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Bank of England policy maker Martin Weale said Britain needs an increase in interest rates now to prevent higher prices becoming entrenched in the economy.

“The longer inflation stays above the target and the further it rises, the greater the risk that inflationary expectations will become built in,” Weale wrote in an article the Guardian published today. “These arguments make a powerful case for a modest rise in the bank rate” as “the costs of a small rise now would be lower than the eventual price of addressing higher ingrained inflation.”

Weale this month joined Andrew Sentance in voting for a quarter-point rate increase, after inflation accelerated to 3.7 percent in December, compared with the bank’s 2 percent target. The central bank’s Monetary Policy Committee also has to take into account signs the economic recovery is fading, after initial estimate from the statistics office showed the economy shrank 0.5 percent in the fourth quarter.

Recent gross-domestic-product figures show that the economy is “appreciably weaker than expected,” Weale said. The 0.5 percent contraction compared with economists forecast for 0.5 percent growth.

Inflation Pressures

Most of the recent increase in inflation has been due to the weakness of the pound, higher energy prices and an increase in the U.K.’s sales tax, Weale said. Still, there is a risk that some “one-off” pressures will persist, and that “continuing rapid economic development in China and elsewhere will lead to persistent upward pressure on commodity prices,” he said electronic check payday advance.

The pound was little changed against the dollar today and was trading at $1.5857 as of 9:06 a.m. in London. It weakened 0.1 percent against the euro to 85.92 pence.

While Weale and Sentance voted to increase the benchmark rate at the Jan. 13 meeting, Adam Posen kept up his call for more stimulus to aid growth. The remaining six members of the panel, including Governor Mervyn King, voted to leave the rate on hold and keep its bond-purchase program at 200 billion pounds. ($317 billion).

Britons’ expectations for inflation for the next year rose in January to their highest level since 2008, Citigroup Inc. said on Jan. 28. The median prediction for price increases in the coming 12 months climbed to 3.6 percent from 3.5 percent in December, it said, citing a survey by YouGov Plc.

“If growth resumes shortly, my concerns about inflationary expectations would remain,” he wrote. “But were the recent weakness to mark the start of a sustained new downturn, inflationary pressures would be likely to fade without a bank rate increase.”

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French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis SA said Thursday a clinical trial showed its drug candidate iniparib did not improve survival or slow disease progression in patients with breast cancer.

The late-stage clinical trial was designed to evaluate iniparib as a treatment for “triple negative” breast cancer, a type of breast cancer that is particularly difficult to treat. The study involved 519 patients whose cancer had metastasized or spread to other body parts. The trial compared a chemotherapy regimen including iniparib to one without it, evaluating its effects on overall patient survival and the amount of time patients lived before their disease resumed progressing or they died.

Sanofi-Aventis said there was not a significant difference between the regimen that included iniparib and the one that did not. Both regimens included the cancer drug Gemzar and the chemotherapy drug carboplatin.

However, the company said some patients who had been treated with one or two other therapies before enrolling in the trial did benefit from the iniparib regimen.

Sanofi-Aventis said 15 to 20 percent of breast cancer patients have the “triple negative” type of the disease, and they have a worse prognosis than other types of breast cancer. The disease is called triple negative because the tumors have normal levels of three proteins that are often found in high levels in breast cancer patients. Patients are usually treated with chemotherapy because the cancer does not respond to hormone-based drugs like tamoxifen, or drugs that target epidermal growth factors like Herceptin.

Shares of Sanofi-Aventis fell 25 cents to $35 in aftermarket trading. The stock picked up 6 cents during the day before Sanofi announced the trial’s results.

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US Airways Group Inc. will keep raising fares to offset higher jet fuel prices this year. The airline has already increased fares across its network three times this month and more are likely on the way.

US Airways said it’s getting easier to raise prices because more business travelers are flying, and they tend to pay more. It expects more of those lucrative customers this year as the economy gets stronger.

Along with fare increases, US Airways is also sticking with its plan to raise the number of available seats, or capacity, this year only slightly so it can keep costs low and planes full.

Airlines raise capacity by flying bigger planes with more seats or by adding flights. US Airways plans to raise domestic capacity by 1 percent. It will expand capacity by about 7 percent on international routes, as it adds service to several new destinations in Europe and South America through its Charlotte, N.C., hub.

The company issued its 2011 outlook after reporting a fourth-quarter profit on Wednesday, its first profit in the last three months of the year since 2006.

US Airways, based in Tempe, Ariz., reported a profit of $28 million, or 17 cents per share. That compares with a loss of $79 million, or 49 cents per share, in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Revenue rose 11 percent to $2.91 billion. The money it made per passenger rose 3.4 percent in the quarter due to higher ticket prices and more money from fees for things like checked bags and special seats. Business travel was up about 17 percent.

Analysts polled by FactSet Research expected a profit of 6 cents per share on revenue of $2.90 billion.

Fuel costs jumped 23 percent in the period, but overall expenses rose just 7 percent, as the airline trimmed elsewhere to make up for higher fuel. Fuel costs are expected to rise between 23 and 25 percent a gallon this year easy pay day loans.

One of the main ways US Airways reduced costs was by operating fewer, fuller planes. The occupancy rate on US Airways flights hit a record 80.6 percent in the October-to-December period. The planes were 78.6 percent full, on average, a year earlier.

For the full year, the airline made a profit of $502 million, or $2.61 per share, compared with a loss of $205 million, or $1.54 per share, in 2009. Fuel prices were 28 percent higher last year than in 2009. The money US Airways made per passenger rose 11 percent.

During a conference call with analysts, US Airways weighed in on its contracts with online travel sites, a potentially contentious area as airlines try to cut the costs of selling their tickets.

President Scott Kirby said the company is willing to sell tickets through online travel sites, as long as they eventually allow the airline to sell all of its extra fees directly.

Currently travelers that book on Expedia or Orbitz can’t buy special seats or seats with extra legroom there. They have to go directly to an airline website for that. American Airlines recently stopped selling tickets through Orbitz and Expedia. It plans to sell directly to customers through its own website.

US Airways said selling tickets through other websites costs it about $300 million a year.

US Airways last week signed a deal with Expedia in which the airline will keep selling its tickets, if the travel site sells “choice seats” for the airline _ window and aisle seats in the front of coach.

US Airways shares rose 81 cents, or 8 percent to $10.94 in afternoon trading.

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CSX, the nation’s third largest railroad, said Tuesday that its fourth-quarter profit jumped 42 percent as carmakers and other industrial customers stepped up shipments.

The results capped off a year of near across-the-board recovery in shipments. Higher prices to ship everything from auto parts to fertilizer allowed the Jacksonville, Fla., company to grow its earnings at a faster pace than it gained new business.

The company, which operates its blue and yellow trains from the East Coast to the Mississippi River, earned $430 million, or $1.14 per share, compared with $303 million, or 77 cents per share, a year ago.

Revenue jumped 21 percent to $2.82 billion. Overall shipping volume rose 13 percent in the last three months of the year.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet Research forecast $1.10 per share on revenue of $2.67 billion.

The biggest volume gains were in the automotive segment. CSX’s shipments of cars and car parts leaped 44 percent, mostly due to the pickup in North American light vehicle production.

Volume jumped 17 percent in the company’s intermodal segment, which transfers goods from trucks to trains. Six out of eight CSX segments posted double-digit increases in volume from a year earlier. The only segment in which volume fell was phosphates and fertilizers, but revenue for those goods jumped 29 percent due to higher prices.

Revenue from coal rose 34 percent from a year earlier _ more than any other segment _ mostly due to higher demand from steelmakers abroad. CSX also handled more shipments to utility customers. Most of the nation’s electricity is generated by coal-fired power plants.

Union Pacific Corp., the nation’s largest railroad, reported a similar uptick in fourth-quarter earnings last week. CSX’s eastern rival Norfolk Southern Corp. is expected to report its fourth-quarter results on Tuesday.

For all of 2010, CSX earned $1.56 billion, or $4.06 per share. That’s up 37 percent from 2009 earnings of $1.14 billion, or $2.89 per share.

Revenue rose 18 percent to $10.63 billion.

CSX shares rose $1.35, or 2 percent, to $68.99 in after-hours trading.

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German business confidence unexpectedly rose to a record high in January as booming exports to Asia and stronger household spending bolstered growth in Europe’s largest economy.

The Munich-based Ifo institute said its business climate index, based on a survey of 7,000 executives, increased to 110.3 from 109.8 in December. That’s the highest since records for a reunified Germany began in 1991. Economists predicted the index would hold steady, according to the median of 41 forecasts in Bloomberg News survey. French business sentiment also rose.

Germany’s economy expanded a record 3.6 percent last year as declining unemployment encouraged consumers to spend more and companies increased investment to meet export demand. German growth is driving the recovery in the 17-nation euro area as countries such as Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Spain introduce austerity measures to rein in budget deficits amid a sovereign debt crisis.

“The message couldn’t be any better,” said Andreas Scheuerle, an economist at Dekabank in Frankfurt, who predicts growth of 2.5 percent this year. “If the economy keeps going like this, we can all raise our forecasts.”

Ifo’s gauge of executives’ expectations jumped to a record 107.8 from 106.8, while an indicator of the current situation slipped to 112.8 from 112.9. The euro rose after the release before retreating to trade little changed at $1.3535 at 10:44 a.m. in Frankfurt.

‘Great Vigor’

“The German economy has started the year with great vigor,” Ifo President Hans-Werner Sinn said in an e-mailed statement. “Especially in exports, the survey participants see much greater opportunities.”

Investor confidence jumped to a six-month high in January and the benchmark DAX stock index this week rose to the highest level in more than 2 1/2 years after companies reported higher profits.

Douglas Holding AG, Europe’s largest makeup and perfume retailer, said on Jan. 12 that annual profit rose 21 percent and first quarter sales increased as Germans boosted spending at the company’s bookstores and Christ jewelry outlets.

Germany’s Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, Daimler AG and Audi AG, the world’s three largest luxury-car makers, will expand factories this year to ease capacity constraints driven by record demand for their vehicles.

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Strong profits at General Electric sent industrial stocks higher Friday and helped the Dow Jones industrial average notch its eighth straight week of gains.

General Electric Co. gained 7.1 percent, leading the 30 stocks that make up the Dow. The conglomerate’s earnings rose 52 percent on growth in equipment orders and lending.

The company’s results helped send industrial companies in the Standard and Poor’s 500 index up 1.2 percent. 3M Co., another industrial conglomerate, gained 1.4 percent and Textron Inc. rose 2.2 percent.

The Dow rose 49.04 points, or 0.4 percent, to close at 11,871.84.

Bank of America Corp. lost 2 percent, making it the weakest Dow stock. The country’s largest bank reported a $1.6 billion loss in the fourth quarter after setting aside more money to buy back faulty home loans from investors.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index gained 3.09 points, or 0.2 percent, to 1,283.35. It fell 0.8 percent for the week.

Technology companies in the S&P 500 fell 0.3 percent, the worst of any of the 10 company groups that make up the index. Apple Inc. lost 1.8 percent and Microsoft Corp. fell 1.2 percent.

The technology-focused Nasdaq composite index slid 14.75 points, or 0.5 percent, to 2,698.54. It lost 2.4 percent for the week.

Chip maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. sank 6 percent. AMD’s fourth-quarter profit shrank compared with a year ago, when a big legal settlement it won from archrival chip maker Intel Corp. lifted its earnings.

Google reported a 29 percent rise in income after the market closed Thursday. The Internet search giant said that co-founder Larry Page will take over as chief executive, replacing Eric Schmidt. Google’s stock fell 2.4 percent.

Bond prices rose slightly, sending their yields down to 3.41 percent from 3.43 percent late Thursday.

Rising and falling shares were about even on the New York Stock Exchange. Consolidated volume came to 4.7 billion shares.

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lost 734,000 members.

In order to compete, these regional plans — along with the smattering of smaller plans, which make up around 20% of the health insurance market — will probably find themselves needing to partner up with the big guys sometime in the future. The profit margins for the regionals and smaller health insurance groups have been weak for a while, so the new rules could easily push those margins into the red.

While the regional firms suffer, the larger firms will be in a better position to offer coverage to the millions of relatively healthy Americans that will now be required to buy health insurance. Industry profits in 2019 could eventually be 125% above current year levels, equating to an industry earnings growth rate of 9 cash advance to savings account.6% per year, Barclays estimates. The industry was expected to see anemic growth if it weren’t for this influx of new blood into the system, so the new rules may not be so bad for the industry in the long run after all.

The earnings rate could be much higher if there is further consolidation in the sector as the insurance firms get better at juggling their costs while adhering to the rules. In the end the health insurance industry could devolve into just a handful of players, leaving consumers with little choice. 

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The same record food prices causing riots in Algeria and export bans in India are allowing President Barack Obama to combine the biggest-ever U.S. farm exports with the tamest inflation since the 1960s.

Global food costs jumped 25 percent last year to an all- time high in December, according to the United Nations. Countries probably spent at least $1 trillion on imports, with the poorest paying as much as 20 percent more than in 2009, the UN says. In the U.S., the largest exporter, retail food rose 1.5 percent last year and will gain as little as 2 percent in 2011, the Department of Agriculture estimates.

Governments from Beijing to Belgrade are boosting imports, limiting sales or releasing stockpiles to curb food inflation. Higher prices will push U.S. agricultural exports up 16 percent to a record $126.5 billion this year, according to a USDA forecast. While U.S. consumers haven’t been squeezed so far, grocers from Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. to SuperValu Inc. have said they plan increases. Commodities will keep rising, according to a Bloomberg survey of more than 100 analysts and traders.

Moline, Illinois-based Deere & Co., the world’s largest farm-equipment maker, will report record profit of $5.47 a share this year, according to the mean of 11 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Earnings for Plymouth, Minnesota-based Mosaic Co., North America’s second-largest fertilizer producer, will more than double to $4.57 a share in the year ending in May, the mean of seven estimates shows.

Northfield, Illinois-based Kraft Foods Inc., the world’s second-biggest food company, raised prices of Maxwell House and Yuban coffee in the U.S. three times last year. General Mills Inc., the Minneapolis-based maker of Cheerios and Lucky Charms, said in November it would increase some cereal prices.

Products for supermarkets rose 1.8 percent in the three months ended Sept paydayloans. 22, while consumer prices gained 1.6 percent, Winn-Dixie Chief Executive Officer Peter Lynch said on a Nov. 2 conference call. Some will probably keep increasing to cover costs, and the Jacksonville, Florida-based company has a “relatively good” chance of passing that to consumers, he said.

Starbucks Corp., the world’s largest coffee-shop operator, said in September it would raise some prices after the jump in coffee and milk costs. Domino’s Pizza Inc., the biggest U.S. pizza-delivery chain, said in October it would charge customers more after a 29 percent jump in cheese.

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China’s real estate prices rose for a 19th month in December, raising concerns that the government will expand curbs to limit the risk of asset bubbles in the world’s fastest-growing major economy. Property stocks fell.

Prices in 70 cities rose 6.4 percent in December from a year earlier, China Information News, the statistics bureau’s newspaper, reported today, less than the 7 percent median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of six economists. Prices gained 0.3 percent from November, the newspaper said.

Property prices increased even as China suspended mortgages for third-home purchases and pledged to speed up trials of real estate taxes. The People’s Bank of China raised interest rates again on Dec. 25, after increasing them for the first time in three years in October.

Home prices are still rising, especially for existing homes, and that may lead to concerns that the government will continue its tightening of the property market and more cities will impose a limit on home purchases,” said Cathy Yin, an analyst at Shenyin Wanguo Securities Co. in Shanghai. “Investors are using that as a catalyst to sell property stocks.”

Prices of existing homes climbed 0.5 percent in December, the most in three months, according to the report.

The gauge tracking property stocks on the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index slumped 3.8 percent at the 11:30 a.m. local time break, the most among five industry groups on the key measure. China Vanke Co., the nation’s biggest listed developer, lost 4.4 percent to 8.65 yuan, and Poly Real Estate Group Co., the second biggest, declined 6.4 percent to 13.94 yuan, the biggest decline since Nov. 12.

More Bank Reserves

China’s central bank told lenders on Jan. 14 to hold more deposits as reserves for the fourth time in two months, lifting required ratios by half a percentage point. Premier Wen Jiabao said in a National Radio broadcast on Dec. 26 that measures to curb the country’s property market weren’t well implemented. The government also pledged to almost double the number of affordable housing to 10 million units in 2011.

“Continued increases in prices will worry policy makers, given how unaffordable homes have become,” said Dariusz Kowalczyk, economist with Credit Agricole CIB in Hong Kong. The slower price gain in December “is unlikely to be enough to prevent further measures to cool the market,” he said.

Investment in real-estate development in December rose 12 percent to 557 billion yuan ($84 billion) from a year earlier, according to the report, while full-year investment climbed 33 percent to 4.83 trillion yuan. Property sales increased 22 percent to 1.02 trillion yuan during the month, with 218 million square meters (2.3 billion square feet) of real estate sold, a 12 percent gain from a year earlier, the newspaper said.

Hainan’s Home Prices

Sanya, a resort city on Hainan island in China’s south, posted the biggest price advance in December among the 70 cities monitored, with values rising 43 percent from a year earlier. That’s followed by 36 percent gain in Haikou, the capital city of the island province.

Guangzhou, capital of south China’s Guangdong province, and Quanzhou, a city in Fujian province, reported the smallest prices gains among the 70 cities, each rising 0.4 percent in December from a year earlier.

“The growth slowed because developers didn’t dare to raise prices in fear of more government curbs,” said Jinsong Du, head of property research for Credit Suisse Group AG. “Many developers launched more homes in the market last month to meet their annual sales target.”

Further Price Gains

Today’s numbers came after private data indicated higher sales in December. SouFun Holdings Ltd., the country’s biggest real-estate website owner, said home prices in 100 cities it monitors advanced 0.9 percent in December from November, the biggest gain for at least six months.

China Vanke said revenue jumped 71 percent last year to 108 billion yuan, becoming the first developer in China to exceed sales of 100 billion yuan, a target it earlier set for 2014. Shanghai-based Shimao Property Holdings Ltd. said 2010 sales rose 34 percent to 30.5 billion yuan, and set a target of 36 billion yuan for this year.

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Germany’s dioxin-tainted food scandal widened Saturday, as authorities banned another 934 farms from selling eggs, poultry and pork after finding out that one company had hidden its deliveries of contaminated livestock feed.

Prosecutors in Lower Saxony state have opened an investigation after finding out about the tainted feed deliveries to those farms, Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner said.

“This is a scandal within the scandal,” she said.

Lower Saxony’s agriculture ministry said products from those farms have likely been sold over the past ten days, “mostly eggs.” But it reiterated its assessment that “consumption of these goods does not pose a health risk” given the low contamination level.

The scandal broke last week when investigators found excessive levels of dioxin in eggs and chickens, leading authorities to slaughter hundreds of animals and freeze sales from more than 5,000 farms. Excessive dioxin levels were also found in some pork.

As of Friday, all but 400 farms had been cleared and allowed to resume selling their products, but South Korea and China kept their bans on imports of German pork and poultry fast cash advance.

Aigner, who met with officials in Lower Saxony to discuss the dioxin scandal, appeared outraged by the state authorities’ surprise announcement Saturday morning and urged Gov. David McAllister to immediately reprimand those responsible for failing to properly oversee the feed producer.

But a spokesman for the state’s agriculture ministry, Gert Hahne, rejected Aigner’s comments, saying authorities did their work properly and discovered the feed producer’s wrongdoing. The firm itself was not named.

Authorities have traced the infected feed to Harles & Jentzsch GmbH, which is under investigation by prosecutors. The company, which filed for bankruptcy this week, is suspected of using tainted fat to make pellets that were then sold as livestock feed.

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