Wolf’s Finance World

The nation’s stores finally got some relief this Thanksgiving weekend, according to data released late Monday, but the sales gains were modest and analysts worry the pace can’t be sustained through the season and beyond as shoppers worry about the recession.

Adding more pressure is that a later Thanksgiving this year means a shorter buying season between that holiday and Christmas, and thus less time to make crucial sales.

"Consumers were very deliberate about where they went and what they shopped for" over the Thanksgiving weekend, said Bill Martin, co-founder of ShopperTrak RCT Corp., a research firm that tracks traffic and retail sales at more than 50,000 outlets.

The question, he said, is whether consumers still have "some more ammo left" to keep shopping, and how aggressive stores need to promote their deals to bring them back.

Total retail sales for Friday and Saturday combined rose 1.9 percent compared with the same holiday time period a year ago, ShopperTrak reported, but a shopping frenzy on Friday wasn’t sustained the next day.

Sales rose 3 percent on Friday to $10.6 billion, but slipped 0.8 percent to $6 billion on Saturday. Martin expected a further pullback Sunday, estimating that total retail sales for the three-day weekend probably rose a modest 1 percent credit score. The final sales figure for the three-day weekend will be released Wednesday.

Since the financial meltdown intensified this fall, retailers have been grappling with the most severe drop-off in spending in decades as shoppers worry about layoffs, shrinking retirement funds and tightening credit.

Total U.S. foot traffic for Friday dropped 18 percent as shoppers visited fewer stores, ShopperTrak said.

Meanwhile, preliminary numbers by the data service SpendingPulse show that sales at specialty apparel stores for Friday and Saturday combined rose 1.6 percent, while luxury sales rose 2.4 percent. Online sales soared 11.8 percent. Electronics sales fell 14.3 percent, though that was an improvement from the 22.1 percent they dropped in the first two weeks of November. SpendingPulse is a service provided by MasterCard Advisors that estimates U.S. retail sales across all payment forms including cash and check.

For the first two weeks of November, luxury and apparel suffered a 19 percent drop and 21.1 percent decline respectively compared with the same period a year ago.

Sales for the month of November will be provided by SpendingPulse later this week.

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World cell phone leader Nokia (NOK1V.HE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) is expected to bolster its offering of high-end phones at a media and industry event in Barcelona on Tuesday, where it is also due to outline a push into Internet services.

Nokia still dominates the market for smartphones — handsets with computer-like features such as e-mail — but sales dropped in the third quarter from a year earlier and it lost share to Apple (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Blackberry maker Research In Motion (RIM) (RIMM.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) RIMT.TO.

“I’m sure there will be a few new phones shown on Tuesday and Wednesday, something in the smartphone and touchscreen area,” said Handelsbanken analyst Jan Dworsky.

The battle for smartphone business has heated up since Apple introduced the iPhone last year, with all vendors trying to grab a bigger slice of a market that is seen growing despite the backdrop of economic gloom.

“Smartphones should be a better-performing segment than others in 2009, even though growth will slow down versus 2008,” Dworsky said.

While growth in the total cell phone market slowed to just 3 percent in the third quarter, the smartphone market grew 28 percent from a year earlier to 40 million phones, according to research firm Canalys.

Surging demand for the latest iPhone and Blackberry models helped Apple and RIM to win a larger share of the smartphone market in the third quarter.

“Apple has redefined the whole category,” said Sean Dalton, general partner at Highland Capital Partners, stressing the easy functionality of Internet use on the iPhone quick loans.

“I think the smartphone market really is two markets: In one there are two players: Apple and RIM. The other market is everybody else. No one of them has materially differentiated,” Dalton said.

Nokia has led the smartphone market by a large margin for several years, but its sales fell on an annual basis for the first time in the third quarter as it was only ramping up production of new top-end models.

The drop has worried investors and analysts as it is expected to weigh on the Finnish group’s profit margins.

Nokia’s share of the market for smartphones fell to 38.9 percent from 51.4 percent a year before, Canalys said. Apple’s market share jumped to 17.3 percent and RIM’s to 15.2 percent.

To battle new rivals, Nokia said in June it would buy out other shareholders of UK-based smartphone software maker Symbian for $410 million and make its software royalty-free for other phone makers to counter new rivals.

Since then, 59 companies have said they plan to join the Symbian Foundation, including major cell phone makers, making it larger than the alliance behind Google’s Android.

Nokia would contribute Symbian’s assets to the not-for-profit organization, the Symbian Foundation, uniting with handset makers, network operators and communications chipmakers to create an open-source platform. 

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MONTREAL – There’s renewed optimism that the takeover of Bell Canada by a group led by the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan will go ahead.

The U.S. government has agreed to a rescue plan for Citigroup, the major U.S. bank that is the lead lender in the $52-billion purchase of Canada’s largest telecom company.

Shares in Bell Canada parent BCE Inc. (TSX: BCE) surged more than nine per cent in morning trading after agreement was reached on the Citigroup plan.

Citigroup is directly on the hook for $13 billion of $35 billion in loans backing the deal set to close Dec. 11, along with the Royal Bank of Scotland, Toronto-Dominion Bank (TSX: TD) and Deutsche Bank.

BCE shares gained $3.22 to $37.77 in early trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

A consortium led by Teachers has offered $42.75 per share to complete the world’s largest private equity transaction and Canada’s biggest corporate takeover.

BCE shares fell to $32 business cards online.40 Friday afternoon as investor fears were stoked by questions about the future of Citigroup and the potential impact on the BCE deal, which is set to close Dec. 11.

Late Sunday, the U.S. government agreed to shoulder hundreds of billions of possible losses at the stricken bank and to plow a fresh $20 billion into the company.

The action, announced by the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., is aimed at shoring up a huge financial institution whose collapse would wreak havoc on the already fragile financial system and the U.S. economy.

The move prompted Citigroup’s shares, which had fallen to $3.16 on Friday, to soar by nearly 56 per cent Monday morning on the New York Stock Exchange.

10:26ET 24-11-08

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WASHINGTON – Construction of new homes in America plunged last month to the lowest level on records going back nearly 50 years as U.S. builders slashed production while Wall Street nosedived.

Embattled homebuilders, who enjoyed a five-year boom, are now building new homes and apartments at a record-low pace, according to government data released today. New building permits, a barometer of future activity, also plummeted to the lowest pace on record.

With construction dropping, the number of unsold homes should fall quickly in the coming months, wrote Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics. "But right now housing is a disaster area," he said.

The Commerce Department reported that construction of new homes and apartments fell 4.5 per cent in October, the fourth straight monthly decline. Construction sank to an annual rate of 791,000 units from an upwardly revised September rate of 828,000 units.

The results were the lowest on government records dating back to January 1959. Previously, the slowest pace had been in January 1991, when the country was in recession and going through a similar housing correction. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected construction to fall even further to a rate of 780,000 units

Wachovia Corp. economist Adam York forecasts that construction will fall to around 650,000 units by next summer. While that's going to be painful for the nation's homebuilders, it will help stabilize the overall U.S. housing market, he said.

"The broader housing market needs fewer homes," York said in an interview. "We built too many homes in the United States and building less is one way to work off the excess inventory."

The declines in construction last month were led by a 31 per cent drop in the Northeast, where construction of single family homes fell to a new record low. They also dropped 13.7 per cent in the Midwest. Construction rose 7.5 per cent in the West and 1.5 per cent in the South.

Applications for building permits, considered a good sign of future activity, fell by 12 per cent in October to an annual rate of 708,000 units, the weakest on records dating to early 1960 fast cash in one hour. New permits for single-family houses fell 14.5 per cent to 460,000, the lowest level since February 1982.

That decline was surprisingly large, wrote Global Insight economist Patrick Newport, adding that builders "will take a big hit from the financial problems that erupted in September," when the government seized control of mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and extended a financial lifeline to insurance company American International Group Inc.

The U.S. housing recession has triggered severe economic problems and calls for further action in Washington. Builders' sentiment about market conditions dropped to a record low in November, according to the latest survey from the National Association of Home Builders.

The trade group's housing market index, which started in January 1985, tumbled five points to nine in November, reflecting growing worries over the U.S. financial crisis, rising unemployment and weakening consumer confidence. Index readings higher than 50 indicate positive sentiment about the market. But the index has drifted below 50 since May 2006 and below 20 since April.

Tighter lending standards, rising defaults and fear about the housing market's future have sidelined buyers, an absence felt acutely by homebuilders such as D.R. Horton Inc., Pulte Homes Inc. and Centex Corp.

In recent weeks, homebuilders have ratcheted up pressure on Congress to take steps that go beyond trying to reduce foreclosures. The industry wants lawmakers to enact new incentives aimed at getting reluctant homebuyers back into the market.

Specifically, the group is asking for a 10 per cent tax credit of up to $22,000 for homebuyers that purchase a home over the next year, and a temporary interest-rate reduction on 30-year mortgages.

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U.S. retail sales in October suffered the worst monthly drop on record as more Americans shunned discretionary purchases amid accelerating job losses in a worsening economy.

It marked the fourth consecutive decline in monthly retail sales.

The Commerce Department said Friday that retail sales fell 2.8% last month, compared with a revised 1.3% drop in September. September retail sales were originally reported to have dropped 1.2%.

Economists surveyed by Briefing.com on average had forecast a decrease of 2.1% for October.

"These numbers reinforce the fact that we are in a recession," said Michael Niemira, chief retail economist with the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC).

October’s decline is the worst since the Commerce Department adopted the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) standard to measure retail sales in 1992.

But based on the government’s prior standard for measuring retail sales, last month’s decline would be the worst since January 1987, when overall retail sales fell 6.5%.

Sales excluding autos and auto parts fell 2.2% in October, also worse than expected, compared to a revised 0.5% drop in September.

The forecast was for a 1.2% decline, according to Briefing.com.

Retail sales were extremely weak across most categories, led by a 5.5% drop in auto purchases last month. Sales at gasoline stations plunged 12 free credit score.7%, largely because of plunging pump prices. Electronics stores suffered a 2.3% decline, while furniture store sales fell 2.5%.

"Consumers are aggressively cutting back," said Scott Hoyt, director of consumer economics with Moody ’s Economy.com. "They’re not even taking the savings from lower gas prices and spending it in stores."

Elsewhere, clothing sales fell 1.4% and department stores suffered a 1.3% drop in sales last month.

Hoyt said Americans are "conserving their money" because their confidence is so low. "They are concerned about their jobs and their eroding wealth," he said.

But since consumer spending fuels two-thirds of economic activity, Hoyt said continued deceleration in retail sales could become a "significant drag on the economy."

"This would suggest that we are in a recessionary cycle," said Hoyt. "Businesses will start to invest less in their business and hire fewer people. This will again hit consumers. Round and round we go."

Experts said what’s needed now is a multitude of stimulus actions to spur spending and help break this cycle.

"I think we need this sooner (rather) than later," said Hoyt. 

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Chinese solar cell maker JA Solar Holdings Co Ltd said on Wednesday the global economic slump had triggered a “panic” in the solar market, prompting it to slash its sales forecasts and sending its shares down more than 25 percent.

Sales of solar cells and panels have risen sharply in recent quarters as companies such as JA Solar ramped up production of the clean power source, but the global economic slowdown has caused that growth to slow, leading to a supply glut.

“At this moment the market reaction has been panic,” Samuel Yang, chief executive officer, told a conference call.

The company, which posted a quarterly loss from its ties to defunct investment bank Lehman Brothers, said it had cut back on output of the cells that turn sunlight into electricity and would seek to renegotiate its polysilicon supply contracts.

That effort to cut costs for polysilicon, the key material in its cells, was an attempt to offset an expected 20 percent price decline in the average selling prices of its products.

“Just recently the euro depreciated dramatically, more than 23 percent. So we have to adjust our ASP (average selling price) to support our customers,” Yang said.

Europe is the largest market for photovoltaic solar equipment because of the subsidy programs set up by the German and Spanish governments.

Still, Yang said, JA Solar was one of the lowest cost solar cell manufacturers, which would enable it to take advantage of the downturn in demand to expand market share cash advance loans.

JA Solar said it would seek a 20 percent drop in the price it pays its suppliers for polysilicon in 2009, and that it had already won price concessions for 2008. The company would seek to push its contracted costs for silicon below the spot market price of about $200 to $220 per kilogram.

SALES TO SLOW

The company cut its 2008 revenue forecast to between $849.5 million to $878.9 million from the $1.05 billion to $1.17 billion it had forecast in October, and said its earnings per share would be near break-even.

It also cut its 2009 revenue forecast to $1.5 billion to $1.7 billion from the previously issued $2.0 billion to $2.2 billion.

Fourth quarter growth margins would drop to 5 to 7 percent, the company said, from 21.6 percent in the third quarter and 23.3 percent in the second quarter.

JA Solar said it lost a net $21.0 million, or 36 cents per American Depositary Receipt, in the third quarter. In the same quarter a year ago it earned $24.4 million, or 17 cents per ADS.

Excluding one-time items, the Hebei, China-based company reported earnings of 25 cents per share, just short of Wall Street analysts’ average forecast of 26 cents per share, according to Reuters Estimates’ 

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Alberta and Saskatchewan are determined to clean up coal and pump carbon dioxide back into the ground, two achievements that would turn the world’s dirtiest fossil fuels – coal and tar-sands oil – into a climate-friendly source of energy.

That’s the theory.

Last week, Edmonton-based Epcor Utilities filed two "expressions of interest" with the Alberta government in hopes of tapping funds from the province’s $2 billion climate-change action plan. The power utility wants to build a new type of "clean coal" plant that turns coal into a hydrogen-rich gas. Pollutants are then removed from the gas before it is burned to generated electricity.

Epcor touted the proposed plant, based on a technology called Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle, as the "first commercial-scale near-zero emission thermal power plant in Canada." Among the pollutants that could be kept out of the atmosphere is carbon dioxide, which would presumably be captured and piped underground for permanent storage — assuming such an option existed today.

The other filing was for a project that would retrofit an existing coal plant so that up to 10 per cent of carbon dioxide could be scrubbed from its flue-gas emissions. Again, this greenhouse gas would presumably be piped underground somewhere, some day.

That’s right, just 10 per cent would be captured.

Just next door, the Saskatchewan government announced it, with partners Royal Dutch Shell and the University of Regina, had created the International Performance Assessment Centre for Geological Storage of CO2 – a mouthful to be sure, but the aim is to turn booming Saskatchewan into a global centre for research around clean coal and carbon capture and storage.

These initiatives have to take place, as there are no silver bullets to fighting climate change. But we shouldn’t do it to the exclusion of other options, including investments in energy storage, geothermal, biomass and solar.

The fossil-fuel folks often like to poke fun at wind, solar and conservation efforts by dismissing them as "playing at the edges." It also appears clear the federal government is putting disproportionate weight on the ability of clean coal and carbon-capture technologies to reduce Canada’s greenhouse-gas emissions.

Not everyone in the industry is convinced, including Alex Pourbaix, president of energy at TransCanada Corp pay advance in 24 hour., a natural gas pipeline and power generation company headquartered in Calgary.

"The cost of these types of technologies are very, very uncertain," Pourbaix told investors in Toronto last week, explaining that they don’t stack up well when compared to natural gas. Natural gas is costlier than coal, but emits half the CO2 and very little sulphur dioxide.

"TransCanada has been heavily involved in researching and being involved in pilot projects for gasification and carbon sequestration projects. Under a range of expected forward gas prices, I would say the vast majority of these projects, if not all, are not economic without vast subsidies from government."

It’s why TransCanada is betting its future growth on natural gas pipelines and power plants. In fact, the rush from coal to natural gas – what the power industry calls "dash to gas" – has led to concerns about the drain on natural gas supplies as more generators switch away from coal.

The North American Electric Reliability Corp., a self-regulatory organization representing major utilities across the continent, says clean coal and carbon storage needs to be commercially ready by 2025 to become a viable alternative for electricity production.

The key word here is "viable." Its members, according to a report released today, cite an often-overlooked problem associated with gasification of coal and the capturing and storing of carbon: each of these processes creates its own demand for electricity.

Their electrical demand, or what’s often called parasitic losses, can range from between 10 per cent and 50 per cent of power being generated. In the United States, that means if all existing coal plants were converted to clean coal and their emissions were captured and sequestered, it would require 320,000 megawatts of new electrical generation to compensate for the parasitic losses – that is, for the extra power required to capture the CO2, compress it, and pipe it safely into permanent underground storage.

Yikes. That’s about 10 Ontario electricity systems. Or about 600 more coal plants. Certainly a good way to keep a dinosaur industry from going extinct, isn’t it?

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General Motors Corp., once the world’s mightiest company, is on its knees today after reporting another huge quarterly loss that will prompt more cuts, including 500 extra layoffs in Oshawa.

Detroit-based GM said yesterday it spilled $2.5 billion (U.S.) in red ink during the three months ending Sept. 30 and warned it could run out of cash and go broke next year.

Revenues plunged 13 per cent to $37 billion as the impact of soaring fuel prices, tight credit and sagging consumer confidence spread from the key U.S. economy to other markets.

It marked the fifth-consecutive quarter of losses for GM, which is burning cash at unprecedented levels. GM ended the third quarter with $16.2 billion in cash on hand, down from $21 billion on June 30.

"Even if GM implements the planned operating actions that are substantially within its control, GM’s estimated liquidity during the remainder of 2008 will approach the minimum amount necessary to operate its business," the company said in its most gloomy comments yet about the impact of the current turmoil engulfing the industry.

"Looking into the first two quarters of 2009, even with its planned actions, the company’s estimated liquidity will fall significantly short of that."

GM also revealed it had postponed talks of a merger with Chrysler so the company could focus on its "immediate liquidity challenges."

Among other things, GM will lay off about 3,600 workers at 10 assembly plants early in the new year, including the Oshawa car complex, where 500 employees will be off the job temporarily starting Jan. 5. The complex employs about 5,000.

The move will slow down the Oshawa No. 2 car line where demand for the mid-size Chevrolet Impala is sliding. Impala output in the first three quarters has dropped 8.2 per cent to 230,832.

It also increases the number of job losses at the car plant to 900 within only a few months, although the company will continue running three shifts.

GM indicated earlier it would reduce the complex workforce by about 400 through early retirements and buyouts when it ends production of the Buick LaCrosse and Allure in January.

GM spokesperson Stew Low said the latest layoff of 500 reflects a "poor U cash advance lenders.S. economy." The company exports most of its Oshawa car production to the U.S. market.

The industry downturn has decimated GM’s operations in Oshawa. GM has slashed output at a nearby truck plant and will close it next year. The shutdown will wipe out about 2,600 jobs.

The No. 1 line at the car complex, which is building a new Camaro model, operates on only one shift.

Keith Osborne, a staff representative for the Canadian Auto Workers, said if the layoffs dragged on for several months, the union would press GM for help that would secure jobs for younger workers or give them alternatives for new careers.

GM is also aggressively cutting costs in Canada, which will probably result in the elimination of at least a few hundred salaried jobs.

In underlining the urgency, GM said it would take steps to improve its shaky liquidity position by $5 billion before the end of next year. That’s in addition to $10 billion in cash improvements it promised, in July, by the end of 2009.

In addition to sweeping cuts in salaried staff on both sides of the border, the new GM program features a reduction in capital spending of about 34 per cent to $2.5 billion through delays in several product launches.

The company is also shaving spending on sales promotion and financial support for its dealer network. Salaried staff also won’t receive incentive compensation for the year.

GM’s heavy loss comes a day after its top officials joined counterparts at struggling Ford and Chrysler in appealing to the U.S. government for loans soon.

Ottawa would also consider granting aid but a federal official stressed the government is in a tough financial situation, too, as the Canadian economy slows down and tax revenues shrink.

Ken Lewenza, the CAW’s national president, said he expects the federal and Ontario governments to provide help, in view of the likelihood of a U.S. bailout.

Lewenza added that the three auto makers have not asked the union to reopen recent new contracts for concessions.

"I don’t expect them to ask either," he said.

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China's Finance Minister Xie Xuren was called back from an international economic conference in Peru before the meeting began, following orders from Beijing to help resolve problems at home, an organizer of the event said.

Xie left Trujillo, Peru, where Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation finance officials are meeting this week, shortly after arriving at 11:00 a.m. on Nov. 5, Gladys Otero de Swinnen, protocol director for the conference, said in an interview.

“They told him he has to resolve an economic problem and that he's the only one who could do so,'' de Swinnen said. “He was complaining because he had to fly 32 hours to get here and then he had to fly another 32 hours to get back.''

China's largest banks, with 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) of cash, are resisting government efforts to boost lending to 42 million small and medium-size companies that drove the economic boom of the past decade. On Nov. 2, the central bank scrapped curbs on loans after three interest rate cuts in seven weeks failed to revive economic growth that has sagged to its slowest in five years.

Toy Exporters

Half the nation's toy exporters have closed this year, and 67,000 smaller enterprises filed for bankruptcy in the first half, according to government statistics default payday loan. Companies with assets of less than 40 million yuan provide three-quarters of urban jobs and 60 percent of China's gross domestic product.

Deputy Finance Minister Li Yong stayed in Trujillo. Li declined to comment on measures to boost China's growth.

Xie arrived in Beijing to take care of some “urgent business,'' two finance ministry officials, who declined to be named, said today. They didn't elaborate.

APEC members are Australia, Brunei, Canada, China, Chile, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the U.S. and Vietnam.

Xie will not attend the Group of Twenty meetings in Sao Paulo, Brazil, this weekend, one finance ministry official said. Xie's attendance for next week's Washington summit on financial crisis is yet to be confirmed, the official added.

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President-elect Barack Obama’s Treasury secretary must be a regulator, diplomat, defender of the dollar and master of depleted coffers, all while figuring out how to escape a nasty recession.

The past 14 months of market turmoil have dramatically changed the job description, perhaps more so than at any time since William Woodin was appointed to Franklin Roosevelt’s Cabinet during the Great Depression in 1933. He resigned after less than a year due to ill health and died in 1934.

Filling the top Treasury position will be among the first critical decisions that Obama will make, most likely very soon after Tuesday’s presidential election.

The economy was the top issue for many voters as Obama defeated Republican Sen. John McCain.

High on the next Treasury boss’s to-do list is rewriting the rules of finance to prevent another credit crisis like the current one that threatens to trigger the worst U.S. downturn in 30 years, derailing global growth in the process.

That may explain why the list of likely candidates for the Obama administration includes Timothy Geithner, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, who has been at the center of efforts to stabilize financial markets.

Obama’s short list is also said to include former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker. He has spoken favorably about investor Warren Buffett as well.

Regardless of who gets the job, “the first two years are going to be horrible,” said Andrew Milligan, head of global strategy at Edinburgh-based Standard Life Investments, which manages assets of roughly $210 billion bad credit pay day loans.

“At the moment, I would assume that probably Geithner is as well-placed as anybody. You need someone who is really au fait (familiar) with the financial crisis.”

BILLS, BILLS, BILLS

The Bush administration and Fed have committed trillions of dollars to try to avert a financial system meltdown. That will push the national debt well above $11 trillion.

Deutsche Bank economist Peter Hooper thinks the budget deficit will exceed 7 percent of gross domestic product next year, more than double this year’s and the highest in the developed world.

That will constrain the next administration’s spending capacity and require some delicate diplomacy with countries such as China and Japan that hold hundreds of billions of dollars worth of U.S. debt. They have grown increasingly wary as the credit crisis intensified.

“They will have to care a lot about foreign investors,” said Harm Bandholz, an economist at UniCredit in New York. “Without foreign investors, none of these government rescue programs would work because the U.S. wouldn’t be able to finance them.”

How the new administration tackles regulatory reform will be a critical factor in where overseas investors decide to put their money. Current Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has largely set the course for the rescue operation with the $700 billion bailout plan approved by Congress earlier this month. 

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