to buy as well as important risks to watch out for. Click here now for instant access to Joe's take on Berkshire!

Austerity isn't the only problem -- but so what?

Submitted by Mark J. Grant, author of Out of the Box, "It's the lure of easy money. It has a very strong appeal." -Glenn Frey, Smuggler's Blues Investors borrowed $384.4 billion in April, a 1.3% gain from the previous month and a 29% rise from the same month last year. This is an all-time record for margin debt and it exceeds the previous high mark set in June 2007. Some may see this as an increased sign of investor confidence but I am not one of them. To me this is a giant red warning flag blowing in the financial breeze indicating the leveraging of dumb money making very risky bets. "Every swindle is driven by a desire for easy money; it's the one thing the swindler and the swindled have in common." -Mitchell Zuckoff Substances based upon some sort of white powder are quite dangerous. They can overcome your good sense and then they it can be quite difficult to extricate yourself from them. The Great Depression was caused, in large part, by massive leverage utilized in the equity markets. This was the white powder of 1929. It took a decade and a World War before America was able to loosen the grip of the stuff. The white powder of 2008/2009 was easy money provided by the American banks. It wasn't the subprime mortgages that caused the problem but the leverage that was used to buy them and then various securities that were appended to them. It took the coordinated efforts of the world's central banks to stop the carnage. Money for nothing, money from nothing and checks for free. Chicks were still expensive but at least we could afford them once again. "I came to a stark realization: chronic surpluses could be almost as destabilizing as chronic deficits." -Alan Greenspan The economies of Europe are in recession by any definition that you would like to use. America is sputtering and barely above the red line. Japan is now on steroids and the recent volatility in their equity and bond markets is astounding if not scary. All over the globe the white powder is being dispensed once again but this time there is far more of it than ever in history. It is being made by the central banks and so people think it is sanitized but let me tell you; there is no such thing! We are once again in the crack house of substance abuse! In each age the gods of the marketplace show up once more. The packaging may be different but the powder is the same. Each dealer uses the same line, "Nothing addictive here." "With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch, They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch; They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings; So we worshipped the Gods of the Market who promised these beautiful things." -Rudyard Kipling

This is an unofficial list of Problem Banks compiled only from public sources. Here is the unofficial problem bank list for May 24, 2013. Changes and comments from surferdude808: This week the Unofficial Problem Bank List declined to 767 institutions with assets of $283.7 billion after four removals and one addition. A year ago, the list held 931 institutions with assets of $358.0 billion. The removals were all from unassisted mergers including Centennial Bank, Fountain Valley, CA ($546 million); The Washington Savings Bank, FSB, Bowie, MD ($357 million); First National Bank of Baldwin County, Foley, AL ($187 million); and Kinderhook State Bank, Kinderhook, IL ($18 million). The addition was The Talbot Bank of Easton, Easton, MD ($713 million Ticker: SHBI). The legal hearing in Nevada on Capitol Bancorp's restraining order to prevent the closing of 1st Commerce Bank, North Las Vegas ($24 million) was sealed by the presiding judge. So there is nothing new to report on that matter. Next week, we anticipate the FDIC will release its enforcement action activity through April 2013 and, perhaps, industry results for the first quarter of 2013, which will include updated figures for the Official Problem Bank List. The institution count difference between the official and the unofficial list was 157 at the last quarterly release and the difference will likely reduce to around 150. On the unofficial list: Because the FDIC does not publish the official list, a proxy or unofficial list can be developed by reviewing press releases and published formal enforcement actions issued by the three federal banking regulators, reviewing SEC filings, or through media reports and company announcements describing that the bank is under a formal enforcement action. For the most part, the official problem bank list is comprised of banks with a safety & soundness CAMELS composite rating of 4 or 5 (the banking regulators use the FFIEC rating system known as CAMELS, which stands for the components that receive a rating including Capital adequacy, Asset quality, Management quality, Earnings strength, Liquidity strength, and Sensitivity to market risk. A composite rating is assigned from the components, but it does not result from a simple average of the components. The composite and component rating scale is from 1 to 5, with 1 being the strongest). Customarily, a banking regulator will only issue a safety & soundness formal enforcement when a bank has a composite CAMELS rating of 4 or 5, which reflects an unsafe & unsound financial condition that if not corrected could result in failure. There is high positive correlation between banks with a safety & soundness composite rating of 4 or worse and those listed on the official list. For example, many safety & soundness enforcement actions state in their preamble that an unsafe & sound condition exists, which is the reason for action issuance. Since 1991, the banking regulators have statutorily been required to publish formal enforcement actions. For many reasons, the banking regulators have a general discomfort publishing any information on open banks especially formal enforcement actions, so not much energy is expended on their part ensuring the completeness of information in the public domain or making its retrieval simple. Given the difficulty for easy retrieval of all banks operating under a safety & soundness formal enforcement action, the unofficial list fills this void as a matter of public interest. All of the banks on the unofficial list have received a safety & soundness formal enforcement action by a federal banking regulator or there is other information in the public domain such as an SEC filing, media release, or company statement that describe the bank being issued such an action. No confidential or non-public information supports any bank listed and a hypertext link to the public information is provided in the spreadsheet listing. The publishers make eve

Each week, I highlight ten things each week that inspired me to greater financial, personal, and professional success. Hopefully, they will inspire you as well. 1. Aristotle on the educated mind “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” – Aristotle If everyone was capable of doing this, the world would be a far better place. Too many people immediately discard an idea either because they already hold one on the same issue or because they don’t want to listen to the source. 2. Peter Singer on effective altruism If you’re going to help others, it makes sense to choose ways to do it that maximize the effectiveness of that help. 3. Groucho Marx on mistakes “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.” – Groucho Marx The only thought worth thinking about the mistake of someone else is what you can learn from that mistake. 4. Judy MacDonald Johnston on preparing for a joyful end of life This is the best way I’ve ever heard of to approach end of life issues. 5. Zach Sobiech on the meaning of life “It’s really simple actually. It’s just, try and make people happy. Maybe you have to learn with time. Maybe you have to learn it the hard way. But as long as you learn it, you’re going to make the world a better place.” – Zach Sobiech If you focus on making others happy, things, in the long run, are going to be a positive for you. 6. Bernard Baruch on speaking your mind “Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” – Bernard Baruch The people who are worth having in your life won’t respond to your curiosity and opinions with negativity. 7. Handwritten letters Few things seem more wonderful to me than a handwritten letter. Thanks to Liz West for this great image. 8. Erica Jong on blame “No one to blame! That was why most people led lives they hated, with people they hated. How wonderful to have someone to blame! How wonderful to live with one’s nemesis! You may be miserable, but you feel forever in the right. You may be fragmented, but you feel absolved of all the blame for it. Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.” – Erica Jong Blame is the crutch of people who are unwilling to change. 9. Farmers In a world where it’s so easy to get food, it’s vital to remember where that food comes from. Largely, it comes from the labor of farmers in the fields. Never forget their honorable work. Thanks to upyernoz for the photo. 10. Mary Catherine Bateson on learning “We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn.” – Mary Catherine Bateson When you stop learning, you accept that you will never be more than you are today. The post Ten Pieces of Inspiration #127 appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

More than a half a million workers are creating their own jobs every month, according to the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity. About one in five of those are started by women, notes Forbes. Female-created businesses could be an important key in creating more jobs and helping equalize the pay threshold in the U.S. Small businesses owned by women could create more than 5 million new U. S. jobs by 2018, notes the The Guardian Life Small Business Research Institute. That’s an impressive statistic in any economy, especially one that the US averaged around 160,000 new jobs created every month in 2012. With support and education, female entrepreneurs can find success with their own companies, forging their own path and taking advantage of a post-recession growth in new businesses. Female business owners are also more likely to use profit to invest back in the company or further their education. Education Growth After a female entrepreneur finishes college, where can she turn for an advanced education? How can a hard-working entrepreneur balance an already-established work and family life with new education pursuits? Whether you have a solid plan to start with, or no plan at all, education is key to a business’ success. Digital education is becoming more and more flexible, allowing for different learning styles and schedules to successfully complete college courses in a flexible way. Classes can be completed on a laptop, library computer, or even through a smartphone. Online College Programs Women entrepreneurs can enroll in online college programs that focus on several necessary skills for creating a new business. Examples include: How to manage finances in the beginning stages of a business. How to find investment money. How to foster leaderships skills. How to work with contracts and other legal paperwork. Acquiring a variety of skills is important in the current digital age. Using technology to broaden your horizons and look into every possible way to showcase your business is critical for its success. Platforms for Online Education From the thousands of online education courses offered on the Internet, a few reliable platforms stand out for successful entrepreneurs. CreativeLIVE Inc. hosts a variety of business-themed courses, covering topics ranging from creating your brand to how to market on YouTube. edX hosts college course videos from universities like Harvard, Berkeley and Georgetown. The courses cover business, copyright law and cooking. Khan Academy offers online video courses on the four main categories of STEM education (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). Taking classes beyond the standard business majors can open up new possibilities for business ventures allowing an entrepreneur to learn skills she needs for business as well as skills that apply to the type of business she is creating. Accelerators and Incubators Accelerators and incubators are great sources of support, education and funding. These support teams can help female entrepreneurs find investors and support needed to get a start-up concept off the ground. The accelerators and incubators will invest a small amount of money in exchange for a stake in the business. And some programs have started to accept applicants who have personality and potential, but without an actual startup idea. This early-stage guidance offers lessons in finding initial seed funding, company paperwork, and help with start-up legal advice. Some successful accelerators include Y Combinator, Dream It Ventures and Tech Stars. Many of these companies focus on technology-based start ups, where a majority of new businesses are created by men. Local incubators can offer education and mentoring, but also give invaluable insight into area demographics, real estate and more. Finding a mentor is important for a small business owner. A mentor can help finesse the mission and goals of a business while providing continuing guidance and support. They may even help