Finance news. My opinion.

Stock futures are rising, helped by encouraging corporate news in the U.S. and Europe.

Google Inc. rose more than 7 percent in premarket trading after the tech giant reported its third-quarter profit climbed 26 percent. Food and soap company Unilever PLC announced a major acquisition, and Swiss agrochemicals firm Syngenta reported strong third-quarter sales.

European markets rose.

Toymaker Mattel Inc. reported a 6 percent rise in its third quarter earnings.

The government reports before the market opens on retail sales in September, a key early barometer of consumer activity no fax payday loans.

S&P 500 futures are up 8 points, or 0.7 percent, at 1,206 at 7:51 a.m. Eastern time. Dow Jones industrial average futures are up 74, or 0.7 percent, at 11,466. Nasdaq 100 futures are up 14, or 0.6 percent, at 2,340.

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Hundreds of protesters, emboldened by the growing national Occupy Wall Street movement, streamed through midtown Manhattan on Tuesday in what they called a “Millionaires March.”

They marched two by two up the sidewalk, planning to pass the homes of some of New York City’s wealthiest residents. An organizer said they didn’t have a permit and wanted to avoid blocking pedestrian traffic.

“No Billionaire Left Behind,” said a placard hoisted by Arlene Geiger, who teaches economics at Manhattan’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Protesters expressed concern about how much less the wealthy will pay _ and who would be negatively affected _ when New York’s 2 percent “millionaires’ tax” expires in December.

In the closest they’ve come to naming names, the protesters planned to visit the homes of News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and oil tycoon David Koch, among others.

Protesters have been camped out for weeks in lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park, near Wall Street, saying they’re fighting for the “99 percent,” or the vast majority of Americans who do not fall into the wealthiest 1 percent of the population.

Their causes range from bringing down Wall Street to fighting global warming. The movement gained traction through social media, and protests have taken place in several other cities nationwide.

In Boston, hundreds of college students marched through downtown Boston on Monday and gathered on Boston Common, holding signs that read “Fund education, not corporations.”

The protesters are angry with an education system they say mimics “irresponsible, unaccountable, and unethical financial practices” of Wall Street.

About 50 protesters in Boston were arrested overnight after they ignored warnings to move from a downtown greenway near where they have been camped out for more than a week, police said.

Several hundred protesters were arrested in New York more than a week ago after police said they ignored warnings to stay in place. There was no word on any arrests in Tuesday’s protest in New York.

The protest comes as New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli released a report showing that Wall Street is again losing jobs because of global economic woes, threatening tax revenue for a city and state heavily reliant on the financial industry.

“Excessive risk-taking on Wall Street was a major factor leading to the financial crisis and the recession,” DiNapoli said. “Regulatory changes that reduce risk and focus attention on long-term profitability rather than short-term gains will enhance stability.”

Christopher Guerra, a 27-year-old artist and Occupy Wall Street protester from Newark, N.J., said he thought the job losses weren’t necessarily bad.

“That means more people on our side,” said Guerra, who calls himself an Eisenhower Republican but says he’s opposed to today’s corporate behavior. “The companies are destroying this country by helping themselves, not the people, and pushing jobs out of America.

“If they get shafted, they will realize that what we are saying is true.”

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President Barack Obama is pushing in his weekly radio and Internet address for Senate passage of his nearly $450 billion jobs bill as senators prepare to vote Tuesday on moving to debate on the measure.

Obama also asked listeners to Saturday’s address to tell their senators to support the bill, which he’s been lobbying for aggressively against Republican opposition since unveiling it a month ago.

With the economy listless and unemployment stuck above 9 percent moving into the 2012 presidential campaign, Obama said the bill “can help guard against another downturn here in America.”

“But if we don’t act, the opposite will be true,” the president said. “There will be fewer jobs and weaker growth. So any senator out there who’s thinking about voting against this jobs bill needs to explain why they would oppose something that we know would improve our economic situation.”

Obama’s jobs plan would reduce payroll taxes on workers and employers, extend benefits to long-term unemployed people, spend money on public works projects and help states and local governments keep teachers, police officers and firefighters on the job.

He proposed paying for the plan mainly by closing tax loopholes for oil and gas companies and raising taxes on individuals making more than $200,000 a year and couples making more than $250,000. Those proposals were rejected by Senate Democrats who substituted a tax on millionaires, with Obama’s agreement.

But with Republicans opposed to much of the new spending in the bill and to tax hikes even on millionaires, the legislation stands no chance of getting through the Republican-controlled House in its current form, even if Senate Democrats were able to muster the necessary Republican support for Senate passage.

Despite the opposition Obama intends to keep pushing for the plan in an effort to show the public that Republicans are standing in the way.

“The proposals in this bill are steps we have to take if we want to build an economy that lasts; if we want to be able to compete with other countries for jobs that restore a sense of security for the middle-class,” Obama said.

“There are too many people hurting in this country for us to simply do nothing,” he said. “The economy is too fragile for us to let politics get in the way of action.” Despite opposition to the overall bill, individual elements of it may well get through Congress, particularly an extension and expansion of a payroll tax cut that took effect Jan. 1.

Republicans used their weekly address to criticize the plan.

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., called it “nothing but a rehash of the same failed ideas he’s already tried, combined with a huge tax increase.”

“This is a cynical political ploy that’s designed not to create jobs for struggling Americans, but to save the president’s own job,” Thune said.

He also accused Obama of promulgating excessive regulations and too much red tape, to the detriment of business.

“We’re calling for a regulatory time-out, an affordable energy plan, broad-based tax reform including lower rates, and policies that provide the certainty and stability our economy desperately needs,” Thune said.

____

Online:

Obama address: www.whitehouse.gov

GOP address: http://www.youtube.com/gopweeklyaddress

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The most closely kept secret about the iPhone 5? There isn’t one _ yet.

The new iPhone is faster, has a better camera and allows you to sync content without needing a computer. It includes a futuristic, voice-activated service that responds to spoken commands and questions such as “Do I need an umbrella today?” It will now be available to Sprint customers as well as those from AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

But there’s a catch. Apple named it 4S when most people were expecting the iPhone 5. Immediately, tech bloggers and Apple fans alike began to wonder if this new iPhone was not as cool as they had hoped. Investors were disappointed, too. Apple’s stock fell more than 5 percent before getting a late bump.

If Tuesday’s unveiling seemed like a letdown, it was because Apple didn’t do a good job of managing expectations. That’s a familiar problem for Apple, whose penchant for secrecy invites hyperbolic speculation between its product announcements. Given that it had been 16 months since the previous iPhone hit the market, imaginations had even more time to run wild this time.

“This is the typical Apple scenario: People keep wanting it to do the impossible,” said Tim Bajarin, a Creative Strategies analyst who has been following the company for decades.

Apple’s approach to the event didn’t do any favors for Tim Cook in his first major public appearance since he succeeded Steve Jobs as CEO six weeks ago. Jobs, the Apple visionary and co-founder, relinquished the reins to focus on his health problems.

Cook handled his presentation in a pedestrian fashion that lacked Jobs’ flair. The format and stage setting were similar to the presentations that Jobs had orchestrated so masterfully, giving Cook little opportunity to make his own mark, said Adam Hanft, a marketing consultant who runs his own firm in New York.

“It wasn’t fair to Tim in his inaugural because there he didn’t have any product to show off that was a real barnburner,” Hanft said.

“This allowed him to get his sea legs, but he still needs to find his voice and style. They need to come up with a new setting that is equally Apple-like aesthetically, but not the same that they had while Steve was there.”

Even though the iPhone 4S is an improvement over its predecessor, it isn’t being perceived as a breakthrough partly because it’s not being branded as an iPhone 5, as most people had been expecting, said Prashant Malaviya, a marketing professor at Georgetown University.

Not all investors were disappointed.

Stephen Coleman, chief investment officer for Daedalus Capital and an Apple investor since 2004, calls his Apple stock “the safest investment that I own.” He said Tuesday’s upgrades were “incremental” _ and praised Apple for not messing too much with a model that’s working.

“To those who say they’re underwhelmed, I’d say they’ve been fast asleep,” Coleman said. “Anyone who’s been paying attention at all would have to be dazzled by the product, and earnings.”

The stock has risen more than 15 percent this year, at one point hitting an all-time high of $422.86. It has nearly quadrupled since the first iPhone was announced in 2007. The device has been the cornerstone of one of the most remarkable runs in technology history. Apple is now one of the world’s most richly valued companies, holding its own against oil companies and international conglomerates.

“What is there to lament?” Coleman said. “For people like me, it’s peace on earth. This is one of the great economic stories of our time.”

The new iPhone has an improved camera with a higher-resolution sensor. The processor is faster _ the same A5 chip found in the iPad 2 _ so the phone will be able to run smoother, more realistic action games. It’s also a “world phone,” which means that Verizon iPhones will be useable overseas, just as AT&T iPhones already are.

The fact that a more radical revision of the phone was a no-show leaves room for speculation that Apple will reveal a new model in less than a year, perhaps one equipped to take advantage of Verizon’s and AT&T’s new high-speed data networks free credit report and score.

There had also been speculation that Apple would include a chip that could talk to payment terminals at retail stores, turning the iPhone into a mobile wallet. Competitors are starting to include this capability in their phones, though the payment systems are still immature. The iPhone 4S doesn’t have this.

The iPhone 4S will come with new mobile software that includes such features as the ability to sync content wirelessly, without having to plug the device to a Mac or Windows machine. The phone includes Siri, which lets people speak questions and commands and represents an advanced version of speech-recognition software found on other phones.

Apple also unveiled software that can send greeting cards through the postal system for $2.99 each.

Cook said the most recent iPhone, which came out in June 2010, sold more quickly than previous models, but the iPhone still has just 5 percent of the worldwide handset market. Among smartphones, devices running Google Inc.’s Android software make up 43 percent of the market in the second quarter, while the iPhone captures 18 percent, according to Gartner Inc.

Apple is hoping to grow that share with the iPhone 4S _ something it can do by luring new customers from Sprint and elsewhere, even if existing owners don’t see a need to upgrade.

Bajarin, the longtime Apple watcher, is confident that Apple will quickly overcome the perception problem once technology reviewers get a better handle on all the new bells and whistles. He believes that the improved camera and speech-recognition technology are compelling enough additions to make the iPhone 4S another hit for Apple.

“People are going to get over their initial disappointment and want this phone,” he said.

Apple’s new mobile software, iOS 5, will also be available on Oct. 12 for existing devices _ the iPhone 4 and 3GS, both iPad models and later versions of the iPod Touch.

Apple said Oct. 12 will also mark the launch of its new iCloud service, which will store content such as music, documents and photos on Apple’s servers and let people access them wirelessly on numerous devices. One component is a $25-per-year service, called iTunes Match, that will allow people to play their personal jukeboxes on any device with iTunes software instead of keeping them tethered to a personal computer that must be synced with other devices.

The new phone will come in black or white. It will cost $199 for a 16 gigabyte-version, $299 for 32 GB and $399 for 64 GB _ all with a two-year service contract requirement. Pre-orders will begin Friday with availability on Oct. 14.

The previous version, iPhone 4, will now cost $99 for 8 GB. The 2009 model, the iPhone 3GS, will be given away for free with 8 GB. Both also require a two-year service contract.

Don’t expect to see an iPhone available with prepaid, contract-free service plans any time soon _ at least not with AT&T. Ralph de la Vega, AT&T’s head of wireless and consumer services, said in an interview that the carrier has no plans to offer iPhones with prepaid plans, because even phones that are free with two-year contracts _ namely the iPhone 3GS _ would cost customers a significant amount up front. Wireless companies typically subsidize the cost of phones and make that back from monthly service fees over the life of the contract.

Apple also unveiled a new line of iPods, including a Nano model with a multi-touch display that promises to be easier to navigate.

Apple’s stock fell $2.10, or 0.6 percent, to close Tuesday at $372.50 after dropping earlier to $354.24.

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Top financial officials from eurozone countries were grappling with Greece’s worsening debt crisis on Monday after Athens’ admission that its deficit will be higher than promised sent markets tumbling.

Greece’s revelation calls into question whether Athens will receive the next installment of the bailout loan it needs to pay its day-to-day bills. If it doesn’t receive euro8 billion ($10.8 billion) by mid-October, it could go bankrupt and would be unable to pay pensions and salaries.

European Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn wouldn’t be drawn out Monday on what Greece’s creditors will do with the new information, saying only that they were still reviewing the data.

“We are currently assessing whether Greece will meet its fiscal targets with the current measures,” Rehn said ahead of Monday’s meeting. “I want to do our job first properly; it seems that Greece is likely to miss the target.”

Although the ministers have already said they won’t decide on the next payment at their meeting Monday in Luxembourg, the issue is sure to be high on the agenda.

Markets have been exceptionally volatile in recent weeks, as they look for any hint that European leaders have a credible way to steer Greece back to health and prevent its debt problems from spreading to other, larger eurozone economies. The Greek announcement confirmed investors’ fears that even the country’s dramatic spending cuts will not be enough.

Greece’s finance ministry said Sunday that the country will run a deficit of 8.5 percent of economic output, or euro18.69 billion ($25.2 billion), this year _ far above the promised euro17.1 billion ($23.1 billion), which would have been 7.8 percent of GDP.

Part of the problem is that since Greece’s economy is shrinking, the government is taking in less and less money. That in turn means it has to cut even more to reduce the size of its deficit and make a dent in its debts.

In 2012, Athens’ debts are projected to reach 172.7 percent of gross domestic product, while the deficit will drop to 6.8 percent.

The announcement will also force the eurozone to decide whether they will go ahead with a second euro109 billion rescue package tentatively agreed in July. Germany, among others, has been pushing to reopen that deal.

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Hurricane Ophelia has intensified to a Category 4 storm as it passes east of Bermuda and heads north toward Newfoundland, where the entire Avalon Peninsula is under a tropical storm watch.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Saturday evening that Ophelia had maximum sustained winds near 135 mph (217 kph), up from 120 mph (193 kph) late Saturday afternoon.

It was moving north at 26 mph (42 kph) and was 140 miles (225 kilometers) east of Bermuda. It was expected to weaken rapidly late Sunday, though tropical-storm-force winds are possible on the Avalon Peninsula early Monday payday loans.

Ophelia is the season’s fourth hurricane. Earlier, Ophelia caused flooding and cut off communities on Dominica.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Philippe was stronger but it remained far from land in the Atlantic.

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A political consultant stole more than $1 million from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg because he wanted to buy his father’s house, a prosecutor said Monday.

Republican consultant John Haggerty didn’t have the money to pay for the house, but he did have “access to one of the largest mayoral campaigns this city has ever seen. … And with it, the mayor’s money,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Brian Weinberg told jurors as Haggerty’s trial opened.

Prosecutors say Haggerty got Bloomberg to underwrite an elaborate 2009 poll-watching effort run by the state Independence Party but then mounted only a meager operation and used most of the money instead to buy the house. Haggerty says he did the job he was paid for and didn’t do anything illegal guaranteed unsecured personal loan.

Bloomberg, an independent, was running for re-election and was the Independence Party’s top candidate.

Defense lawyer Raymond Castello said the campaign used Haggerty as a scapegoat after questions arose on whether the campaign had followed campaign-finance law.

He said the mayor donated over $1 million to the Independence Party in order to maintain a distance from what could be seen as a questionable practice.

“This case is about winning at all costs,” Castello said. “That’s what Michael Bloomberg is all about.”

Bloomberg is expected to testify in the trial.

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Back when the recession first took hold, we never expected to count this high: 61,000 net jobs lost in Metro St. Louis since employment peaked in February 2008.

The stories of the displaced come in an infinite variety, though increasingly with one disturbing commonality: the unprecedented length of their joblessness. The average jobless stint now lasts 10 months, long enough to cripple not only short-term finances but long-term career prospects. 

In the Sunday Business section of the Post-Dispatch, and here on stltoday.com, we’ll explore these trends, and the impact on our neighbors, in a special report: Jobless in St. Louis. 

George Batten, 50, has been out of work for three years - after spending three decades climbing to an executive post. Construction worker Scott Regna, 31, has seen his income drop from $50,000 in 2006 to a mere $3,000 last year. J.L. Hickman, 62, had worked literally hundreds of full-time and contract jobs before hitting a wall 15 months ago; he’s put in 552 unsuccessful applications since then. The career of 24-year-old Isabel Yerkes has yet to start, as she labors in a part-time retail purgatory after graduating college. Alfreda Lewis, 55, prays each day as she nears the two-year mark without a job and nears the end of her unemployment insurance.

These are just a handful of stories plucked from the tens of thousands being lived, and endured, every day by our family, neighbors and friends in the St. Louis region. Taken together, they amount to a staggering financial and emotional toll that, however and whenever we recapture solid economic ground, will be with us for years to come.

In Sunday Business: 

At his first press conference as CEO of Ford, Alan Mulally was asked how he could run such a complex company with no experience in the car business.

The former Boeing executive responded that cars, which have around 10,000 parts, are indeed very sophisticated. Then he smiled and noted that a jumbo jet has 4 million parts _ and it flies.

If there were doubters when Mulally joined Ford in 2006, there aren’t many now. The year he took over, the company lost $17 billion. Last year, it made $6.6 billion, its biggest profit in 11 years. Within weeks of arriving, Mulally took out a huge loan and began pushing through a restructuring that continued even as the recession sent rivals General Motors and Chrysler into bankruptcy.

Behind his sunny demeanor and fuzzy red sweater vests, the 66-year-old Kansan had the steel to rein in the bureaucracy and infighting at Ford. He promoted managers who could work together and fired those who couldn’t. He shed money-losing brands like Jaguar, Volvo and Mercury. He closed six U.S. plants, cut thousands of jobs and saved billions in engineering costs by developing fewer cars for the global market, such as the Fiesta and Focus, instead of unique models for each region.

Mulally still faces big challenges. Ford is struggling to overhaul Lincoln, which was the nation’s top-selling luxury brand a decade ago but fell victim to underfunding and more stylish rivals. Its sales in China, the world’s biggest car market, are just one-third of GM’s. And slow growth in the U.S. is hindering a comeback in car sales.

Mulally spoke with The Associated Press about the economy, the car industry and his management style. Excerpts appear below, edited for length and clarity.

Q: What are your biggest worries about the economy?

A: We’re generally on the right track, but it is going to be a slower recovery than we’ve ever had before. The private sector leading us out of this recession is the most important thing.

Q: President Obama called you when he was on Martha’s Vineyard. Did he ask for advice on the economy?

A: What he wanted to know, because we interact with so many customers, (was) how consumers (are) feeling about everything. They’re looking for both near-term action on jobs and the economy, but they’re also looking for longer-term solutions on our debt, on our budget deficits, our trade imbalances. They’re looking for more clarity on where the United States is going, so that they can plan their near-term actions against the long term.

Q: Why aren’t companies using their cash stockpiles to hire more?

A: The consumer has pulled back. We’re ready with the products and services that people really do want, but we’re going to match our production of goods and services, cars and trucks, to what the real demand is. We’re very disciplined about that. The worst thing you could do is make more than what the market wants, which our industry has done sometimes in the past. The demand is still very, very low.

Q: Is it a permanent trend that people want more fuel-efficient cars?

A: I sure think so. Most of us in the United States and around the world know that we are going to pay more for energy going forward. There will be ups and downs but, in general, it is more expensive to find oil and bring it to market than ever before. So fuel efficiency has just continued to move as the number one consideration. It doesn’t make any difference whether it’s a new Ford Fiesta or an F-150, the customers want the most fuel-efficient vehicle.

Q: Take us through how, inside your company, that changes things.

A: If you look at Ford historically in the United States, we were about 70 percent trucks and bigger SUVs and made 30 percent cars. Around the world, the percentage is the opposite way. But in the United States, we are moving to a tremendously balanced portfolio of small, medium and large vehicles. Over the next few years, we’ll be at the place where nearly 60 percent of our vehicles are small- or medium-sized cars, and about 40 percent will be the larger SUVs and trucks free business cards. It really is a tremendous transformation of Ford.

Q: How do you make that happen? How do you change the employee’s mindset, on down to the engineer and into the assembly line?

A: Every Thursday, we’re all linked up on the Internet and in two and a half hours, we go through about 320 charts. All the charts have the areas that need special attention. We review the entire operation. You can’t fool anybody. Do you have a compelling vision? Do you have a comprehensive strategy to deliver that vision? And are we going to work together to relentlessly implement that? When you do that, it’s like everybody is involved. We have a laser focus now. Every vehicle had to be best in class, quality, fuel efficiency, safety. That is benchmarked against the competition. Everybody knows everything.

Q: Some Ford workers are upset about your compensation. (Mulally made $26.5 million in salary, stock options, bonuses and other compensation last year). What would you say to an hourly worker who asks why your pay is fair when a new hire makes less than $30,000 a year?

A: My compensation is entirely tied to the success of Ford. The vast majority of my compensation is at risk, because the numbers that you see are only realizable if we profitably grow the corporation. And that’s the way it should be. I believe in it so much that most of the management team and most of the salary team _ and also our wonderful employees that are represented by the UAW _ have had profit sharing plans. We’re continuing to talk together about how to align all of our compensation even more. Because the most important thing for everybody is that they get a chance to participate in the profitable growth that we deliver.

Q: Would you say there’s a problem in this country because of the gap between what the richest make and what the middle class is earning?

A: I really believe in capitalism and I think it has served the United States fantastically. It’s so important that we just take stock about what is right about America. We’re going through a rough patch. We’re fixing some issues associated with a couple of really big bubbles that we all created, starting with all of us living beyond our means. We’re straightening that out right now. It’s going to take a little while but we can do it. But what’s really right is the economic model and capitalism and us holding ourselves accountable for making products and services that people really do want. And the market gets to decide who’s successful, right?

Q: I’d like to learn more about you personally and also you in the workplace, your management style.

A: I have always wanted to contribute to something that was meaningful and that helped people. I found my dream at Boeing. I love airplanes and I love design. I also felt like what I was really doing was providing safe and efficient transportation and helping people get together around the world. I don’t have to be the smartest or the brightest. I love working with a lot of talented people to do something that you can’t do just by yourself.

How do you bring everybody together around doing something? You need a compelling vision, a clear strategy (and) relentless implementation. I just love seeing people get a chance to perform and do something in a meaningful way. I think everybody needs to be included. I’ve found that when everybody knows what the plan is and they know what the status is, and everybody is helping each other, magic things happen.

Q: Tell us about some of the people you’ve learned from.

A: So many people I’ve learned so much from, starting with my mother, (who taught me to) contribute to something important, treat others the way you want to be treated and that the purpose of life is to love and be loved, in that order.

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A stock trader dubbed the Octopussy because he reached for so much inside information was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison and a California finance researcher convicted in a separate but related insider trading case received a four-year prison term as two judges tried to send a stern warning to Wall Street.

“Insider trading is very, very hard to detect. Because of that, it has to be dealt with harshly,” U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan said as he gave 34-year-old Zvi Goffer one of the longest prison terms ever handed down in an insider trading case. He added: “These crimes are not going to be tolerated, certainly not in my courtroom.”

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff said it was important that each sentence send a tougher message to deter inside trading than previously thought necessary.

“It’s hard to detect but easy to commit so the temptations are great,” Rakoff said as he sentenced Winifred Jiau, 43, of Fremont, Calif., who has remained imprisoned for nine months because it was determined that the Taiwan-born researcher was a risk to flee. Still, the sentence was only half of what was called for by federal sentencing guidelines.

The Israeli-born Goffer, who lives in Brooklyn, was convicted with two others in June in a conspiracy to pay bribes to coax confidential information out of two shady lawyers at a Manhattan firm. The arrests were part of what prosecutors called the biggest hedge fund insider trading case in history. In all, more than two dozen people have been convicted in the probe.

The sentencings Wednesday came weeks before the scheduled sentencing next month of Raj Rajaratnam, a one-time billionaire hedge fund founder who was convicted on insider trading charges earlier this year. Prosecutors say he made more than $50 million through illegal trades and are seeking a prison term of more than 24 years.

When the charges against Rajaratnam and Goffer were announced in the fall of 2009, prosecutors said they had made unprecedented use of wiretaps, in part because white collar criminals were starting to use techniques to cover up their crimes that made them resemble common criminals.

The wiretaps eventually led to a separate probe of researchers in the securities industry who enable illegal secrets to be passed between hedge fund managers and employees of public companies. Jiau was among 13 people arrested last year in that probe.

At his sentencing, Goffer apologized to investors in the stocks in which he had an unfair advantage, saying: “They didn’t have the information I had.”

He began crying when he apologized to his brother, Emanuel, who was convicted at trial along with him and is awaiting sentencing. A third defendant, Michael Kimelman, also awaits sentencing.

“He knows I love him,” he said of his brother. Zvi Goffer said he didn’t always understand the seriousness of the crime but had awakened to its tragic consequences.

“Now today I have to face it and I am terrified,” he said.

The sentence caused Goffer’s wife to break down in sobs.

“What am I going to do?” she called out in court at one point. “It’s not fair!” A woman beside her then shouted a profanity, causing Sullivan to rise from the bench and threaten to bring in U.S. marshals to make arrests.

“This is a courtroom, not a street corner,” he said. “I am not going to tolerate this.”

Goffer was convicted by a jury that viewed evidence that he had arranged to pay two attorneys nearly $100,000 in 2007 and 2008 for inside tips on mergers and acquisitions.

During the two-week trial, prosecutors introduced evidence that Goffer gave conspirators prepaid cellular telephones in an effort to reduce detection by law enforcement.

The judge said Goffer had repeatedly demonstrated that he knew he was breaking the law and didn’t care.

“It’s a game that you and others seem to find exciting,” he said, adding that Goffer had a gambler’s mentality that led him to “double down and go to trial” when he would have shaved three years off his prison sentence by accepting responsibility before trial and admitting his crimes.

“You went for broke. You gambled and lost on that, too,” Sullivan said.

Before starting his own firm, Goffer worked for nine months for Rajaratnam.

Jiau was convicted of charges that she conspired to accept cash and gifts to feed inside information to hedge funds.

Jiau, a U.S. citizen, worked for two years as a consultant for Primary Global Research, a Mountain View, Calif.-based company.

Prosecutors said she earned more than $200,000 by selling “tomorrow’s news today” about earnings and performance of publicly traded companies. The information, they say, was communicated in code with her co-defendants, sometimes using “cooks” to refer to tipsters, “recipe” for the inside information and “sugar” for what she was paid for

Lawyers for both Jiau and Goffer said their clients were left in financial ruin and their careers were destroyed.

Jiau told Rakoff she was “sorry for being here.”

She also apologized to her dog, a Golden Retriever named Hunter who is being cared for by friends, saying: “I’m sorry I broke my promise to take care of you and be with you.”

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