Stress-related employee turnover, absenteeism and low morale all affect a company’s bottom line. Based on information from the American Institute of Stress and the American Psychological Association, job stress and related problems cost companies an estimated $200 billion or more a year.

Massage has been known to reduce blood pressure, relieve arthritis pain, improve joint and muscle aches, especially in painful areas of the neck and back, and even increase immunity to colds and flu. But what is not known is that massage services in the workplace can do wonders not only for a company’s morale but also for their profits.

Massage in general decreases job stress and fatigue while increasing alertness, clear thinking and productivity in employees. A recent study in the American Psychologist gave one group of workers a 15 minute rest while giving another group of workers a 15 minute

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Citigroup Inc. (C) is planning a strategic shift in its investment advisory business by bringing qualified advisors from Citibank branches to provide fee-only investment advisory services instead of commission-based transactions.  The new strategy will give clients who want wealth management services through Citibank branches the option of working with Citi's own financial advisers, or of choosing external independent advisers with whom Citi will begin to form relationships, and who will pay Citi a referral fee.  Citigroup has a relatively small branch network and is starting off with a small brokerage. Citigroup is starting the business with 600 advisers who sit in 1,000 Citibank branches in the United States . Citi plans to eliminate all commission-based compensation by 2011.  The changes are expected to be implemented next year. Apart from providing clients with more transparency, a smaller risk of conflicts of interest and wider geographical footprint, ...

Citigroup, Inc. (C) has sold off a part of its Diners Club credit card processing business to Elavon, a subsidiary of US Bancorp (USB), as it continues to rid itself of unwanted assets. Elavon acquired Citibank's Diners Club Card merchant-location portfolio in Western Europe, which represents more than 75,000 merchants. Small and mid-size businesses that accept Diners Club cards in the region will now process their transactions through Elavon. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Separately, Elavon has also signed an agreement with Diners Club International, a unit of Discover Financial Services (DFS). The agreement will enable Elavon to provide processing, funding and customer support services for merchants that accept Diners Club International cards in the U.K., Ireland, France, Switzerland and Germany. Citigroup, once the largest U.S. bank by assets, fell behind last year after a series of acquisitions by rivals. The ...

On Tuesday, two units of Citigroup Inc. (C) -- Citibank NA and Citigroup Funding Inc. -- jointly sold $5.0 billion of debt in three parts. The notes are guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) under the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program (TLGP). Citibank NA plans to issue $1 billion worth of 2-year floating-rate notes issue with an expected coupon rate of about 3 basis points (bps) below the 3-month London Inter-bank Offered Rate (LIBOR), and a $1.5 billion worth of 2-year fixed-rate notes expected to yield about 32.7 bps over U.S. Treasuries. Citigroup Funding is planning to sell a 3-year fixed-rate note expected to yield about 49.4 bps over U.S. Treasuries. Citigroup was the sole book-running manager for the sale. FDIC-backed debt is cheaper to issue than normal debt because investors are willing to accept a lower interest rate associated with lower risk ...

Housing Numbers: The Truth Behind It All

Ryan Cole, The Investment U Research Team

Continuing our series looking at the truth behind current economic data, today we turn to housing numbers.

Housing has been in the news lately, with a few “green shoots” of news. Most recently, home prices ticked upward last month, even though they’re down compared with a year ago. Many analysts are reading this as a sign that the worst is behind us, and we could be in for a quick recovery.

Don’t be so sure.

We Won’t Foreclose… For Now

First, there’s one important fact that most analysts have forgotten, or at least aren’t revealing.

That is, the six largest lenders – businesses like Citibank, Bank of America, etc – and Fannie and Freddie got together earlier this year and declared a three-month moratorium on foreclosures.

They all agreed,

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According to The New York Times, the Home Affordable Mortgage Program (HAMP) is pretty much a failure. HAMP is the Treasury plan to get banks to modify mortgages of people who cannot afford their current mortgages and are in danger of being foreclosed upon. So far only 15% of those eligible have been offered help and only 9% have actually been helped. The biggest mortgage servicers are some of the banks that were major TARP recipients. At Bank of America (BAC) only 4% of eligible mortgages have been modified and at Wells Fargo (WFC) only 6% have been. Citibank (C) and J.P. Morgan (JPM) have done a somewhat better job at 15% and 20%, respectively. The apparent reason for the very slow progress is that the program was all carrot and no stick. The program offered banks $1000 for each mortgage they ...

SK Telecom (SKM) reported its second quarter earnings today, with net income falling short of consensus estimates while sales exceeded the average forecast. South Korea’s leading wireless operator reported revenue of KRW 3.07 trillion (US$2.39 billion) and net income of KRW 311.6 billion (US$243 million), both above our expectations.      Reported revenue grew 4.7% year over year and 6.7% sequentially, boosted by healthy growth in wireless Internet revenue and consistent increase in subscriber count. Operating income increased 3.8% year over year to KRW 553.4 billion (US$432 million). Net income increased 4.6% year over year while declining 1.6% from the previous quarter. Profitability was affected by higher marketing expenses (up 8.3% year over year and 44% sequentially) fueled by increased subscriber acquisition cost. The company reported wireless Internet revenues of KRW 671.2 billion (US$524 million), up 11.8% over the prior-year quarter, representing the highest level ...

U.S. stocks fell today, Friday, on worry over the quality of corporate profits after General Electric Co. missed quarterly estimates, discouraging investors after a four-day run-up in Wall Street.

GE’s profit fell by almost half as the slump that has gripped its finance and media businesses took hold of its heavy industrial units, and shares of the conglomerate tumbled 6 percent to $11.66.

Shares of Google fell nearly 3 percent to $430 after news that the weak economy and a slump in advertising spending took a toll on revenue growth at the Internet giant. Its results, posted late on Thursday, beat Wall Street expectations, however.

With companies such as Intel Corp and Goldman Sachs Group posting strong quarterly results earlier in the week, investors had been eager to see some consistency from other bellwether names.

Bank of America posted lower earnings and Citibank relied on a gain off its Smith Barney deal with Morgan Stanley to turn a profit.

“So far earnings

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Author: BusinessTalkAdded: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:50:20 -0800Duration: 0

http://SafeAsGold.com Today's Talking Points: - The Recession is driving the price of gold - Citibank and Merrill Lynch are currently buying large amounts of gold - Gold minted before 1933 is not confiscatable and has a higher intrinsic value - There likely will be more shortages of gold from the U.S. Mint - Warren Buffet bought the two largest gold manufacturing companies in the U.S. Listeners are always welcome to receive a free gold investment guide by going to http://www.safeasgold.com/goldinvestmentguide.html or call 1(800)510-9594. Today's Talking Points: - The Recession is driving the price of gold - Citibank and Merrill Lynch are currently buying large amounts of gold - Gold minted before 1933 is not confiscatable and has a higher intrinsic value - There likely will be more shortages of gold from the U.S. Mint - Warren Buffet bought the two

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Delinquencies on home equity lines of credit rose to 3.52% in the first quarter from 3.03% in the fourth quarter according to a report issued this week by the American Bankers Association. Also, delinquent credit card accounts were 6.60% of overall card balances, up from 5.52% in the fourth quarter. Both measures are records. Banks are responding by making fewer loans and issuing fewer credit cards. In the first four months of 2009, banks issued 9.8 million new cards, a drop of 38% from the year before. The key reason behind this is rising unemployment, which has gotten much worse in the second quarter than the first, so look for the numbers to continue to rise. Home equity loans are particularly problematic since almost all those loans have mortgages associated with them that are senior to the home equity lines. This means that when they go bad, ...