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Spain’s industrial production fell in December by the least in more than year as government stimulus measures bolstered car sales and the global recovery underpinned exports.

Output at factories, refineries and mines declined 1.4 percent from a year earlier, adjusted for the number of working days, after slipping a revised 5.6 percent the previous month, the Madrid-based National Statistics Institute said today in an e-mailed statement. Economists had forecast a decline of 2.3 percent, according to Bloomberg News survey.

Facing the highest unemployment rate in the euro region, Spain created one of Europe’s largest stimulus programs last year, including measures to encourage car purchases and fund public-works projects. As the global economy emerges from a recession, Madrid-based Acerinox SA, the world’s biggest stainless-steelmaker, said Jan. 19 it will increase production from this month.

The government spent 8 billion euros ($10.9 billion) to put unemployed builders back to work widening sidewalks, creating parks and constructing cycle tracks in Spanish cities in a program that created more than 400,000 jobs. In a separate stimulus package, the central government provided as much as 500 euros in incentives for car purchases that regional administrations can match, with automakers asked to offer a 1,000-euro discount on top.

Auto Production

Car production rose 50 percent from a year earlier, the statistics agency said today, while overall manufacturing declined 0.4 percent. Production of durable goods fell 6.2 percent from a year earlier, while output of non-durable goods gained 2 percent in December from a year earlier.

Spain, which has been in a recession since the second quarter of 2008, is lagging behind the recovery in Europe. The International Monetary Fund forecasts Spain will contract 0.6 percent this year, while the U.S., the U.K., and the euro area return to growth.

The statistics agency revised November production from the decline of 5.7 percent originally reported.

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Former Nuvelo Inc. CEO Dr. Ted Love will head research and development for Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Love will oversee a growing cache of preclinical and clinical programs as well as regulatory affairs, safety and quality assurance and control at Emeryville-based Onyx (NASDAQ: ONXX). That includes Onyx’s cancer-fighting proteasome inhibitors, which it picked up in the November acquisition of Proteolix Inc.

Proteolix’s proteasome inhibitor, named carfilzomib, is in a Phase IIb trial for relapsed, refractory multiple myeloma.

Dr. Michael Kauffman, who came to Onyx as part of the Proteolix deal, was named chief medical officer, reporting to Love. Kauffman had been interim chief medical officer and was chief medical officer at Proteolix and from 2002 to 2008 was president and CEO of Predix Pharmaceuticals Inc., now EPIX Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Onyx CEO Dr. N. Anthony Coles called Love a “strategic thinker” with a track record of developing successful cancer therapies. At Genentech Inc., for example, he was vice president of product development and regulatory affairs, overseeing development of Herceptin and Rituxan, now two of Genentech’s top-selling drugs.

Love was CEO of San Carlos-based Nuvelo when its blood-thinning drug alfimeprase, a stroke treatment also aimed at improving catheter function, in December 2007 failed a mid-stage trial.

Nuvelo also was developing cancer drugs.

Nuvelo in January 2009 completed a reverse merger with ARCA Biopharma Inc. of Broomfield, Colo., that took ARCA public and gave it access to abot $60 million in Nuvelo cash and securities.

Before joining Nuvelo in 2001, Love was senior vice president of development at Theravance Inc. and spent six years in various medical affairs and product development jobs at Genentech.

Love is on the boards of ARCA, Affymax Inc. and Santarus Inc. as well as the oversight committee of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the state’s stem cell research funding agency.

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Nearly one year after it went on the market, the historic Calumet building may be sold.

The law firm of Kenney Shelton Liptak Nowak LLP, in partnership with Amherst developer Angelo Natale, has put the three-story, 104-year-old building under contract. Firm founder Patrick Kenney confirmed that an offer was made to the current owners, restaurateur Mark Goldman and Buffalo attorney Arthur Ziller.

“We’re doing our due diligence and looking to see if it makes sense,” Kenney said.

Terms were not disclosed.

The 24,000-square-foot building is at the corner of Chippewa and Franklin streets. It was listed for $775,000 with commercial real estate broker Alan Hastings of Hastings Cohn Real Estate. The law firm, meanwhile, is working with Anthony D’Auria of Waterbourne Real Estate Advisors LLC.

Kenney said his firm will occupy the building’s two upper floors, or roughly 16,000 square feet. Three businesses — Bacchus Wine Bar & Restaurant, La Luna night club and the Third Room, a tavern — will remain as tenants on the first floor.

The law firm would increase its office space by 33 percent with the move.

Kenney Shelton currently leases 12,000 square feet in the Rand Building. It has been a tenant there since the firm started in the fall of 1994. It has 26 lawyers and a total staff, including lawyers, of nearly 50 people.

“We clearly needed more space,” Kenney said. “We rented for 15 years and figured our money would be better spent if we owned instead of renting.”

He and his partners considered a number of locations, all in the downtown core, before settling on the Calumet. The building’s history and location, along with available space, proved attractive.

Goldman and Ziller acquired the Calumet in the late 1980s and renovated the circa-1906 building. The restoration and subsequent creation of Goldman’s Calumet restaurant have been widely credited with helping to spearhead the revival of Chippewa Street into downtown’s main entertainment district.

If completed, the Calumet deal will mark the second time in as many weeks that a Buffalo architectural landmark has gone under contract. Last week, Ciminelli Development Co. confirmed it is negotiating to purchase Bethune Hall near Bennett High School.

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Hong Kong store rents may rise by as much as 10 percent this year as retailers benefit from an influx of shoppers from mainland China, Savills Plc said.

Rents in malls with the best locations, such as Times Square in Causeway Bay and IFC Mall in Central, may increase by 5 percent to 10 percent this year, while those at street level, including Canton Road in Tsim Sha Tsui, may climb 10 percent, Simon Smith, Hong Kong-based senior director of research at the property broker, said in a phone interview.

“Retail rents are supported mostly by mainland tourists who come to Hong Kong,” Smith said yesterday. “The long-haul visitors who fell away last year are starting to come back.”

A recovery in Hong Kong’s economy, a drop in the jobless rate and an increase in tourism boosted retail sales, helping landlords increase rents. Hong Kong’s retail sales rose 11.7 percent in November from a year earlier, the most in 16 months, government figures showed.

The number of visitors from mainland China rose 13.3 percent during that month, according to Tourism Board figures. Visitors taking long-haul flights from markets such as the Americas rose 2.4 percent, the first gain in three months.

IFC Mall, connected to the Four Seasons Hotel and Two International Finance Centre, Hong Kong’s second-tallest building, signed record rents in November and anticipates increases of 10 percent to 25 percent this year, said Karim Azar, assistant general manager of IFC Management.

Godiva, Accessorize

Godiva, the premium-chocolate unit of Turkish company Yildiz Holding AS, in November agreed to pay HK$650 ($83.60) a square foot when it moved to another location within the IFC Mall, a record for the property, Azar said. The monthly rent for the 760 square-foot (70.6 square meters) shop is HK$494,000.

After Godiva signed its lease, Accessorize, a chain selling scarves and accessories owned by closely held U.K. fashion retailer Monsoon Plc, agreed to rent a 500 square-foot shop in IFC Mall for HK$310,000, or HK$620 a square foot, Azar said no fax needed payday loans.

“On top of the economic conditions, we have also improved our trade mix” that draws 200,000 visitors a day, Azar said in an interview yesterday.

Monthly rents at the mall last year rose 25 percent to between HK$250 and HK$620 a square foot, Azar said.

Some jewelers and luxury watchmakers paid IFC Management rents of more than HK$1,500 a square foot last month, bolstered by Christmas sales, he said. These retailers paid rents based on turnover once sales exceeded a certain amount.

The IFC project, including the mall and two office towers, are jointly owned by Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd. and Henderson Land Development Co.

Pricing Power

Owners of shopping malls will “definitely have the power to raise rents” this year, said Benedict Ma, an analyst at CB Richard Ellis Group Inc.

Still, street-level shops in prime locations, such as those opposite Times Square, can command higher rents, Ma said. Hong Kong’s record for retail rents is a 95 square-foot, street-level shop in Causeway Bay, currently tenanted at HK$1,800 a square foot a month, Smith said.

Rents for such shops, which rose 2.6 percent last year, may advance 8 percent in 2010, Ma said.

China’s economy expanded a more-than-forecast 10.7 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, the fastest pace in two years, adding to the case for policy makers to pare back stimulus measures.

“The hot money is coming down from China; a lot more depends on its ability to gently withdraw its stimulus without imperiling the broader growth,” Smith said.

Hong Kong stocks fell for a fourth day yesterday. The benchmark Hang Seng Index has dropped more than 10 percent from its high in November.

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U.S. banking supervisors are using existing authority to raise standards for capital, liquidity and risk management without waiting for the Obama administration and Congress to hammer out a new regulatory structure.

Agencies led by the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency this year are set to propose rule revisions that would increase the amount of capital large banks must set aside against the risk of trading losses, according to government officials. The revisions would follow recommendations of the Basel Committee, the global coordinator for banking regulations based in Switzerland.

U.S. regulators are also proposing stronger guidelines on liquidity risk and this month told banks to improve strategies to guard against the possibility of an abrupt increase in interest rates. The renewed scrutiny comes as firms that received taxpayer support, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., report earnings swelled by gains from securities trading.

“You have got more intensive, more intrusive and more forceful supervision,” said Richard Spillenkothen, a former director of the Fed Board’s Division of Banking Supervision and Regulation and now a Washington-based director at Deloitte & Touche LLP. “Regulators believe going into this crisis in 2007 that capital positions were too low and the liquidity cushions were not sufficiently robust.”

Obama Proposals

President Barack Obama yesterday proposed forbidding banks with insured deposits to engage in proprietary trading solely for their own profit or investing in hedge funds. The proposals, intended to reduce the kinds of risk-taking blamed for the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, would be part of a broader regulatory overhaul being considered by Congress.

“When banks benefit from the safety net that taxpayers provide, which includes lower cost capital, it is not appropriate for them to turn around and use that cheap money to trade for profit,” Obama said.

Under the revised rule on trading-account capital likely to be imposed by regulators, banks would be obliged to add a so- called stress test to models typically used to calculate a portfolio’s risk. Those tests would require banks to check portfolio moves against more extreme scenarios in financial markets. The revisions would also have stricter capital requirements for some banks’ stock portfolios.

A study published by the Basel Committee in October suggested that large banks would have to boost the capital they set aside for market risk by an average of 224 percent and increase overall capital by 11.5 percent to meet the new standard.

Charges Will Vary

“Capital charges will vary greatly with each bank portfolio,” said Ron Papanek, a strategist at Riskmetrics Group Inc., a firm that sells risk modeling tools to banks and hedge funds. “There are quite a few banks where capital increases will be quite less.”

Joe Mason, a professor of banking at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, said that the changes to banks’ value-at-risk models are unlikely to encompass all of the complex securities, such as collateralized debt obligations, that don’t have a long history of prices fast cash advance.

“We have treated this as if it can be dialed into a level of exactitude in a fast-moving world with non-traditional risks,” said Mason.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., are pushing ahead on their own with efforts to strengthen the financial system.

Timely Information

“We are requiring large firms to provide supervisors with more detailed and timely information on risk positions, operating performance, and other key indicators,” Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee last month.

The Fed in October issued proposed guidance on compensation practices for the bank holding companies it regulates and launched a review of pay policies at more than 20 of the largest banks.

“The Federal Reserve expects all banking organizations to evaluate their incentive compensation arrangements and related risk management, control, and corporate governance processes and immediately address deficiencies,” the Fed said in a notice dated Oct. 27.

Bair said Jan. 12 that the FDIC will seek comment from banks on a proposal that would charge higher fees for deposit insurance for those lenders where compensation structures encourage excessive risk taking.

The scrutiny comes as a recovery from the crisis boosts banks’ profits. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, which dropped 1.9 percent yesterday on the Obama proposal, is up 33 percent in the past year.

Crisis Firefighting

Regulators “are moving away from financial-crisis firefighting to thinking about what the architecture of the financial system is going to be,” said Margaret Tahyar, a partner at Davis, Polk & Wardwell, a New York-based law firm.

JPMorgan Chase, the second-largest U.S. bank, said Jan. 15 that profit more than quadrupled on higher investment-banking revenue. Goldman Sachs yesterday reported record earnings of $4.95 billion for the three months ended Dec. 31 compared with a loss of $2.12 billion in the quarter ended in November 2008.

Congress is considering proposals that would reorder authority over the banking system, with draft legislation in the Senate creating a single supervisor and stripping the Fed and other agencies of oversight powers. The overhaul is aimed at avoiding a repeat of the crisis that led to $1.73 trillion in credit losses and writedowns worldwide.

Regulators “were overly generous in 2008 and 2009,” said Eric Hovde, president of Hovde Capital Advisors LLC in Washington, which manages $700 million with a focus on financial stocks. Now, they are likely to get “tougher,” he said.

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Smart investment calls aren’t so easy to come by.

They require insight, patience and a bit of luck. Once they pan out, however, they are fondly remembered for a long time.

Some bold calls made during the market plummet of 2008 proved highly successful, and an examination of the logic behind them can be helpful for the future.

Perhaps the most dramatic call made the last 20 years in the career of Arthur Hogan, director of global equity products for Boston-based Jefferies & Co., took place during that period.

"I really stuck my neck out in November 2008 and said the market was going to bottom out because so much carnage had taken place in such a short amount of time," recalls Hogan of his call that encouraged investing and reaped rewards the following spring. "I made that call because I saw we really needed some sanity to come back into the market."

A lesson throughout history is that "you need to be greedy when people are panicking and panic when people are being greedy," Hogan explained. Too many investors last year lost sight of the fact that companies would still be in business in another year. Panic provided buying opportunities.

"The market was a nerve-wracking mess in December 2008, but one of the stocks we picked then was the North American railroad Union Pacific Corp.," said Kelley Wright, managing editor of the Investment Quality Trends newsletter, Carlsbad, Calif. "After October 2008, the market had taken this stock out and shot it, driving it to such a ridiculous low that any market improvement would make a difference."

In economic recovery, there’s nothing more basic than railroads, he reasoned, because when business picks up, there’s always greater need to move products cross-country. In tune with that logic, Union Pacific stock rose 36 percent last year.

"A year ago, I made the decision to overweight high-yield bond funds because I had a lot of income-sensitive clients who can tolerate some risk, and during that flight to safety, you got a 9 percent yield if you assumed some risk," said Andrew Fitzpatrick, director of investments for Hinsdale Associates, Hinsdale, Ill., and a former JPMorgan portfolio manager. "When yields started tightening, prices of the high-yield bond funds started to increase and provided a strong gain for those who invested."

Some clients were unwilling to take on such uncertainty because the common logic was to stay firmly entrenched in Treasurys offering zero risk but a minuscule yield. It is worth noting that his clients willing to go with the high-yield (non-investment-grade and lower-quality) bonds were mostly retired or close to retirement and already held diversified portfolios.

Lest you think those pros are infallible, realize that they, too, make mistakes and are willing to acknowledge them. Maybe it helps to get it off their chest.

"My wife told me on three separate occasions to buy Apple Inc., and all three times I told her it was overpriced," recalls Hogan. "That first conversation started when Apple was at just $25 a share, and it has since gone beyond $200 a share."

It was the worst call he had ever made, and "my wife is more than willing to bring up the fact that I made that call at each and every cocktail party and family event we ever attend," he sighed. Maybe next time he’ll listen.

"In 2009, we recommended Procter & Gamble Co., the consumer products behemoth, as a good, safe bet that simply couldn’t go wrong because its stock had already been beaten up," said Wright. "That’s what we thought, but that stock was up barely 1 percent last year in the midst of a rampaging stock market."

When the market did pick up, Procter & Gamble was considered far too defensive a holding by investors, as money flowed into the riskier stocks expected to make comebacks. Wright, while so prescient with Union Pacific, had mistakenly selected a stock in P&G that was better suited to recession than a market rebound.

Never overlook the obvious.

"In 1996, I was working at a bank starting my career when I noticed that the Starbucks stores had a nice niche and were often quite crowded, but all the research and analysts were claiming it was too pricey and its concept was a fad," winces Fitzpatrick. "It was at about $5 a share, but I talked myself out of buying it and it went to $40 in 2006."

Not yet learning his lesson, Fitzpatrick missed out again last year when he could have bought Starbucks for around $10 but again demurred because of the economy and some of the firm’s problems. The shares have since more than doubled.

Every investment professional always has another call to make, so here are a couple of current recommendations:

Automatic Data Processing, which does bread-and-butter tech work for companies such as payrolls, is a well-managed company that should excel once unemployment levels start to improve, Wright expects.

Pfizer Inc., the pharmaceutical powerhouse, has been unduly punished because of health care reform discussions, Fitzpatrick believes. It has an underrated drug pipeline, good integration of its acquisition Wyeth and will benefit from an aging population.

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Canadians are doing a decent job of managing their debts even though they are borrowing more than ever before, says the chief executive of this country’s largest bank.

Royal Bank of Canada’s Gord Nixon told an industry conference Thursday that while Canada’s housing market boom is fuelling personal loan growth, the quality of assets underlying consumer debt here is "extremely different" than in the United States.

"There is no question that we watch very carefully personal or household debt," Nixon told delegates. "Not only do we have lower levels of household debt, that household debt is underpinned, I think, by a much more stable secure asset level than you have in the United States."

Although RBC is conducting stress tests to assess the impact of rising interest rates, it still expects personal loan growth to continue at "reasonable levels." That should translate into "high single-digit to low double-digit" growth across most of its retail business.

Nixon’s remarks coincided with a new report from the Canadian Association of Accredited Mortgage Professionals that suggested while Canadians face rising mortgage payments this year, fears of a debt bomb are overblown.

Most are being prudent by taking out fixed-rate mortgages, and a rise in incomes will likely offset higher payments down the road, housing analyst Will Dunning said in the report.

"The degree of risk from rising mortgage rates appears to be small and manageable," observed Dunning. "The vast majority of Canadian mortgagers are not taking on undue risks."

Another encouraging sign is that most first-time home buyers are opting to keep their gross debt service ratio "far below" allowed maximums.

Those trends suggest most consumers have factored rising interest rates into their mortgage decisions, the report said.

Still, some banks are actively counselling their customers against getting too deep in hock.

"Our lenders have been very heavily engaged with the consumer about how much debt is too much," said Bank of Montreal’s chief executive officer Bill Downe.

Canada’s household debt-to-income ratio hit a record 145 bad credit unsecured personal loans.1 per cent in the third quarter of 2009. That means for every $100 of income, Canadians owe $145 in debt. The comparable U.S. figure is 151.7 per cent but that ratio has fallen over the past year.

Low interest rates have encouraged Canadians to rack up more debt in recent months. Currently, variable rate mortgages can be had for about 2.25 per cent or less, compared with 5 per cent at the peak of the market in 2007.

That’s prompted Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney to warn that an eventual rise in rates could leave many vulnerable.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, meanwhile, has mused about increasing minimum down payments and decreasing the maximum amortization on mortgages.

Toronto-Dominion Bank’s chief executive officer Ed Clark suggested that public policy has a role to play in curbing consumer excesses.

"I wouldn’t use interest rates. I would use more specific measures …"

Even as policymakers wring their hands about rising debt, a number of recent reports suggest that a wave of future defaults is highly unlikely.

"The reality is that in the past, interest rates have played only a minor role in driving mortgage default rates," said CIBC World Markets economist Benjamin Tal. "The level of vulnerability in the mortgage market is not as high as suggested by the Bank of Canada."

Tal says in a recent report that mortgage arrears are influenced mostly by unemployment and not by interest rates.

The recession has certainly meant more mortgage arrears; up to 0.44 per cent verses 0.30 per cent from 2004 to 2008, according to CAAMP.

And even the Bank of Canada seems to be toning down its rhetoric. A speech Monday by economic advisor David Wolf stressed the real estate market was not in a bubble.

"It is premature to talk about a bubble in Canadian housing markets," said Wolf. "We see the housing market as requiring vigilance, not alarm."

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The Toronto stock market closed little changed Monday but mining stocks got a lift from strong Chinese economic data.

The S&P/TSX composite index closed 6.7 points lower at 11,947.13 after the main index initially surged more than 100 points amid data showing China’s exports jumped 18 per cent in December, much more than the 5 per cent increase expected. It was also the first increase in more than a year.

The TSX made it as high as 12,067.2 in early trading, the first time it had been above the 12,000 level since Sept. 29, 2008.

"The economy is humming there. There are concerns, but by and large it’s going great," said John Stephenson, portfolio manager at First Asset Funds.

"It’s very positive and it’s a continuation of the theme that where the growth is going to be is in the developing world in the future."

The strong gains melted away during the morning as early improvements in the mining sector moderated and energy stocks turned negative as investors awaited the start of fourth-quarter corporate earnings reports.

The Canadian dollar slipped 0.24 of a cent (U.S.) to 96.76 cents.

The TSX base metals sector was the strongest component, ahead 1.5 per cent as March copper rose four cents to $3.44 a pound.

Teck Resources advanced 41 cents (Canadian) to $42.20 while Labrador Iron Mines Holdings Ltd. gained 41 cents, or 13.53 per cent, to $3.44.

The February bullion contract in New York closed up $12.50 (U.S.) to $1,151.40 an ounce.

The energy sector turned 0.46 per cent lower as oil prices fell, with the February crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange falling 23 cents to $82.52 a barrel. EnCana Corp. fell 46 cents (Canadian) to $35.52.

Talisman Energy shares lost 73 cents to $19.85 as the Calgary-based oil and gas company said it plans to spend $5.2 billion on capital projects in 2010, a 10 per cent increase over 2009.

The TSX Venture Exchange rose 3.42 points to 1,608.53.

New York markets were mainly higher ahead of the launch of earnings season. .

The Dow Jones industrial average was 45.8 points higher to 10,663.99, while the Nasdaq composite index declined 4.76 points to 2,312.41 and the S&P 500 index gained two points to 1,146.98.

The Canadian Press

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A rally in financial shares and signs of improvement in the retail sector gave the blue chips a boost Thursday, but the broader market dragged on jitters ahead of Friday’s big government jobs report.

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) added 33 points, or 0.3%. Boeing (BA, Fortune 500), General Electric (GE, Fortune 500) and the bank stocks led the advance.

The S&P 500 index (SPX) added nearly 5 points, or 0.4%. The Nasdaq composite (COMP) ended just below unchanged.

Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500), Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500) and Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500) were among the big financial names making strides. The KBW Bank (BKX) index jumped more than 4%.

Select homebuilders and retailers rose too. But the tech sector was under pressure, dragging on the Nasdaq.

Stocks struggled Wednesday as weakness in tech and telecom vied with signs of stabilization in the job market and service sector of the economy. The labor market was again in focus Thursday as investors eyed the weekly jobless claims and geared up for Friday’s big government jobs report.

Since rallying Monday, stocks have been mixed to lower. Market participants remain cautious ahead of the next batch of earnings and economic news as well as holding back in the wake of a big 2009. Last year, the S&P 500 gained 23%, the Dow industrials added 19% and the Nasdaq added 44%.

Analysts expect 2010 to continue the uptrend, but at a much milder pace.

"Right now things are shaping up to be pretty decent for 2010," said Dave Hinnenkamp, CEO at KDV Wealth Management. "Unemployment is going to be stubborn, but we’ll see good earnings growth, especially in the first half and that will help stocks."

Investors are looking for signs that the economic recovery that began in the fourth quarter is sustainable, with unemployment and consumer spending front-and-center.

Jobs: The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment rose to 434,000 last week from 433,000 the previous week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com thought it would rise to 439,000, on average.

Continuing claims, a measure of Americans who have been receiving benefits for a week or more, fell to 4,802,000 from 4,981,000 the previous week. Economists thought it would ease to 4,975,000.

On Friday, the government is expected to report that employers cut 35,000 from their payrolls after cutting 11,000 in the previous month direct payday loans. The unemployment rate, generated by a separate survey, is expected to hold steady at 10%.

Retail: Late-season holiday shoppers were a boon to the nation’s chain stores, boosting December sales by 2.9%, a year after sales slumped 3.6% at the height of the recession.

Discounters such as Costco (COST, Fortune 500) fared particularly well. The company said sales at stores open a year or more, a retail metric known as same-store sales, rose 9% in December versus forecasts for a rise of 7.9%.

Target (TGT, Fortune 500) said sales rose 1.8%, versus forecasts for a rise of 0.2%. The company also said fourth-quarter earnings should meet or top analysts’ forecasts of $1.11 per share.

World markets: Asian markets ended higher. In Europe, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.1%, France’s CAC 40 was little changed and the German DAX lost 0.4%.

Commodities and the dollar: The dollar gained versus the euro and the yen.

The stronger dollar pressured dollar-traded commodities. COMEX gold for February delivery lost $2.80 to settle at $1,133.70 an ounce. Gold closed at an all-time high of $1,218.30 an ounce last month.

U.S. light crude oil for February delivery fell 63 cents to settle at $82.66 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after ending the previous session at $83.18, the highest close since October 2008.

Bonds: Treasury prices fell, raising the yield on the 10-year note to 3.81% from 3.80% late Wednesday. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.

Market breadth was positive. On the New York Stock Exchange, winners beat losers by three to two on volume of 1.19 billion shares. On the Nasdaq, advancers topped decliners five to four on volume of 2.26 billion shares.

Talkback: With the economy in recovery mode and a new year underway, what’s your 2010 plan for your portfolio? Will you invest more, less or not at all? Are you willing to take on more risk? E-mail your story to realstories@cnnmoney.com and you could be featured in an upcoming article. For the CNNMoney.com Comment Policy, click here. 

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In his folksy blog, Tom Glocer likes to present himself as a regular working guy who in his off-hours listens to the Grateful Dead, spends time with his wife and kids, and before he turned 50 started hitting the gym.

But, unlike the average Canadian working stiff, the chief executive officer of Thomson Reuters Corp. earned $36.6 million in salary, benefits, bonus and stock options in 2008, a new report says.

That made Glocer the country’s highest-paid CEO that year and a symbol of the widening gap between chief executives and average wage earners, according to a review by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Canada’s top 100 CEOs pocketed an average $7.35 million in 2008, the year recession broadsided the nation, the progressive Ottawa-based think tank said in a study released Monday. That is down from an average of $10,408,054 in total compensation in 2007.

The 2008 total was 174 times more than the average working Canadian, who earned $42,305, the study found.

Put another way, over the same decade, the average compensation of the highest paid 100 CEOs outpaced inflation by 70 per cent, while the average Canadian lost 6 per cent of his or her income to inflation, the study said.

Looking at just the top 50 CEOs and going back even further, the gap since 1995 has grown from 85 times the average Canadians’ earnings to 243 times by 2008, the study also said.

Indeed, by the time most Canadian workers got back from lunch Monday, Canada’s highest paid chief executive officers had already earned their year’s income, the think-tank concluded.

The late Ted Rogers, founder of Rogers Communications Inc., was second with 2008 compensation of $21.5 million.

Big bank CEOs were also high on the list, while some high-profile earners, such as Magna International Inc. chairman Frank Stronach, took home less than they have in past years. Stronach’s compensation in 2008 was $10.7 million.

Hugh Mackenzie, the report’s author, said the centre publishes the list annually in hopes of influencing public debate. The centre said corporate boards should tie executive compensation to things that chief executives can influence, such as sales and profits, instead of rewarding them for their company’s stock performance, a goal that can skew decision-making cheap business cards.

The report adds that if corporate boards are unwilling to act, governments should tax CEOs’ pay more heavily, or at the very least remove the "subsidy" that CEOs receive when they accept much of their compensation in stock options, since for tax purposes those are treated more favourably than income.

Luckily for Glocer, despite a global outcry about fat executive paycheques, Thomson Reuters is based in Canada, a country where regulators and politicians have so far trodden lightly on the issue.

While Alistair Darling, Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, has introduced a hefty tax on bankers’ bonuses, in part to assuage public anger, in Canada Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has resisted calls for what he termed "punitive taxes."

Bank bonuses in particular have become controversial as governments around the globe doled out millions to prop up financial institutions. However, Canada’s banks have remained healthy compared with their G7 counterparts.

Glocer could not be reached for comment.

However, an official of Thomson Reuters noted that much of his compensation that year was in one-time grants related to the acquisition by Thomson of Reuters to create the world’s biggest professional information company.

Glocer received $26.1 million in 2008 in restricted share units designed to motivate him "to succeed in executing our integration plan and realize our growth potential," the company says in its annual circular published last spring.

As well, Glocer, who had been CEO of Reuters, received a one-time payment of $757,397 to help relocate his family from England to New York, and a $443,750 contribution to his supplemental executive retirement plan at Reuters, the circular notes.

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Filed under: legal by Wolf
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