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Discretix Technologies Ltd. on Monday named Coby Sella its new chief executive.

Santa Clara-based Discretix focuses on embedded security products.

Sella was former senior vice president and general manager of Zoran Corp.'s (NASDAQ:ZRAN) Mobile division.

The company also announced that Gal Salomon, the company’s founder and outgoing CEO, has been appointed chairman of the board.

"The massive global demand for smartphones and the resulting rollout of premium content services have lead to rapid expansion of Discretix’ embedded security and content protection businesses in both Asia-Pacific and North America," the company said business card templates.

Discretix said Salomon will focus on the development of strategic opportunities including new markets, acquisitions and alliances.

Prior to joining Zoran, Sella held various positions at DSP Group, IBM and National Semiconductor.

Click here to read the press release.

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Atwood Oceanics Inc. was named as the fastest growing company by Fortune magazine.

The Houston-based offshore driller was founded in 1968 and has about 1,000 employees.

Fortune reported Atwood (NYSE: ATW) posting 24 percent revenue growth, and 85 percent earnings per share growth, in the past three years. It slipped from a No. 45 rank last year.

Austin-based Luminex was the fastest-growing Texas firm on the list, coming in at No instant payday loan. 42 with 32 percent revenue growth over three years. No other Houston firms made the list.

Canada-based Eldorado Gold topped the list with 42 percent revenue growth in three years, followed by Vermont-based Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and Georgia-based Ebix.

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Wichita home sales in June were down about 1 percent from the same period a year ago, according to data from the Wichita Area Association of Realtors.

The change came as the final closings were being reported from the federal government’s home buyer tax credit programs. Buyers utilizing the program had to close on their purchases by June 30.

A total of 896 homes were sold in the Wichita area during June, down from 906 in June 2009 no fax payday loans.

June’s numbers followed three consecutive months in which sales increased year-over-year.

Of the homes sold last month, 769 of them were existing homes and 127 were new.

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ADC Telecommunications Inc. has been sold to Tyco Electronics in a $1.25 billion deal, the companies announced Tuesday.

Tyco will pay $12.75 per share for Eden Prairie-based ADC, which makes technology for the telecommunications industry.

The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter.

Tyco, based in Switzerland, recorded more than $10 billion in revenue last year. The company, formerly part of Tyco International, makes electrical components for several industries, including networking equipment used by telecom companies.

The deal will allow Tyco to expand its portfolio of wireless connectivity products, which are used to build mobile networks, the company said in a news release. Tyco (NYSE: TEL) also will incorporate ADC's U.S. professional services business into its operations payday loan lenders.

The acquisition will add up to 14 cents per share to Tyco's full-year earnings, the company said.

ADC ranked No. 32 on the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal's most recent list of the largest public companies in the state. The firm has 9,050 employees in Minnesota.

An ADC spokesperson couldn't be reached for comment on how the deal will affect jobs in the Twin Cities.

The company has a long history in the Twin Cities. It grew rapidly during the tech boom of the 1990s — becoming a $3 billion company by 2000. It cut its staff sharply after the dot-com bubble burst.

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Stocks skidded in the first half of the year, particularly in the second quarter. But investors probably haven’t seen the worst of it.

Welcome to the second half.

With the S&P 500 down more than 15% from the highs of late April and all three major indexes at more than 6-month lows, a bigger selloff could be brewing.

"By year-end we could be roughly where we are now, but between now and then, we could be substantially lower," said Karl Mills, president and chief investment officer at Jurika Mills & Keifer.

Going back to World War II, a decline of 15% off the highs has often turned a correction into a bear market — a drop of 20% to 30% — according to Standard & Poor’s chief investment strategist Sam Stovall.

Late Wednesday, S&P cut its 12-month price target for the S&P 500 to 1,190 from 1,270, citing the "intensifying headwinds."

The Dow is down 7.6% year-to-date, with most of the losses coming in the past two months when the Dow lost more than 10% on worries that the European debt crisis and signs of slowing in Asia will send the U.S. economy back into recession.

"What we saw in May and June was investors trying to understand that it’s going to be a tepid recovery at best," said Alan B. Lancz, president at Alan B. Lancz & Associates.

"We’ll be selective buyers on the dips," he said. "But the weaning off the government stimulus, China slowing down, BP’s oil spill and the sovereign debt issues are going to be an overhang for some time."

Fear of a double dip: Worries that debt-plagued European nations such as Greece and Spain will default on their borrowings were somewhat mitigated by European leaders establishing a nearly $1 trillion fund to provide support. But with governments struggling to implement cutbacks and the euro flailing near a four-year low, concerns remain in play.

"The European issues highlight the fact that fiscal deficits cannot run indefinitely and that we need to fix some of our long-term debt issues," said Ben Halliburton, chief investment officer and founder at Tradition Capital Management."

Congress’ budget chief said Wednesday that the outlook is daunting considering the level of debt cash advance flexible payments.

Recent reports showing that the housing market is slumping again and that job growth remains anemic have added to worries about the strength of any U.S. recovery.

Volatility: The last two months have also brought a return to the level of volatility seen at the height of the financial market crisis in 2008.

"I think we’ll continue to see volatility, with a lot of it to the downside," said Ben Halliburton, chief investment officer and founder at Tradition Capital Management.

He said that between overly optimistic earnings forecasts getting trimmed and the reality of certain tax cuts expiring at the end of the year, the choppiness is unlikely to calm down.

Corporate earnings growth in question: Despite all the turmoil, analysts have barely cut earnings estimates for the second quarter and second half of 2010, and all of 2011, according to Thomson Reuters.

"Since mid-May, analysts have ratcheted their second-quarter estimates down modestly, but they seem to be taking a ‘wait-and-see’ approach for the next 18 months," said John Butters, Thomson’s senior research analyst.

Earnings are expected to have risen 27.2% in the second quarter versus a year ago, down just slightly from mid-May estimates. Financial sector forecasts have come down the most — which is fitting, since those forecasts were raised the most in late April, when the stock market was at its highs.

Analysts currently expect 2010 earnings to rise 34% from a year ago, the biggest year-over-year growth since Thomson began tracking the info in 1998.

For 2011, analysts expect year-over-year growth of 17%.

On the upside, the P/E ratio for the S&P 500 is 12.3 versus the five-year trailing average of 14.2.

"Either the market is overdoing the fears and there’s room for stocks to rally, or the market is ahead of the analysts and the estimates need to come down," said Butters. 

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Local government in Wichita should establish a more stringent set of guidelines as it examines whether to support public-private development proposals in the city’s core, the city’s downtown development consultants said Monday.

As they laid out their draft master plan for downtown Wichita, Goody Clancy executives said the city should ensure that public dollars are spent on projects that have strong public-use components — such as parking garages and public parks. Government also should establish a point system to score potential projects and developers on whether their programs are viable and worth helping.

But the city should be ready with incentives to develop downtown sites, which often are plagues with land acquisition hurdles, environmental concerns and parking issues.

“If we don’t want to play that game, then we run the risk of stagnation and deterioration,” said Sarah Woodworth, a member of the Goody Clancy team.

The Boston-based consulting firm presented its draft plan on Monday during a public meeting at the Wichita Scottish Rite building. The meeting will be followed later this week with a series of public input sessions.

Goody Clancy executives said city capital should be used only for projects that have a strong public benefit so the money has a broader impact than just the private sector project itself.

The city also should establish a point system to rate projects, the consultants said. Criteria could be whether a developer has downtown development experience in the area, how financial solvent he is and whether his proposed development agreement would be fair to all parties.

On financing, Woodworth said, “We should not have any criteria that a bank would not have.”

The projects themselves would have to fit into the downtown master plan. The city should push for them to have a design and location that promotes downtown walkability — one of the key elements of Goody Clancy’s work. Projects also should include buildings at least two stories tall to fit with the character of downtown and shouldn’t come with surface parking lots.

“It doesn’t make for a very pleasant walking environment,” said Goody Clancy’s Ben Carlson.

Goody Clancy’s draft plan, which has been in the works for six months, also laid out a series of possibilities for different areas of town payday advance.

The consulting team laid out numerous potential development districts with their own identities, such as Old Town, Commerce Street Arts, Douglas-Delano, Douglas-Arkansas River, Century II-WaterWalk and the governmental center.

The consultants also made several proposals within some of those districts, offering up sketches for the sites to help people visualize what could happen there.

At the Broadview Hotel near Century II, the consultants suggested the city extend Water Street south to WaterWalk and create a new development site at Douglas and Water that could hold retail and dining. They also said a hotel could be established near the site. All of that would serve Century II and warm up a streetscape that today is wide and relatively unfriendly to pedestrians.

At Broadway and William, Goody Clancy consultants said the former Allis Hotel site could be converted to a park with a parking garage. The former Henry’s store could be converted to 50,000 square feet of office, and the Douglas building just north of there could be rehabbed as an apartment building. A parking garage could serve both the Henry’s and Douglas street buildings.

At Douglas and St. Francis, the consultants urged an improvement of the connection between Old Town and Intrust Bank Arena with more unique pavement styles for pedestrians. They also said Naftzger Park at that intersection could be improved and a hotel could be built just east of it near the Central Rail Corridor. New housing also could be built into existing buildings near that corner.

Just to the east, near Union Station, the city should install a stop light to make that intersection more pedestrian friendly, the consultants said. A parking lot on the northwest side of that intersection could be home to a new residential, office and retail building. The parking that currently is on that site could be moved south to a newly built parking garage.

The consulting team also had renderings for the site of the new public library, the site of the old Coleman factory near Old Town and the site of the 1st Street Bridge over the Arkansas River.

In some cases, the city owns land in those areas and could steer development in the way it chooses, the consultants said.

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The Food and Drug Administration is looking into reports of at least 775 serious side effects from drugs recalled by McNeil, a division of Johnson & Johnson, according to a source close to a Congressional investigation.

Included in the reports were 30 deaths, nearly all of which were found to not be tied to McNeil’s recall of Tylenol, Motrin and Benadryl drugs from Jan. 1, 2008 through April 30, 2010, according to another source close to the investigation.

The FDA is also investigating reports of several hundred serious side effects — or "adverse events" — and seven deaths since May 1, when McNeil recalled 50 children’s versions of these non-prescription medicines because of serious quality and safety concerns.

The FDA’s investigation into the recalls is ongoing and the agency would not comment on the matter.

Adverse event reports are consumer complaints of a serious side effect associated with the use of a medical product, according to the FDA. Adverse events could include death, hospitalization, disability and other health complications.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has scheduled a hearing on May 27 to examine the recall.

Following the most recent recall, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ, Fortune 500) has suspended production at McNeil’s facility in Fort Washington, Penn., that manufactured the children’s drugs.

McNeil’s latest recall is its fourth in the past seven months:

• In November 2009, five lots of Tylenol Arthritis Pain 100 count with the EZ-open cap were recalled for unusual odor leading to nausea, stomach pain, vomiting and diarrhea.
• In December, the recall was expanded to include all product lots of Tylenol Arthritis Pain caplet 100 count bottles with the red EZ-open cap.
• In January 2010, the recall was widened to an undisclosed number of Tylenol, Motrin and other over-the-counter drugs after complaints of consumers feeling sick from an odor.

McNeil has maintained that its recall of the children’s drugs was not "undertaken on the basis of adverse medical events" but as a precautionary measure.

"We track all adverse events and thoroughly investigate all serious adverse cases that are reported and, in turn, report these to the FDA, whether or not the event may be caused by our products," McNeil said in a statement Tuesday.

The FDA, which earlier this month issued a scathing 17-page inspection report listing 20 violations at the Fort Washington plant, also maintains that the recalled drugs pose a "remote" potential for serious health problems.

The House panel invited Johnson & Johnson Chief Executive William Weldon to testify but he declined to be present due to health reasons. The Committee said Colleen Goggins, worldwide chairman of Johnson & Johnson’s consumer group will testify at the hearings.

The FDA said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, principal deputy Commissioner, Deborah Autor, Director of the office of compliance and Michael Chappell, acting commissioner for regulatory affairs, will testify on behalf of the agency. 

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The number of Americans filing initial claims for unemployment insurance fell for the third straight week, according to weekly government data released Thursday.

There were 444,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week ended May 1, down 7,000 from a revised 451,000 the previous week, according to the Labor Department’s weekly report.

Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had expected new claims to fall to 440,000 in the latest week. The number of new claims was the lowest since the 442,000 reported in the week ended March 27.

The Labor Department also tracks the four-week moving average of initial claims, which smoothes out volatility in the measure. That number was 458,500 for the week, down 4,750 from the previous week’s revised average of 463,250.

"Things are lining up for recovery, but it’s slower in its evolution than we expected," said Carl Riccadonna, U.S. economist for Deutsche Bank in New York.

A lack of economic confidence could be keeping hiring managers on the sidelines, according to Riccadonna. Jobless claims at or below 400,000 could help to boost morale.

"It’s not helped when you look on TV and see developments in Europe and people worried about the impact of trans-Atlantic contagion," he said.

The number of people filing continuing claims totaled 4,594,000 in the week ended April 24, the most recent data available. That figure was down 59,000 from the preceding week’s revised 4,653,000 claims, and slightly below the 4,600,000 economists expected, according to Briefing.com. Continuing claims were down for the fifth straight week.

The four-week moving average for continuing claims totaled 4,649,000, up 8,000 from the preceding week’s revised average of 4,641,000.

Continuing claims data exclude people whose benefits expired or those who have moved to state or federal extensions. It reflects those filing each week after their initial claim until the end of their standard benefits, which usually last 26 weeks.

In April, lawmakers in the House and Senate approved an extension of unemployment insurance until June 2. The move followed a number of tax breaks andother measures designed to spur job growth and help push the current 9.7% unemployment rate lower.

Although many economists say the measures are slowly working, states are still feeling the pinch and jobless claims would have to fall further, faster, before the national unemployment rate ticks lower no fax pay day loan.

There has been increasing debate over whether the decline in continuing claims is due to real job creation or people exhausting their benefits. Riccadonna says there’s no easy way to tell, but that "if the pace of job creation continues to accelerate, we can be increasingly confident that the drop in continuing claims is people finding jobs and not just rolling off the books."

Jobless claims fell the most in Florida, with a dip of 2,766 in the week ended April 24, primarily due to fewer layoffs in the construction, service, and manufacturing industries.

North Carolina and New York also saw dips in the 2,600 range. California, Massachusetts and Oregon topped the list of states with the largest increases in initial claims.

The report follows a spate of upbeat economic data in recent weeks. But that has been overshadowed by fears that Greece’s debt crisis could spread throughout Europe.

Riccadonna said that he is not overly concerned about the impact on the United States in the short term, beyond some "exchange rate effect." However, a significant decline in the euro to $1.15 could hurt the competitiveness of U.S. exports, which he says has been a key driver in the recovery so far.

Three separate reports on Wednesday pointed to strong signs of jobs growth when the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its official read of the unemployment situation on Friday. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com forecast that the U.S. added 187,000 jobs in April, compared to a gain of 162,000 in the prior month.

Still, total hiring would need to be 200,000 or more a month to push the rate down significantly, he said. Given recent economic data, he thinks the "big one" could come as early as May.

Although the nation is expected to have added jobs last month, many economists forecast the unemployment rate, also due Friday, to remain unchanged at 9.7%. Riccadonna is a bit more optimistic, forecasting a slight tick down to 9.6%.

"Really substantial gains in excess of 300,000 should be sufficiently jarring enough to wake up hiring managers and also the financial markets," said Riccadonna. "We’re turning the corner. The question is how fast?"  

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The SEC and the U.S. Attorney’s office in New Jersey on Wednesday charged a Miami Beach-based businessman with allegedly running a Ponzi scheme that sucked in close to $1 billion.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and U.S. District Attorney Paul Fishman filed fraud charges in New Jersey against Nevin K. Shapiro, founder and president of Capitol Investments USA.

Shapiro is accused of fraudulently offering risk-free annual returns as high as 26% to investors in his grocery diverting operation, a type of business where low-cost groceries are purchased in one region and sold for a higher price elsewhere.

"[Shapiro] used his prominence and prestige to gain investors’ trust in funding Capitol’s grocery-diverting business, but behind their backs he diverted their money to enrich himself," said Eric Bustillo, director of the SEC’s Miami regional office.

Investigators from the U.S. Attorney’s office said more than 60 investors, many of them in New Jersey, sent Shapiro more than $880 million, incurring losses of at least $80 million.

The SEC said that Shapiro’s "lavish" lifestyle included a $5 million house in tony Miami Beach and a $1 million boat, as well as "luxury cars, expensive clothes, high-stakes gambling and season tickets to premium sporting events."

In a classic pyramid-style scheme, the Ponzi scammer uses new investments to pay off existing investors, while claiming that the stolen funds are legitimate returns.

The feds said that Shapiro claimed to make tens of millions of dollars a year through Capitol. In reality, Capitol was operating at a loss by 2004 and had "virtually no" legitimate investment activity by 2005, according to federal authorities.

Shapiro paid $13 million to contacts who could reel in fresh investors in order to keep the scam going, according to the SEC.

He is also listed as a donor on the University of Miami’s Web site, which describes him as "an ardent, devoted, intense supporter of the University of Miami Athletics."

"For the tremendous philanthropic support he provides, the University of Miami is proud to name the Student-Athlete Lounge after Nevin Shapiro," the site reads.

A spokesman for the athletics club was not immediately available for comment.

Kate Meyers, one of three lawyers representing Shapiro at the Lewis Tein firm in Coconut Grove, Fla., confirmed that Shapiro "surrendered this morning to authorities in New Jersey."

She said the two lead defense lawyers in the case are Michael Tein and Guy Lewis. 

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Travelers had a better overall experience on airlines in 2009, according to the annual Airline Quality Report.

Airlines improved in three of the four categories used to determine the rankings.

Dean Headley, associate professor of marketing at Wichita State University, will present the report and overall airline scores in Washington, D.C. Monday.

He will be joined by Paul Bowen, a former professor at WSU who is now the head of the aviation technology department at Purdue University.

The AQR uses information the airlines report to the U.S. Department of Transportation regarding on-time performance, involuntary denied boardings, mishandled bags and customer complaints to determine an overall score for the industry and individual airlines.

The industry scored better compared to 2008 in on-time performance, mishandled bags and customer complaints. It scored worse in 2009 on involuntary denied boardings.

Hawaiian Airlines had the best on-time performance, 92.1 percent, in 2009. Atlantic Southeast Airlines had the worst at 71.2 percent.

Fourteen airlines improved on-time performance in 2009, but only six of the 18 rated had on-time percentages higher than 80 percent.

American Eagle had the highest rate of involuntary denied boardings at 3.76 per 10,000 passengers.

Jet Blue was perfect in that category, scoring no involuntary denied boardings.

AirTran Airways had the best baggage handling rate at 1.67 mishandled bags per 1,000 passengers. Atlantic Southeast scored the worst at 7.87 mishandled bags per 1,000 passengers.

However, all 18 of the airlines rated improved their baggage handling scores in 2009.

Southwest Airlines had the rate of customer complaints at 0.21 percent per 100,000 passengers. Delta Air Lines had the highest rate at 1.96 customer complaints per 100,000 passengers.

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