Page 6 WIRE www.sunnewspapers.net BUSINESS NEWS The Sun /Saturday, December 28, 2013 Stocks end day mostly flat in quiet trading NEWYORK (AP)- use the company as a ve- two trading days left in Wall Street's six-day rally hidcle to purchase wireless the year. For 2013, the stalled out on Friday as competitor T-Mobile. S&P 500 is up roughly stocks ended the day Most of Wall Street 29 percent, its best year mostly flat in quiet remains on vacation, since 1997, and the Dow trading. Trading volume has been is up 25.8 percent, its best Bond yields continued very low this week. Only year since 1996. to rise. The yield on 2 billion shares changed In the bond market, the 10-year Treasury hands on the New York the yield on the 10-year note climbed above the Stock Exchange on Treasury note rose to 3 percent mark. The yield Friday, about 40 percent 3 percent from 2.99 hasn't consistently traded below the recent average, percent Thursday. above that level since There were no major Bond yields have July 2011. The increase economic reports or cor- steadily climbed since will translate into higher porate earnings Friday. Dec. 18, when the Federal interest rates on mort- The Dow Jones in- Reserve announced gages and other kinds of dustrial average closed it was paring back its loans, down 1.47 points, or bond-buying program. Energy stocks were 0.01 percent, to 16,478.41. The purchases were among the biggest The Standard & Poor's aimed at keeping long- gainers after oil prices 500 index fell 0.62 term interest rates low to climbed above $100 a point, or 0.03 percent, encourage borrowing and barrel for the first time to 1,841.40 and the hiring. since October. Offshore Nasdaq composite was "Interest rates are on oil drilling companies down 10.59 points, or 0.3 a road back to normalcy Transocean and Diamond percent, at 4,156.59. after being artificially Offshore each rose about Even with Friday's suppressed by the Fed," 1.5 percent. Oil giant pause, the stock market said Karyn Cavanaugh, ExxonMobil climbed has been in rally mode market strategist with 1 percent, heading into the end ING U.S. Investment Sprint jumped 83 cents, of the year. The Dow Management. Cavanaugh or 8 percent, to $10.79 and S&P 500 are up said she expects the yield following news reports 2.4 percent and 2 percent on the 10-year note to that Japan's Softbank, respectively so far in rise to about 3.5 percent which owns Sprint, may December, with only by the end of 2014. Amazon, UPS offer refunds (Washington Post) - Amazon.com and United Parcel Service said Thursday that they would offer refunds to customers who did not receive their Christmas orders on time, after a last-minute surge in online shopping caught the shipping giant off guard. Customers who failed to get their de- liveries by Christmas Day will get $20 gift cards and refunds on shipping charges, Amazon said. UPS also offered refunds on shipping costs. FedEx did not promise re- funds but said it would work with people affected. A combination of bad weather, shoppers waiting until the last minute and an unex- pected surge in online buying resulted in some packages not getting under the Christmas tree in time. The wave of ship- ments was so large that a UPS spokeswoman said "the volume of air packages in our system exceeded the capacity in our net- work." Customers who ordered shipments via air or internationally are entitled to refunds, spokeswoman Natalie Black said. Walmart and Kohl's, which have large online operations and also reportedly experienced delays, did not re- spond to requests for comment. Online sales were a bright spot in otherwise gloomy forecasts for the holiday shopping season, according to analysts. Synovus ear Mr. Berko: In January of 2012, you recommend- ed a bank stock called Synovus Financial, which was trading at $1.47 a share. I studied this stock for three days and did my research on it and read their financial reports and talked to two bank people and I even opened an account with them to see how efficient they were. Because I was very pleased with what I learned, I pur- chased 400 shares for $600 plus $7.95 commission. Now my Synovus Financial stock is $3.47 and I have made better than twice my investment, so I need your opinion. Should I sell 125 of my shares to recover my investment or sell all my shares and double my money? AW: Waterloo, Iowa Dear AW: Synovus Financial (SNV-$3.48) is a regional bank with 290 lo- cations and $26.8 billion in assets that barely made the top 50 list of bank holding companies in the country. In fact SNV just beat out Old West Bank of Pasadena, Calif., by a few hundred million dollars, which now is ranked number 51. However, my due diligence doesn't agree with either of your alternatives; rather, if you have the investible funds I suggest that you consider buying at least another 100 shares. Here's why: (1) SNV will make its first profit in five years of 15 cents a share in 2013 and perhaps 45 cents in 2014. (2) The 4 cent dividend may be raised to 15 cents by 2015 when the Street expects SNV to report earnings of 65 cents. (3) SNV shares trade below their $4.05 book value and total assets should increase to $28.4 billion in 2014. (4) SNV has paid off its $1 billion in TARP loan with internally generated cash, a $185 million stock offering and the issuance of $130 million in pre- ferred stock. This should improve operations, give SNV a healthier balance sheet, provide stable net interest margins and allow better quality earnings. (5) Loan growth in SNV's commercial and industrial business (Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, Tennessee and Alabama) indicates a stronger and improving business climate, contin- ued business expansion and an improving appetite for real estate acquisition. (6) SNV's long-term debt is decreasing and return on assets is expected to better than double in the coming three years from 0.7 percent to 1.6 percent. (7) Return on equity should also double to 11.0 percent and net charge-offs have now declined to under 0.5 percent. (8) SNV is now able to aggressively seek market share in its core regions, which should lead to a stronger and impressive asset base. (9) Finally, all these trends are expected to improve SNV's top and bottom in its future quarters. SNV is not an exciting rah-rah, go-go bank. SNV is a plodding, straight-shooting bank run by a capable group of managers who are cool as a trout. And unlike the pikers at Bank America, Citicorp or J.P, Morgan, the SNV folks are not frantic about improving revenues, earnings and the stock price. In fact, Chairman, CEO and President Kessel Stelling, receives a salary of only $1.35 million but owns 1.4 million shares of SNV stock. Synovus has been serving the South since 1888 and should be in business at least another 100-plus years. Big money in the market is made by holding your good stocks for decades, not for months. This is a good stock. SNV has capable management, a strong franchise area with an excellent mix of commercial, business and private banking clients. I believe you are chomping at the bit for action so you feel the need to sell SNV, take your profits and move on to another investment. And I also believe that you're reluctant to take my advice, which is to forget that you own SNV for a few years even though I think it could easily be a $10 to $12 stock. I know very few stocks that can dou- ble your money in 18 months as this one did. But there are even fewer stocks that have the ability to triple in value in the next three to six years, and SNV could be one of them. Please address your financial questions to Malcolm Berko, P.O. Box 8303, Largo, FL 33775, or email him at mjberko@ yahoo.com. To find out more about Malcolm Berko and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoon- ists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www. creators.com. Women in Charge Q I see that General Motors just appointed Mary Barra as its new CEO. What other big com- panies have women in charge? - C.L., Baton Rouge, La. A There are 21 women running Fortune 500 companies but 96 percent of the companies are still run by men. At least the numbers have been rising in recent years, up from just six in 2002. Here are some CEOs to know: Virginia Rometty, IBM; Ursula Bums, Xerox; Marillyn Hewson, Lockheed Martin; Ellen Kullman, DuPont; Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo; Marissa Mayer, Yahoo!, Meg Whit- man, Hewlett-Packard; Denise Morri- son, Campbell Soup; Irene Rosenfeld, Mondelez International; Gracia Mar- tore, Gannett; Patricia Woertz, Archer Daniels Midland; Carol Meyrowitz, The TJX Companies; and Phebe Novakovic, General Dynamics. 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