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New York City’s comptroller, who helps oversee the city’s pension funds, on Tuesday said he will investigate whether the failure of Bear Stearns & Co was due to miscalculation or deception, which could trigger a lawsuit to recover losses.

The drop in Bear Stearns’ share price has resulted in a loss for the city’s public pension funds of about $10 million, City Comptroller William Thompson told Reuters in a phone interview.

“I think a lot of people are going to be taking a look. … Was there some deception in there or was this just a miscalculation?” Thompson, a Democrat, said when asked about a possible lawsuit against Bear Stearns.

Massachusetts on Monday had said it was reviewing whether to sue Bear Stearns to recover money it lost as a result of the plunge in the investment bank’s stock.

Bear Stearns’ market value fell after the bank on Sunday agreed to be bought by JPMorgan Chase (JPM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) at a price of $2 a share. On Friday Bear Stearns’ stock had closed at $30.85 payday loans online. The shares on Tuesday closed up 22.9 percent at $5.91, suggesting some were closing out short positions or believe the firm could fetch a higher price.

New York City’s pension fund has a long history of suing companies it believes defrauded investors. The $110 billion fund Thompson helps run is currently the lead plaintiff in a class-action suit against top U.S. mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp (CFC.N: Quote, Profile, Research).

Thompson, a possible mayoral contender, said he does not believe Bear Stearns should be immediately kicked off the city underwriting teams.

“Bear had a very good municipal department,” which came up with some innovative ideas, he said. “It’s not just the firm, you also look at the personnel and the people who are there,” he said, noting JPMorgan also underwrites city debt. 

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The fat compensation packages of three U.S. CEOs whose companies are being hammered by the widening mortgage crisis came under harsh criticism on Friday at a congressional hearing on executive pay.

In the last two quarters of 2007 alone, the three executives’ firms lost more than $20 billion on investments in subprime and other risky mortgages, said the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Operations Committee.

Yet the three took home fortunes in 2007 — $120 million for Countrywide Financial Corp (CFC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) CEO Angelo Mozilo; a $161 million retirement package for ex-Merrill Lynch (MER.N: Quote, Profile, Research) CEO Stanley O’Neal; and $39.5 million in stock, options, bonus and perks for former Citigroup (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research) CEO Charles Prince.

“The mortgage crisis is having enormous repercussions. Families are losing their homes … Thousands are losing their jobs. It seems like everybody is hurting, except for the CEOs who had the most responsibility,” said California Democratic Rep creditscore. Henry Waxman, committee chairman.

In a hearing room packed with bank lobbyists and lawyers, Waxman said, “I have no problem with paying for success. But it looks like when you’re a CEO you get paid for failure.”

Mozilo, O’Neal and Prince told Waxman’s panel that they earned their compensation. They conceded misjudgments in the subprime debacle, while one Republican lawmaker blasted the hearing as “a sanctimonious search for scapegoats.”

Virginia Rep. Tom Davis said, “Punishing individual corporate executives with public floggings like this may be a politically satisfying ritual — like an island tribe sacrificing a virgin to a grumbling volcano.

“But in the end, it won’t answer the questions … about corporate responsibility and economic stability.” 

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Apple Inc (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) has no plans to declare a dividend or buy back stock, Chief Executive Steve Jobs told the annual meeting of shareholders on Tuesday, adding that iPhone sales were on track.

Jobs said he was confident that Apple would hit its 2008 sales target of 10 million iPhones, a figure which some analysts have questioned in the face of a weaker U.S. economy, and executives said the communications device would reach Asian markets this year.

But Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook was elusive on timing for selling into the key market of China.

“We will enter Asia with the iPhone in 2008 … We will one day enter China, we’re not saying when, and we will one day enter India,” Cook said.

Jobs was asked if the company planned to start paying a dividend or initiate a stock buyback program cash advance. “At this time, we have no plans to do either,” he told shareholders.

The company’s stockpile of cash and short-term investments topped $18 billion at the end of last year, leading to speculation about how the maker of iPods, iPhones and Macintosh computers might spend some of its cash reserves.

Shares of Apple were up 57 cents at $122.30 in afternoon trade on Nasdaq.

Investors at the meeting took the opportunity to tell management that they wanted more of a say in how the company was run, passing a resolution in favor of an annual advisory vote by shareholders on executive compensation. 

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After Chris Scheid graduated from Queens’ Richmond Hill high school in 1982, he landed a lowly job in Manhattan as a futures exchange floor runner thanks to the brother of his Boy Scout troop den mother.

“Ninety-eight percent of the people on the floor got their job because they knew somebody,” he told Reuters after a day of trading in the frozen concentrated orange juice market. “I started at the bottom.”

Scheid, 43, learned the ropes and struck it big trading agricultural commodities like frozen concentrated orange juice, coffee, sugar, cocoa and cotton. But now, after 2-1/2 decades of yelling orders and flapping hands to buy and sell futures, he must change careers when more than a century of agricultural commodities futures trading in New York ends on March 3.

The IntercontinentalExchange’s ICE Futures US, which bought the NYBOT last year, will cease open outcry trading of all futures contracts and become wholly electronic.

Scheid will keep his hand in the market by trading orange juice options — the FCOJ options ring is not closing cash advance now. He is investing in a southern cooking-themed restaurant and an auction company. There is also a thriving antique business.

Hoarse from years of barking at each other, dozens of traders and brokers from New York City, Long Island, and New Jersey are assessing their skills. It will be tough to find a job that matches floor trading for its combination of great pay and a big adrenaline rush.

INTO THE PIT

Scheid’s story of a young man with a working class background carving out a career without the benefit of college is hardly unique on commodity exchanges in New York, Chicago or London. 

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Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) posted better-than-expected fourth quarter profit on Tuesday as penny-pinching U.S. shoppers scoured its discount stores for low prices on necessities like food to offset tough economic conditions.

The world’s largest retailer, which has cut prices to try to win sales in the tough environment, acknowledged that the economic situation remains “challenging,” and it gave a first-quarter and full-year earnings forecast that could come in below Wall Street’s expectations.

Joseph Feldman, an analyst with Telsey Advisory Group, said that given the tough climate, in which many U.S. retailers have cut their sales or earnings forecasts as shoppers rein in spending, providing a cautious earnings forecast near Wall Street’s expectations was “perfectly fine.”

“Wal-Mart is perfectly positioned for this type of environment,” he said. “They’ve got a lot of consumable items, like groceries, so they’re going to drive traffic and maybe even get additional traffic because of this environment.”

Net income rose 4 percent to $4.096 billion, or $1.02 per share, for its fiscal fourth quarter ended January 31, from $3.94 billion, or 95 cents per share, a year earlier cheap payday loans.

The most recent quarter’s results included charges of 3 cents per share for dropped real estate projects and a restructuring charge for its Japanese operations, and a 1 cent per share benefit from the sale of real estate properties.

Excluding the items, Wal-Mart reported earnings of $1.04 per share, above analysts’ average estimate of $1.02 per share, according to Reuters Estimates.

Revenue, which includes membership revenue for its Sam’s Club warehouses, where shoppers pay an annual fee to shop, rose to $107.43 billion from $99.08 billion. 

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Fitch Ratings said Friday it expects a spike in bad credit card debt and car loans in 2008 as the American consumer is besieged by heightened unemployment, mushrooming prices and a slumping housing market.

The credit-ratings agency anticipates credit card lenders could write off more than 7% of their portfolios this year, compared with the 5.21 percent pace of write-offs in 2007.

Car lenders catering to borrowers with blemished credit histories could write off 11% of their loans, which means write-offs will have more than doubled in two years. Lenders issuing loans to people with stellar credit will probably write off 2 percent of their portfolios, an increase of almost 50%, Fitch said.

Fitch tries to forecast losses on these types of loans because they are frequently bundled into bonds and sold to investors payday loan low fee. How much the bonds are worth pivots on how reliably the underlying loans are repaid.

With unemployment at 4.9%, prices ticking up, the housing market mired in a slump and people worried about growth in their wages, Fitch said the U.S. economy will saddle the American consumer more heavily in 2008.

"The U.S. economy is showing more cracks, which will continue to impact the performance of U.S. credit card and auto loan asset-backed securities," Fitch said.

Even assuming higher losses, Fitch said most of these bonds are still safe. Most bonds are structured to withstand greater losses than Fitch forecasts, the agency said. 

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