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Dish founder Charlie Ergen stepping back in as CEO

Written By Unknown on Selasa, 24 Februari 2015 | 00.24

Charlie Ergen, the brash entrepreneurial founder of Dish Network, will take over as CEO of the satcaster following the retirement of president and CEO Joe Clayton in March.

Dish announced Monday that Clayton, who has been its chief exec since June 2011, will retire from his position effective March 31, 2015, and will also depart Dish's board.

"Over the last four years, Joe's leadership has been instrumental to Dish as we have worked to engineer a fundamental transformation of our business," Ergen said in a statement. "He has set the stage for what will become a new company, and with that he has prepared a new class of management to address the adventures coming our way."

Also Monday, Dish announced financial results for the fourth quarter of 2014. For the full-year 2014, the satcaster reported total revenue of $14.6 billion, up 5.3% from the year earlier, while net income rose 17% to $945 million.

In Q4 2014, Dish lost a 63,000 net video subscribers to end the year with 13.978 million U.S. TV subs. Its total subscriber base dropped by 79,000 for the full year. In the fourth quarter, Dish's contract fight with Turner Broadcasting resulted in subs losing CNN and seven other networks for about a month.

Following Clayton's departure, Ergen's direct reports will include: executive VP and COO Bernie Han; EVP and general counsel Stanton Dodge; EVP and chief HR office Mike McClaskey; EVP/head of corporate development Tom Cullen; and Roger Lynch, CEO of Dish's recently formed Sling TV over-the-top division.

© 2015 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC


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Your retirement savings: Obama proposal

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is proposing tougher restrictions on brokers who manage Americans' retirement accounts, reigniting a confrontation with the financial services industry over rules affecting trillions of dollars in 401k and other savings accounts.

The change would put brokers — who sell stocks, bonds, annuities and other investments — under the stricter requirements for registered financial advisers when they handle clients' retirement accounts.

In a long-anticipated move, the Labor Department is making the proposal Monday to the White House Budget Office. After an internal review, it likely will be put out for public comment for several months. Obama was scheduled to address the AARP later Monday to draw attention to the plan.

The rule has been the subject of intense behind-the-scenes lobbying, pitting major Wall Street firms and financial industry groups against a coalition of labor, consumer groups and retiree advocates such as the AARP.

The administration first proposed a regulation in 2010, but pulled it back following an industry outcry that the proposal would hurt rather than help investors by limiting choices.

To buttress the new effort, the White House on Monday released a 30-page report from its Council of Economic Advisers noting that an estimated $1.7 trillion of individual retirement account assets are invested in products that pay fees or commissions that pose conflicts of interest.

"When you go to a doctor or a lawyer, you expect the advice you get to be in your best interests. But the same doesn't always hold true in the world of retirement savings," Labor Secretary Tom Perez said in a conference call with reporters. "Many financial advisers have taken an oath to serve your best interests, but there are other financial advisers and brokers who provide critical financial advice every day and are not obligated to look out for your best interests."

Americans increasingly are seeking financial advice to help them navigate an array of options for retirement, college savings and more. Many people provide investment advice, but not all of them are required to disclose potential conflicts of interest.

Under current rules, brokers are required to recommend only "suitable" investments based on the client's finances, age and how much risk is appropriate for him or her. The rules would make brokers handling retirement accounts obligated to put their clients' interests first.

The chairman of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, Jason Furman, pointed to academic studies that conclude investors who receive investment recommendations potentially influenced by conflicts of interest sustain a 1 percentage point lower return on their retirement savings, totaling losses of $17 billion every year to middle-class families.

Industry officials dispute those studies and say the industry is well governed by financial regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission. They say the Department of Labor is ill suited to write rules best left to agencies more familiar with the financial industry.

"You have the Department of Labor, which really doesn't know this area," said Ira Hammerman, general counsel for the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, the brokerage industry's big lobbying group. "Our concern is they are not going to get it right, just like they did not get it right in 2010."

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the proposed protections are overdue, noting that much of the current regulatory regime was set before 401ks and IRAs gained prominence as retirement savings vehicles. He predicted a difficult path to a final rule, however, given the financial industry's opposition.

Meanwhile, the SEC is studying the broader investment advice industry to determine whether it should come under further regulations. Critics of the Labor Department effort say the Obama administration should leave the regulations to the SEC or it will risk limiting the advice available to investors with relatively small retirement savings.

"Investors benefit from choice; choice of products, and choice in advice providers," SEC Commissioner Daniel Gallagher, a critic of the Labor Department proposal, said in a speech Friday. "This is something the nanny state has a hard time comprehending."

Perez and Jeff Zients, director of the White House National Economic Council, said administration officials have been consulting with SEC Chairman Mary Jo White, financial industry officials and consumer groups.

Zients said the proposed rule would be "very different" from the restrictions the administration proposed in 2010.

"Much has been learned since then," he said.

___

Associated Press writer Marcy Gordon contributed to this report.


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2 UK politicians caught in lobbying sting deny wrongdoing

LONDON — Two former senior British ministers denied wrongdoing Monday after being caught in a hidden-camera sting appearing to offer access to politicians and diplomats in return for cash.

Prime Minister David Cameron said the allegations against Jack Straw and Malcolm Rifkind were "very serious matters" that should be investigated by Parliament.

Straw, foreign secretary under Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Conservative former foreign secretary Rifkind were secretly filmed by reporters posing as representatives of a fictional Hong Kong-based communications agency allegedly seeking top U.K. politicians to join the firm's advisory board.

Rifkind was recorded as saying he could arrange "useful access" to ambassadors, while Straw spoke of using "charm and menace" to change politicians' minds.

As foreign secretary, Straw strongly backed the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, while Rifkind played a role in efforts to bring peace to the Balkans.

The sting by Channel 4's "Dispatches" program and the Daily Telegraph newspaper reopened a debate about political lobbying. Currently, legislators can have outside business interests as long as they declare them.

Labour Party leader Ed Miliband has called for lawmakers to be banned from serving as consultants or company directors.

Rifkind and Straw, who are still lawmakers, have referred themselves to parliament's standards watchdog. Both were suspended from their party caucuses.

Rifkind, who chairs the parliamentary committee that oversees the intelligence services, said allegations of wrongdoing were "unfounded" and defended lawmakers' right to make money.

"If you are trying to attract people of a business or a professional background to serve in the House of Commons ... it is quite unrealistic to believe they will go through their parliamentary career being able to simply accept a salary of 60,000 pounds ($92,000)," he told the BBC.

Legislators earn a basic salary of 67,000 pounds ($103,000).

Straw said his conversation related to activities he might undertake once he retires from Parliament in May. He said he had complied with the parliamentary ethics code and he had checked out the bogus firm before the meeting.

"My checks were not sufficient to overcome the skillful deception of the undercover reporters," he said.


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Massachusetts gas prices up 4 cents

BOSTON — The cost of gasoline in Massachusetts has crept up another 4 cents per gallon in the past week.

AAA Northeast reports Monday that self-serve, regular is now selling for $2.25 per gallon.

That's 17 cents higher than a month ago but still $1.21 per gallon lower than at the same time last year. The Massachusetts price is also a nickel below the national average.

AAA found self-serve, regular selling for as low as $1.90 and as high as $2.35 per gallon.


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Oscars: Social buzz was poor predictor of winners compared with gambling sites

It's the difference between just mouthing off and putting your money where your mouth is.

Leading up to Sunday night's 87th Annual Academy Awards, Facebook and Twitter -- along with third-party social analysis researchers Adobe, Hootsuite and Way to Blue -- issued predictions of Oscar winners based on digital buzz.

The results? Out of their 29 predictions for the six major categories (Twitter didn't have a pick for best director), the forecasts got only 13 correct.

By contrast, betting sites, based on their pre-Oscars odds, were far more reliable. PredictWise, which aggregates info from U.K.-based Betfair, Hollywood Stock Exchange and other "prediction markets," correctly predicted 20 of 24 total Oscars winners, including for the major categories. For example, PredictWise as of Sunday at 1 p.m. ET gave "Birdman" a certainty rating of winning best picture of 67% and assigned "Birdman" helmer Alejandro G. Inarritu a 57% edge over "Boyhood's" Richard Linklater at 43% for best director.

Among the social researchers, only Adobe and Way to Blue predicted "Birdman" would win best picture, while none had forecast Inarritu taking home the best director statue for the film. The only category they all got right was Julianne Moore's best actress win for "Still Alice" -- evidently the safest bet of the night.

Why does this matter? After all, Facebook, Twitter and the others offered disclaimers of one kind or another noting that they couldn't really predict the outcomes with certainty.

The Oscars exercise underscores an important point: The wisdom of crowds is only as good as the crowd you're listening to. It's worth noting that Way to Blue, a British PR and consulting firm, got five out of six right; it used a relatively small selection of comments (less than 100,000) culled from Twitter, blog and news sites. Some social-media hypesters would have you believe that Internet chatter, analyzed in aggregate, can produce all kinds of interesting and actionable insights for content owners and marketers alike. But there's an old computer-science maxim that applies here: garbage in, garbage out.

Here's what social companies and third-party analytics firms had predicted prior to Sunday's Oscars, with the correct picks designated in bold.

Facebook
Best Picture - "American Sniper"
Best Actor - Bradley Cooper
Best Actress - Julianne Moore
Best Supporting Actor - J.K. Simmons
Best Supporting Actress - Meryl Streep
Best Director - Richard Linklater

Twitter
Best Picture - "Selma"
Best Actor Benedict Cumberbatch
Best Actress - Julianne Moore
Best Supporting Actor - Mark Ruffalo
Best Supporting Actress - Meryl Streep
Best Director - N.A.

Adobe*
Best Picture - "Birdman"
Best Actor - Bradley Cooper
Best Actress - Julianne Moore
Best Supporting Actor - J.K. Simmons
Best Supporting Actress - Meryl Streep
Best Director - Wes Anderson

Hootsuite**
Best Picture - "The Theory of Everything"
Best Actor - Eddie Redmayne
Best Actress - Julianne Moore
Best Supporting Actor - Mark Ruffalo
Best Supporting Actress - Laura Dern
Best Director - Wes Anderson

Way to Blue***
Best Picture - "Birdman"
Best Actor - Eddie Redmayne
Best Actress - Julianne Moore
Best Supporting Actor - J.K. Simmons
Best Supporting Actress - Patricia Arquette
Best Director Richard Linklater

* Based on 3 million social mentions across Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and others from Jan. 15-Feb. 16.
** Based on data from more than 20 social-media platforms including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Google+.
*** Based on data from Toronto-based Sysomos for comments Twitter, news, blogs and forums from Feb. 12-18.

© 2015 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC


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Oscar scorecard by movie and studio

It was a grand night for Fox Searchlight, which scored the most wins at the 87th Academy Awards with its top two films: "Birdman" and "The Grand Budapest Hotel." The two films were awarded 4 statues each, after also tying in nominations (9 each).

"Birdman" took home the top prize for Best Picture, as well as Best Director for Alejandro Inarritu. The Michael Keaton-starrer also won for Cinematography and Original Screenplay.

"The Grand Budapest Hotel" shined in below-the-line categories, winning for Makeup and Hairstyling, Production Design and Costume Design. Alexandre Desplat, a double nominee, won the Oscar for Best Original Score.

Sony Pictures Classics also saw a successful evening, with "Whiplash" taking home 3 awards for J.K. Simmons, Editing and Sound Mixing.

See the film scorecard below:

"Birdman": 4
"The Grand Budapest Hotel": 4
"Whiplash": 3
"The Theory of Everything": 1
"Still Alice": 1
"Boyhood": 1
"The Imitation Game": 1
"Selma": 1
"American Sniper":
"Interstellar": 1
"Big Hero 6": 1
"CitizenFour": 1
"Ida": 1
"Feast": 1
"The Phone Call": 1
"Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1": 1

See the full studio scorecard below:

Fox Searchlight: 8
Sony Pictures Classics: 3
Walt Disney: 2
The Weinstein Company: 2
Paramount:2
Focus Features: 1
Warner Bros.: 1
IFC Films:1
Music Box Films: 1

© 2015 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC


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Justices reject New Orleans tour guides' free speech appeal

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has rejected a free-speech appeal from guides in New Orleans who object to having to be licensed to lead tours.

The justices did not comment Monday in leaving in place lower court rulings that said the licensing requirements do not violate the First Amendment.

Opponents of the requirements had hoped that the New Orleans case might attract the Supreme Court's interest because a District of Columbia court has held that similar rules in the nation's capital were unfounded.

The case is Kagan v. New Orleans, 14-585.


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US home sales plunge 4.9 percent in January

WASHINGTON — U.S. home sales struck a snow drift in January, plunging to the slowest pace in nine months.

The National Association of Realtors said Monday that sales of existing homes tumbled 4.9 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.82 million. That brings sales down to their lowest level since April 2014.

Relatively low mortgage rates and steady job growth have yet to spur more activity from buyers and sellers, raising the possibility of either a spring sales rush or a second straight year of numbness in the real estate market. Few properties are being listed for sale, would-be buyers are holding off on purchases and snowstorms are cutting into traffic at open houses.

Weak sales in 2014 had set up expectations of a strong rebound in 2015, yet signs of that resurgence have yet to appear. The addition of roughly 1 million new jobs over the past three months has failed to make much of a dent in home-buying.

Homes did sell at a rate 3.2 percent faster than January 2014, but that increase largely reflects the brutal winter weather at the beginning of last year that depressed home-buying and caused the entire U.S. economy to briefly shrink. The noticeably more robust U.S. economy coming into 2015 was supposed to buoy sales, but the market has barely stirred so far.

"The weather hit is nothing like the scale of the damage seen last winter, but we would not now be surprised to see a further decline in activity in February," said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. "The underlying trend in sales is more or less flat."

Few properties are coming onto the market. Just 4.7 months of supply were listed for sale at the end of December, compared with an average of 5.2 months during 2014, according to the Realtors.

Nor have builders ramped up construction. Housing starts slid 2 percent in January, according to a report from the Commerce Department last week.

The limited supply of homes can lift prices to higher levels, which may then lead would-be buyers to wait until they have more choices. Weekly mortgage applications fell 13.2 percent, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported last Wednesday.

Affordability has become a problem as prices have climbed at a faster clip than incomes. The national median home price rose 6.2 percent over the past 12 months to $199,600. That has priced out many first-time buyers, who represented just 28 percent of sales compared to their historic share of 40 percent.

Mother Nature is also beginning to take its toll. Nasty snowstorms in the Midwest and Northeast likely kept would-be buyers away, further crimping sales heading into March and beginning of the spring buying season.

Buyer traffic for newly built homes slowed in February, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo sentiment index.

The Realtors said previously in a separate report that the number of signed contracts in December fell 3.7 percent, suggesting that sales will remain under pressure in the coming months.

Sales slid in all four major geographical regions last month: dropping 6 percent in the Northeast, 2.7 percent in the Midwest, 4.6 percent in the South and 7.1 percent in the West.

Possibly hurting sales further, mortgage rates have crept upward for the past two weeks, ending what has previously been a yearlong slide.

Average 30-year fixed rates were 3.76 percent last week, according to the mortgage giant Freddie Mac. The average has risen from 3.59 percent at the start of February.

The current levels remain below the 4.33 percent average from a year ago, but the previous lows might keep current homeowners from upgrading since it would mean abandoning their current mortgage for a loan with possibly a higher rate and larger monthly payments.


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US stocks edge lower, pulling Dow back from a record high

U.S. stocks edged lower in morning trading Monday as investors weighed the implications of a steep drop in U.S. home sales and the latest batch of corporate deal news. The market is coming off an all-time high reached last week.

KEEPING SCORE: The Dow Jones industrial average lost 43 points, or 0.2 percent, to 18,095 as of 11:10 a.m. Eastern. The Standard & Poor's 500 index lost three points, or 0.2 percent, to 2,106. The Nasdaq composite was down seven points, or 0.2 percent, to 4,948.

HOMES SALES PLUNGE: The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of previously occupied homes tumbled 4.9 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.82 million. That brings sales down to their lowest level since last April. Weak sales last year set up expectations of a strong rebound this year, yet signs of that resurgence have yet to appear. Homebuilder shares slumped on the news. Century Communities declined the most, shedding 50 cents, or 2.7 percent, to $17.88.

THE QUOTE: "The home numbers are a little disappointing," said Bob Doll, chief equity strategist at Nuveen Asset Management.

SECTOR WATCH: Seven of the 10 sectors in the S&P 500 fell, with telecommunications services stocks notching the biggest decline. Health care stocks led the gainers.

GETTING DRILLED: Several offshore oil drilling and services companies tumbled in early trading. Ensco shed 99 cents, or 3.3 percent, to $28.77. Denbury Resources lost 30 cents, or 3.4 percent, to $8.61. Nabors Industries shed 43 cents, or 3.2 percent, to $13.09. Transocean fell 48 cents, or 2.8 percent, to $16.54.

DRUGMAKERS COMBINE: Shares in Valeant Pharmaceuticals International surged a day after the Canadian drugmaker announced it has agreed to buy Salix Pharmaceuticals for about $10 billion in cash. Valeant rose $30.29, or 13.9 percent, to $247.70. Shares in Salix slipped $1.79, or 1.1 percent, to $156.06.

OVERSEAS MARKETS: In Europe, France's CAC 40 rose 0.4 percent and Germany's DAX gained 0.4 percent. Britain's FTSE 100 fell 0.3 percent. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 gained 0.7 percent and South Korea's Kospi rose 0.4 percent. Hong Kong's Hang Seng was little changed after trading reopened following Lunar New Year holidays.

GREECE'S DEAL: Greece and its European creditors reached an agreement that staved off the threat of bankruptcy and exit from the euro, though hurdles remain to cementing the short-term funding deal. The four-month extension averted bankruptcy and capital controls and ensures banks will have enough money to stock up their ATMs. But the Greek government must present economic reform measures by the end of Monday that are deemed acceptable by creditors and rooted in Greece's previously enacted bailout agreement, which is something the government had promised not to do.

ENERGY: Benchmark U.S. crude oil fell $1.14 to $49.66 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It fell $1.02 on Friday to $50.81.

BONDS: U.S. government bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.08 percent from 2.11 percent late Friday.

___

AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach in Tokyo contributed to this report.


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Target lowers free shipping minimum for online orders to $25

NEW YORK — Retailer Target has cut its minimum online purchase to qualify for free shipping to $25 from $50.

The free shipping is available to all online orders coming from the continental U.S. or from military postal facilities. The company says handling fees may still apply to some orders.

The company began offering free shipping for Target.com orders worth $50 or more in June, and it offered free shipping on all items over the holiday shopping season. Target also provides free shipping on most online purchases for shoppers who participate in its REDcard loyalty program.

Shares of the Minneapolis-based retailer fell 7 cents to $76.80 in morning trading. Target stock set an all-time high of $77.75 in January.


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