Actual finance blog

BOSTON • The Federal Reserve is making it increasingly hard for investors to earn anything, unless they’re willing to accept plenty of risk. Ben Bernanke and his Fed are playing the role of adviser, encouraging Americans to get a little more adventurous by shifting savings out of low-yielding bonds and putting it to work in stocks.

The latest nudge came last month when the Fed said it doesn’t expect to raise its benchmark rate until late 2014, at the earliest. Rates have been near zero since December 2008. The latest extension means borrowers can expect another three years of low-cost loans and mortgages.

It’s more bad news for savers and retirees depending on investment income, particularly when there’s 3 percent inflation. Investors who value earning stable returns from Treasury bonds end up with little more than satisfaction that they’re faring better than people keeping money in savings accounts.

Consider that investors committing to lock up their money for a full decade were only being paid 1.8 percent for buying U.S. Treasurys last week. And yields have turned negative for investors trading 10-year Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, or TIPS. On Wednesday, the yield was negative 0.28 percent. In essence, investors are willing to pay Uncle Sam to borrow their dollars for 10 years, because the opportunity to minimize losses is attractive compared with other options.

Here’s a look at three relatively low-risk alternatives to generate some income in this environment:

DIVIDEND STOCKS

Dick Bristol, 74, a retired Air Force major from Biloxi, Miss., counts on dividend-paying stocks for his retirement security. His investment portfolio is nearly 100 percent in stocks that make regular payouts, and he and his wife count on a few hundred dollars of dividends coming in each month quick payday loans.

Of course, dividend-paying stocks are not immune from market drops. And companies often cut dividends when the economy skids. But Bristol is convinced the potential returns are worth the risks.

“Keep in mind that if you invest in something that’s earning 1 to 2 percent, you’re losing out to the 3 inflation we’ve got now,” Bristol says. “Over the long run, nothing pays like dividend stocks.”

HIGH-YIELD BONDS

These bonds are issued by companies with credit problems. High-yield investors expect higher returns because there’s a greater risk of default. And they’ve gotten them recently. Mutual funds specializing in high-yield bonds have produced an average annualized return of 19 percent over the last three years.

Anne Lester, lead manager of JPMorgan Income Builder, has recently been adding to the fund’s holdings in high-yield bonds. They now make up 44 percent of a portfolio. Corporate default rates remain low and high-yields are attractively priced compared with Treasurys and other bonds, Lester says.

MUNICIPAL BONDS

Investments in the bonds of state and local governments won’t make you rich because returns are generally low. But muni bond interest payments are exempt from federal taxes. That protection may extend to state taxes if the munis are issued by the state in which the investor lives. Investors can pocket attractive returns even after taxes, because the tax hit can be sizeable for those in higher income brackets.

“Munis give an investor opportunity,” said Jim Colby, a muni bond analyst with Van Eck Associates.

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President Barack Obama planted his political flag in Florida on Thursday ahead of the state’s Jan. 31 Republican presidential primary, promising a fresh boost to the economy by making it easier for foreign tourists to travel to the U.S.

Obama sought his piece of Florida’s political spotlight with a high-profile appearance at Walt Disney World, where he announced initiatives aimed at making it easier for citizens of China and Brazil to visit the United States.

“America is open for business,” Obama declared against the backdrop of Disney’s Cinderella castle and picture-perfect blue skies. “We want to welcome you.”

From Florida, Obama headed to New York City for four glitzy campaign fundraisers, including an event at the famed Apollo Theater featuring performances by Al Green and India.Arie. Tickets to that fundraiser start at $100.

The president also was to attend a $35,800 per ticket fundraiser at the home of film director Spike Lee, and two small fundraisers at Daniel, an exclusive Manhattan restaurant. Tickets start at $5,000 for the first restaurant fundraiser and $15,000 for the second. Obama raised more than $220 million for his campaign and the Democratic National Committee through the end of 2011.

Beyond offering an opportunity to talk about the economy, Obama’s trip to Florida marked an attempt by the White House and his campaign to steal attention from Republicans vying for the GOP presidential nomination. In recent weeks Obama held a live video conference with Iowa voters during the Republican caucus, Vice President Joe Biden held a similar event with voters in New Hampshire on the night of the state’s first-in-the-nation primary and next week Obama will travel to Nevada, which follows Florida on the primary calendar.

Obama was greeted in the Orlando area by ads from GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney blaming the president for the state’s struggling economy. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, could take a major step toward securing the Republican nomination with a win in Florida’s Jan. 31 primary contest.

“I have a simple question for you: Where are the jobs?” Romney wrote in an open letter to the president on Thursday running as an ad in the Tampa Bay Times. In a conference call with reporters, Romney said Obama was “speaking from Fantasyland.”

While Obama carried Florida in 2008, the state is a top target for Republicans in the November elections. Florida twice backed Republican George W. Bush, providing the decisive electoral votes in the cliffhanger 2000 election that was decided after a 36-day recount payday loan lenders.

Tourism is a key component to the economy in Florida, which has been battered by 10 percent unemployment and rampant home foreclosures.

The White House said more than 1 million U.S. jobs could be created over the next decade, according to industry projections, if the U.S. increases its share of the international travel market.

The tourism initiative is part of an executive order Obama signed. Its goal is to boost nonimmigrant visa processing capacity in China and Brazil by 40 percent this year; expand a Visa Waiver Program that allows participating nationals to travel to the U.S. for stays of 90 days or less without a visa; appoint a new group of chief executives to the U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Board; and direct an interagency task force to develop recommendations for a National Travel and Tourism Strategy, including promoting national parks and other sites.

The efforts to boost tourism were praised by travel and tourism groups, but one lawmaker said the decision to relax tourist visas could undermine national security. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said the administration was “pushing the envelope and using their authority beyond congressional intent,” noting that only two of the 19 hijackers in the 9/11 terrorist attacks were interviewed by consular offices. He said Congress moved to require visa applicants to be interviewed as a result.

The White House says the travel and tourism industry represented 2.7 percent of gross domestic product and 7.5 million jobs in 2010. But the U.S. share of spending by international travelers fell from 17 percent to 11 percent between 2000 and 2010, due to increased competition and changes in global development, as well as security measures imposed after Sept. 11, 2001, according to the White House.

The approach was welcomed by Brazilian tourists Lilian Lara and Lindbergh Souza, who shopped along the resort’s streets hours before the president’s speech. Souza said the visa process was expensive, at $500, and time-consuming for Brazilians who don’t live close to consuls in Rio de Janiero and Sao Paulo. “The whole process took me six months,” Souza said.

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Associated Press writer Mike Schneider contributed to this report.

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French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday shrugged off his country’s loss of its prized AAA debt rating, saying the downgrade by rating agency Standard & Poor’s would change nothing.

The comments, his first since S&P lowered its score on France and eight European other countries on Friday, followed a successful auction by France of euro8.6 billion ($10.9 billion) in short-term debt Monday. The yields, the interest rates charged by investors on the debt, fell _ a sign investors still see the country as a good bet.

France won a further small reprieve Monday, when the Moody’s agency confirmed that it would keep its top rating. However, the S&P decision could seriously impair Sarkozy’s bid for re-election this spring.

Sarkozy told reporters he was unconcerned with the opinions of ratings agencies.

“We have to react to this (the downgrade) with calm, by taking a step back,” he said at a news conference with the new Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. “At the core, my conviction is that it changes nothing.”

Sarkozy won support from Rajoy for a new European tax on financial transactions being pushed by France and Germany. Rajoy’s center-right government took power last month, and had not previously stated its position on the tax.

The French president said the ratings agencies’ decisions would not affect his policies, though he did acknowledge that France has work to do, saying that its deficits and spending were too high and that its growth was too slow.

He also noted that two of the three major agencies still rate France at triple-A, the highest rating. Fitch confirmed the rating last week. The S&P move was especially brutal for France, one of the world’s biggest economies and a financier of bailouts for smaller, poorer eurozone countries.

There are more government auctions in Europe this week, including longer-term offerings from France on Thursday, so the European debt crisis will never be too far from investors’ minds.

The news conference began combatively when Sarkozy refused to answer a question about whether France’s downgrade would affect its ability to lead Europe out of the crisis and if it had any connection with the meeting between the French, Italian and German leaders scheduled for next week being postponed.

Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have taken the lead in proposing solutions to the crisis and major decisions are often hashed out at their meetings ahead of European summits.

“You don’t have the latest information,” Sarkozy blithely told the reporter, apparently referring to Moody’s decision on Monday. The reporter rephrased the question two more times, but Sarkozy again refused to answer totally free credit score.

Later on, in response to other questions, he confirmed that the three-way summit would take place in February and spoke about the S&P downgrade.

Earlier, Sarkozy met with Spanish King Juan Carlos, who said he’s confident France and Spain would help Europe find a way out of the crisis.

The king said the two nations were “struggling together for the advance of a unified and prosperous Europe in solidarity that confronts the crisis with strength.”

Rajoy’s Socialist predecessor also supported the financial tax championed by Sarkozy, but was ousted from office by Spaniards angry about the country’s hurting economy and high unemployment.

The European Commission has estimated that the tax could raise as much as euro57 billion ($72.2 billion) a year, funds that could be used to help reduce the substantial budget deficits crippling European economies.

For the tax to be successful, however, it needs to be adopted by as many countries as possible. Sarkozy has said it might be enough to enact it among the 17-nation euro countries. Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti prefers applying it across the full 27-nation European Union, but that would be more difficult because of U.K. opposition.

Part of the reason for the tax would be to raise funds at a time when governments are struggling with high debts.

Moody’s cited France’s economic strength as a reason for affirming its top rating but said bleak growth prospects in France and the region present “risks to the French government’s fiscal consolidation plans.”

“France, like other eurozone sovereigns, may face a number of challenges in the coming months. The need to provide additional support to other European sovereigns or to its own banking system cannot be excluded,” Moody’s warned.

Moody’s said Monday it “will update the market during the first quarter of 2012 as part of the initiative to revisit the overall architecture of our sovereign ratings in the EU.”

Sarkozy’s challengers for the presidency have seized on the S&P downgrade as evidence that his policies are wrong-headed and ineffective.

It will be a bruising election battle for Sarkozy, a dynamic leader who has a strong international profile but is widely disliked at home. Leftists say he has coddled the rich, while many of those who supported him in his 2007 campaign say he hasn’t fulfilled his promises.

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Dropped calls and spotty service, particularly for iPhone owners, made AT&T the most hated wireless carrier in America. Here’s the surprise twist: widespread, under-the-radar improvements to the company’s network have quietly helped AT&T move past its infamous struggles.

The nation’s second-largest wireless carrier says it spent roughly $20 billion last year making 48,000 network enhancements across the country. That spending spree bought a 25% improvement in dropped-call performance on AT&T’s 3G network, plus added capacity and faster speeds.

In the process, the company turned on two new networks. Though both were confusingly labeled "4G," they each offer significant improvements over AT&T’s (, Fortune 500) existing 3G network: one new network has speeds of up to four times faster than 3G, and the other brings a ten-fold improvement in speed.

Yet consumers have been slow to change their opinion of AT&T.

"Satisfaction with our network performance has gone into a neutral state," said John Stankey, CEO of AT&T Wireless, at a telecommunications conference held in San Francisco by Citigroup (, Fortune 500) last week. "Our goal is to go from neutral to positive. We’ve made a lot of progress, but I don’t want to suggest we’re done."

A recent survey conducted by Consumer Reports ranked AT&T the worst carrier in America in terms of customer satisfaction. AT&T received the lowest possible rating on value and voice quality, and the second-lowest possible rating on data service.

That’s not particularly surprising. AT&T’s network woes have been very high-profile thanks to its four-year iPhone exclusivity deal with Apple (, Fortune 500). The wireless giant’s struggles were blasted and mocked everywhere from the mainstream news media to late-night comedy shows.

AT&T’s reputation wasn’t helped by dismal satisfaction with the company’s customer service, according to the Consumer Reports survey. AT&T also took a PR hit during its wildly unpopular T-Mobile takeover attempt.

Still, the mediocre perception of AT&T’s network quality lags behind the much-improved reality, according to wireless industry experts.

Frost & Sullivan, an influential telecommunications industry analysis firm, awarded AT&T its 2011 strategy award for the North American mobile network market, praising the company for its dual-network improvement strategy.

AT&T is gradually rolling out its ultra-fast 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) network, which will be the mobile network standard of the future guaranteed fast personal loans. AT&T’s LTE network now covers 74 million Americans, which is about a quarter of the company’s 3G network coverage.

At the same time, AT&T is upgrading its 3G network — which operates on the older High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) standard — to what it calls "4G" HSPA+. The upgraded network is now available to more than 285 million Americans, AT&T Wireless CEO Stankey said last week.

Archrival Verizon (, Fortune 500), by contrast, quickly rolled out its LTE network to cover 200 million Americans by the end of last year. But Verizon’s 3G network is based on the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) standard, which is essentially maxed out in terms of speed. Sprint’s (, Fortune 500) 3G CDMA network also can’t be upgraded significantly.

That’s potentially a huge advantage for AT&T, since it will take several years for LTE networks to reach the vast majority of Americans the way that 3G networks do today.

"As 4G LTE networks are rolled out nationwide, AT&T’s wireless network strategy will undoubtedly benefit its customers, who will have access to faster speeds, even when outside an LTE coverage area," said Peter Finalle, analyst at Frost & Sullivan.

What’s more, Verizon’s recent 4G struggles give AT&T an opportunity to flaunt its own rival strategy.

Though Verizon has been praised for rolling out its LTE network before any other wireless company even got started, its deployment speed was more out of necessity. It lacked the 3G upgrade option that AT&T has. Verizon is paying for that strategy now, suffering outage after outage: Verizon’s 4G network totaled five nationwide outages in 2011 and four in December alone.

Will customers notice? They haven’t yet. The alphabet soup — 4G, LTE, HSPA and so on — is confusing to most.

"AT&T advertises HSPA+ as ‘4G,’ so the average consumer will likely not think of the carrier as not being current with latest technology," said Ari Zoldan, CEO of Quantum Networks, a next-generation network supplier. "Having HSPA+ in areas outside of LTE markets is very smart and serves a niche for the carrier, and it’s still to be determined whether customers will put enough value on ‘true’ 4G."

AT&T’s network is getting better, and it’s better positioned for the long haul than any of its rivals. Now it just has to wait for perception to catch up to that reality. 

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Commodities may rebound from their first retreat in three years as developing economies shore up global growth, driving demand higher at a time when raw-material producers are already struggling to keep up.

Precious metals will advance 27 percent or more, industrial metals at least 17 percent and grains 5 percent, according to the median estimates in a Bloomberg survey of 143 analysts, traders and investors. Nine of the 15 commodities covered by a similar survey a year earlier reached their predicted highs in 2011, with another five no more than 4 percent away.

The Standard & Poor

Stocks rose early Friday as spending cuts by Italy lifted traders’ hopes about Europe’s progress toward taming its debt crisis. A flat reading on U.S. inflation sent bond yields lower.

World markets rose Friday after Italy’s lower house of parliament approved an austerity package in hopes of lowering the country’s escalating borrowing costs.

The Dow Jones industrial average is up 58 points, or 0.5 percent, at 11,926 in the first half-hour of trading. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index is up 8, or 0.7 percent, at 1,224. The Nasdaq composite index is up 22, or 0.9 percent, at 2,563.

The gains were broad. Nine of the 10 industry groups in the S&P 500 index rose, led by industrial and technology companies. Telecommunications was the only sector to fall, by 0.3 percent.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note plunged to 1.88 percent from 1.93 percent earlier Friday after the government said consumer prices were unchanged last month, suggesting that inflation remains low. Low inflation makes bonds more attractive because it doesn’t diminish the buying power of the fixed return a bond provides over time.

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. plunged 12 percent after the company said late Thursday that new phones seen as critical to the company’s future will be delayed until late next year. The company is also taking a big loss on unsold tablet computers and predicted that its BlackBerry sales will fall sharply during the holiday period.

If stocks hold their gains, it will be only be the second up day this week. Indexes rose Thursday after positive economic news brought relief to choppy markets. The Dow rose 45 points after separate reports showed sharply fewer layoffs and better business conditions for factories on the Eastern seaboard.

World markets followed U cash advance.S. markets higher Friday as the European debt crisis failed to produce any worrying headlines. Bad news out of Europe has overshadowed positive economic news for months.

Italy’s austerity measures are seen as a crucial step toward soothing fears about Europe. The nations’ borrowing costs have risen in recent weeks to levels at which other nations, such as Greece, were forced to take bailouts.

The cuts are aimed at persuading bond traders that Italy can emerge from the widening crisis without defaulting on its debts. The nation still sits on a $2.5 trillion powder keg of debt that could cause a global economic recession if it defaults.

Stocks mostly rose in Europe following gains in Asia. Britain’s FTSE added 0.5 percent and Italy’s benchmark index rose 0.4 percent.

Online game developer Zynga Inc. begins trading later Friday on the Nasdaq. The San Francisco company, which specializes in Facebook games, priced its initial public offering late Thursday at $10 per share, raising $1 billion. It’s the largest Internet IPO since Google Inc. went public in 2004.

Among companies making big moves:

_ New York-area cable TV provider Cablevision Systems Corp. plunged 14 percent, the most in the S&P 500, following the sudden departure of its chief operating officer, Tom Rutledge.

_ Adobe Systems Inc. jumped 8.4 percent, the most in the S&P 500, after the software maker reported earnings and revenues that were far ahead of what analysts were expecting. Analyst Walter Pritchard at Citigroup said the quarter was a “blow-out when most expected weakness.”

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The euro slid below $1.30 on Wednesday for the first time since the early days of 2011 and Italian borrowing rates rose ominously, as the optimism from a dramatic European summit last week fades with the realization that the continent’s underlying debt problems remain unsolved.

Italy’s last bond auction of the year Wednesday showed the heavily indebted country facing even higher rates to get investors to lend it their cash. The eurozone’s third-largest economy paid 6.47 percent interest to borrow euro3 billion ($3.95 billion) for five years at a bond auction, up from 6.30 percent just a month ago.

Higher rates are a sign that last week’s agreement to tighten the rules against eurozone governments piling up debt has failed to restore confidence.

That’s evident in the performance of the euro too, which has suffered an acute bout of selling since Friday’s deal. On Wednesday, it traded below $1.30 for the first time since January 12, hitting a low of $1.2968.

As experts from the different capitals start the laborious work of putting the deal into practice through a new treaty, the questions continued about the financial steadiness of governments, banks and the eurozone economy, which is showing signs of sinking back into recession. Industrial production fell a further 0.1 percent in October, yet another sign of weakness many think will lead to a recession that will only make repaying debt harder.

“The process of negotiating the final deal to suit all will only add to doubts about its relevance in the long run _ meanwhile the immediate crisis continues,” said Elisabeth Afseth, an analyst at Evolution Securities.

While praised as a step toward preventing another buildup of debt in coming years, last week’s deal does not provide a convincing resolution to the crisis. It does not reduce current debt levels and offered little reassurance that eurozone governments will be able to find the money they need to roll over those debts in the coming few months.

It did not convince markets there is a financial backstop big and flexible enough to support Italy and Spain, the latest focus of the two-year old debt crisis that began in October 2009 when Greece admitted its finances were much worse than it had previously said.

Greece, Ireland and Portugal have all needed bailouts as fear of default spread from country to country and drove up their borrowing rates, eventually cutting them off from bond markets.

The summit did come up with a commitment from EU governments to loan up to euro200 ($264 billion) to the International Monetary Fund, which in turn could help out the eurozone.

Leaders also agreed to activate a new euro500 billion ($659 billion) euro backstop fund, the European Stability Mechanism, a year ahead of time in July. But since the existing rescue funds, which have the same financing caps, would expire once the ESM comes into force, the overall amount of money available from the eurozone to help out struggling governments will remain the same payday loans no teletrack.

The fund is still considered too small to convincingly backstop Italy, which has euro1.9 trillion ($2.5 trillion) in outstanding debt. That leaves many economists saying that eventually the European Central Bank will have to step up its so-far limited purchases of government debt.

They say only a clear statement by the ECB that it will buy as much debt as needed to keep borrowing costs down can convince markets. That is because the ECB has the power to buy bonds with newly-created money.

The bank however has held off, with ECB head Mario Draghi saying governments must cut deficits and take steps to improve growth themselves to win back bond market confidence _ and not rely on central bank bailouts.

The current limited bond buys have eased some of the pressure on Italy, but the bank says they are only intended to steer short term interest rates, which is its main job.

Draghi must also contend with fierce opposition to printing money to fund large-scale bond purchase from Germany’s Bundesbank central bank, which is part of the ECB.

Bundesbank head Jens Weidmann is the leading critic of the idea, saying that creating new money would violate the bank’s legal mandate, since the EU treaty requires it to fight inflation as its first priority.

The debt treaty does provide some assurance governments are working together to address the euro’s flaws in the long-term. But it will not be signed until March at the earliest, and a text must first win approval from the 17 eurozone governments and nine others that the EU hopes will sign. Britain has said it will not.

The first draft of the new treaty is expected to be circulated among European capitals sometime next week, EU officials say, but governments will likely try to keep its content confidential until some of the more tricky issues have been resolved.

The biggest among these is how the new accord will interact with the existing Treaty of the European Union and whether it can rely on EU institutions, such as the European Commission and the European Court of Justice, to enforce the new budget rules.

Governments and national parliaments are also likely to watch closely how much sovereignty they are transferring to Brussels or their fellow euro members and whether their own constitutions will be affected.

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Gabriele Steinhauser is Brussels contributed to this report.

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Asian stock markets were mostly lower Friday as the results of a meeting among leaders of Europe’s biggest economies disappointed investors and Portugal’s credit rating was lowered to junk.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index fell marginally to 8,161.87 while South Korea’s Kospi lost 0.9 percent at 1,779.93. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 0.8 percent to 17,790.54 and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 shed 1.4 percent at 3,989.

Investment sentiment continued to wane after a meeting Thursday in Strasbourg, France of the leaders of the three biggest euro economies: Italian Premier Mario Monti, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The three leaders pledged to push for changes to European Union treaties to bring the fiscal policies of countries using the euro common currency more in line with each other.

Many investors were hoping Merkel might drop her steadfast opposition to a greater role for the European Central Bank or the creation of a eurobond that would pool the debts of all countries in the currency union. Some experts believe the ECB is the only institution capable of getting Europe past its debt crisis.

Piled onto the disappointment from the Strasbourg summit was a debt demotion for Portugal cash advance flexible payments.

Fitch Ratings, citing Portugal’s large fiscal imbalances, its high indebtedness across all sectors and an adverse macroeconomic outlook, reduced the country’s credit rating to BB+. That means Portugal is considered non-investment grade by Fitch, making it even more difficult for the struggling country to return to the bond markets.

In the U.S., markets were closed for the Thanksgiving on Thursday. A crucial test comes on so-called Black Friday _ the day that kicks off the holiday shopping season.

How well retailers do during the biggest shopping season of the year will have consequences for the still-fragile U.S. economic recovery.

The spending of consumers, which accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity, can impact stores’ expansion plans and inventory decisions into the new year. That trickles through the rest of the economy, from suppliers to jobs.

The November-December period accounts for 25-40 percent of annual sales. About a quarter of jobs in the U.S. are directly or indirectly supported by the retail industry.

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Stock futures are rising, signaling another day of gains on Wall Street. Investors will assess fresh U.S. economic data and closely watch developments in Europe.

The government is expected to report Wednesday that factory orders for long-lasting manufactured goods fell in August after rising in July. Manufacturing has been one of the strongest parts of the economy since the recession ended.

Investors also remain focused on Europe. Stocks have soared this week on hopes that the region is moving closer to resolving its debt crisis.

About 90 minutes before the opening, Dow Jones industrial average futures are up 64 points, or 0.6 percent, at 11,184. Standard & Poor’s 500 futures are up 7, or 0.6 percent, at 1,176. Nasdaq 100 futures are up 11, or 0.5 percent, at 2,265.

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Stock futures are falling, a day after major indexes notched only their second day of gains this month.

Major European markets are trading mixed Tuesday after Italy’s finance minister confirmed that officials had met with China’s sovereign wealth fund about buying Italian bonds. Worries that Italy or Spain would have trouble paying down debts have been hanging over markets worldwide.

Traders said a report that China may buy Italian government bonds played a role in a Monday afternoon rally that pushed stocks higher for the second day this month.

Ninety minutes ahead of the opening bell, Dow Jones industrial average futures are down 51 points, or 0.5 percent, to 10,938. S&P 500 index futures are down 6 to 1,150. Nasdaq 100 futures are down 7, or 0.4 percent, to 2,182.

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