Martes 24/08/10 Venta de casas

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AIG dice está comprometido a cerrar venta Nan Shan
martes 24 de agosto de 2010 08:08 GYT
Imprimir[-] Texto [+] Por Faith Hung and Rachel Lee
TAIPEI (Reuters) - American International Group Inc (AIG) declaró el martes sentirse confiado de lograr la aprobación regulatoria para su venta por 2.200 millones de dólares de la unidad taiwanesa Nan Shan Life a un grupo encabezado por China Strategic.

La atribulada aseguradora estadounidense dijo además que no tiene planes de vender esos activos a ningún tercero.

AIG recaudará dinero por la venta de parte de sus activos internacionales para devolver la ayuda que le proporcionó el Gobierno estadounidense como parte de su rescate durante el clímax de la crisis financiera.

La venta de Nan Shan Life, que se prolonga por ya diez meses, no ha logrado pasar por las pruebas regulatorias, en medio de la preocupación de que el grupo comprador, encabezado por China Strategic, sea apoyado por dinero chino y que le falte experiencia en el negocio de los seguros o la capacidad de recaudar fondos para operaciones futuras.

Pero la Comisión de Supervisión Financiera de Taiwán inició una revisión final de la adquisición del grupo a comienzos de mes y tomará la decisión sobre la venta "lo antes posible," según reveló un funcionario.

AIG extendió previamente el plazo fatal para la venta a mediados de octubre.

"AIG no tiene intención de vender su participación a ningún otro tercero, y, por ejemplo, no recibirán una oferta de Chinatrust," dijo AIG mediante un correo electrónica en respuesta a consultas realizadas por Reuters.

Chinatrust Financial Holding Co, la principal emisora de tarjetas de crédito, había pujado originalmente por Nan Shan el año pasado, pero perdió frente a un consorcio en el que participaron China Strategic y Primus Financial.

AIG declaró que "sigue confiando en que las autoridades regulatorias aprobarán la transacción. Si el acuerdo no fuera aprobado, AIG evaluaría sus opciones de limitar cualquier compromiso a largo plazo de su propiedad continuada en Nan Shan," agregó la aseguradora.
AIG también planea empezar a cotizar en la Bolsa de Hong Kong su negocio de seguros de vida asiático, American International Assurance Co Ltd, más adelante este año para recaudar fondos para la devolución del rescate entregado por el Gobierno estadounidense.

Nan Shan tiene más de 4 millones de asegurados, casi un sexto de la población de Taiwán.

[admin]

Petroleras, mineras y bancos arrastran a bolsas europeas
martes 24 de agosto de 2010 06:39 GYT
Imprimir[-] Texto [+] Por Brian Gorman
LONDRES (Reuters) - Las bolsas europeas caían en las primeras operaciones del martes, siguiendo la línea de Wall Street por las preocupaciones sobre la fortaleza de la recuperación económica.

A las 1020 GMT, el índice FTSEurofirst 300 de las principales acciones europeas caía un 1,23 por ciento, a 1.023,79 puntos, tras haber subido un 0,7 por ciento en la sesión previa impulsado por novedades sobre adquisiciones y fusiones.

El panorama pesimista para la economía afectaba las perspectivas de la demanda para productores de materias primas, que estaban entre los principales perdedores del martes.

Los precios del petróleo, castigados por un nivel más alto que lo esperado en los inventarios y un dólar más fuerte, estaban cerca de mínimos en siete semanas.

Las acciones de Total, ENI, Statoil y BP caían entre un 1,15 y un 2,8 por ciento.

Cairn Energy perdía un 0,95 por ciento, luego de que sus resultados en el primer semestre incluyeron decepcionantes noticias sobre sus actividades en Groenlandia.

La minera chilena Antofagasta caía un 2,4 por ciento tras rebajar sus metas anuales de producción y pese a reportar una ganancia por acción en el primer semestre que casi duplicó sus resultados del mismo periodo el año anterior.

Otras mineras caían, arrastradas por la debilidad del precio del cobre y de otros metales. Las acciones de Kazakhmys, Lonmin y Xstrata perdían entre un 2,3 y un 3,7 por ciento.

En un descenso generalizado en los mercados, el sector bancario también perdía terreno. Lloyds, Royal Bank of Scotland y UniCredit caía entre un 2,3 y un 2,5 por ciento.
Entre los índices locales, el británico FTSE 100, el alemán DAX y el francés CAC40 caían entre un 0,98 y un 1,3 por ciento.

Varios analistas dijeron que los datos de vivienda de Estados Unidos, que se difundirán a las 1400 GMT, serán seguidos muy de cerca.

"Si los datos estadounidenses de vivienda son flojos, podría causar una caída del mercado", expresó Justin Urquhart Stewart, director de Seven Investment Management.

"Con unos volúmenes cortos reacciona a todas las noticias, y las próximas noticias económicas pueden ser malas. Las adquisiciones y fusiones han tenido un efecto decepcionante", agregó.

(Reporte adicional de Dominic Lau; editado en español por Hernán

[admin]

METALES BASICOS-Cobre en mínimo 1 semana, panorama demanda débil
martes 24 de agosto de 2010 08:15 GYT
Imprimir[-] Texto [+] Por Maytaal Angel
LONDRES (Reuters) - El cobre tocó su menor nivel en más de una semana el martes debido a que la fortaleza del dólar y la debilidad de las acciones pesaban en el mercado, mientras los participantes se mantenían nerviosos sobre la perspectiva de demanda ante los sombríos datos económicos.

El referencial del cobre en la Bolsa de Metales de Londres se negociaba a 7.183 dólares la tonelada a las 0944 GMT desde los 7.255 dólares del cierre del lunes.

Más temprano, el metal usado en electricidad y construcción tocó su menor nivel desde el 13 de agosto a 7.176,50 dólares.

"Hay temores sobre la perspectiva para el crecimiento y las acciones están cayendo. Creo que vamos a regresar a 6.500 dólares en los próximos tres a cuatro semanas", dijo el analista Robin Bhar de Credit Agricole.

"El panorama es sombrío, la gente está buscando en el flujo de noticias, datos, que están saliendo tan débiles", agregó.

El dólar tocó un máximo de seis semanas frente al euro más temprano, haciendo a los metales cotizados en moneda estadounidense más caros para los operadores europeos, mientras que las acciones bajaban en Europa.

Próximamente, datos de ventas de casas usadas en Estados Unidos de julio más tarde en la sesión y cifras de PIB el viernes ofrecerán más señales sobre el ritmo de la recuperación económica.

Las existencias de cobre en la LME subieron por segundo día consecutivo, trepando 1.625 toneladas a 403.825 toneladas. Los inventarios se mantienen en unas 150.000 toneladas por debajo del máximo de mediados de febrero.

En otros metales, el aluminio estaba a 2.021 dólares desde 2.040 dólares, tras tocar su menor nivel desde el 22 de julio a 2.010 dólares.
El estaño operaba a 20.340 dólares la tonelada desde 20.460 dólares, el zinc a 1.992 dólares desde 2.044 dólares, mientras que el plomo estaba a 2.018 dólares frente a 2.048 dólares.

El níquel estaba a 20.745 dólares desde 21.200 dólares.

[admin]

Pedidos industriales de zona euro repuntan en junio
martes 24 de agosto de 2010 08:16 GYT
Imprimir[-] Texto [+] Por Marcin Grajewski
BRUSELAS (Reuters) - Los nuevos pedidos para el sector industrial en la zona euro crecieron más de lo esperado en junio frente al mes anterior, mostraron datos del martes que sientan un buen precedente para el crecimiento económico durante el tercer trimestre del año.

Los pedidos industriales en los 16 países de la zona euro anotaron un avance del 2,5 por ciento en junio frente al mes anterior, para un avance interanual del 22,6 por ciento, dijo Eurostat, la oficina de estadísticas de la Unión Europea.

Los economistas consultados por Reuters esperaban lecturas del 1,5 por ciento y el 22,9 por ciento, respectivamente.

"Esto es bueno. Demuestra que podemos llevar buena parte del impulso del segundo trimestre hacia la segunda mitad del año", dijo Carsten Brzeski, economista de ING.

El dato indica que la zona euro podría ver otro trimestre de crecimiento, a medida que sale a flote tras sus problemas de deuda soberana y de la peor crisis económica en décadas. Los pedidos son un medidor adelantado de las tendencias en la actividad, ya que se traducen en producción en el futuro.

Eurostat revisó al alza el dato de los pedidos de mayo a un avance del 4,1 por ciento mensual y del 23,0 por ciento en términos anuales, desde las lecturas iniciales del 3,8 y 22,7 por ciento. El crecimiento anual de mayo fue el más fuerte en 10 años.

Según Eurostat, eliminando los volátiles pedidos de barcos, aviones y trenes, el incremento mensual de junio fue del 1,6 por ciento, mientras que el avance anual fue del 22,5 por ciento.

El crecimiento mensual en los pedidos fue impulsado casi de manera exclusiva por un repunte en la demanda de bienes de capital, que incluyen maquinaria, herramientas y equipos. El segmento anotó un avance mensual del 5,3 por ciento.

Sin embargo, los pedidos de bienes de consumo duraderos cayeron en un 1,1 por ciento mensual y un 1,8 por ciento anual, resaltando la debilidad en la demanda del consumidor.

[admin]

Nikkei cierra a mínimo de 15 meses, por debajo de 9.000 puntos
martes 24 de agosto de 2010 02:52 GYT
Imprimir[-] Texto [+] TOKIO (Reuters) - El índice Nikkei de la bolsa de Tokio cerró el martes en mínimos de 15 meses, por debajo de los 9.000 puntos, arrastrado por ventas de fondos de cobertura y de inversores extranjeros preocupados por la pasividad de las autoridades ante la apreciación del yen.
Los operadores señalaron que el cierre por debajo de 9.000 puntos daría fuerza al impulso bajista ante los escasos puntos técnicos que puedan detener la caída del índice.

El índice Nikkei cerró con una baja de 121,55 puntos, o un 1,33 por ciento, a 8.995,14. El más amplio Topix perdió un 0,9 por ciento.

"Las ventas de fondos de cobertura y de inversores europeos parecen estar dañando a las acciones, y si el Nikkei sigue cayendo por debajo de 9.000 puntos eso acelerará las ventas de los inversores individuales", dijo Masayuki Otani, jefe de análisis de mercado de Securities Japan Inc.

"Los temores sobre la economía no desaparecerán de la noche a la mañana, y los inversores estarán atentos a las medidas que surjan, incluidas aquellas destinadas a eludir la llamada recesión de doble caída en la economía de Estados Unidos", agregó.

Los participantes del mercado destacaron la decepción reinante porque el primer ministro Naoto Kan y el gobernador del Banco de Japón Masaaki Shirakawa sólo hablaron por teléfono el lunes y no hablaron de una acción concreta para contrarrestar la fortaleza del yen, que podría perjudicar al sector exportador japonés y golpear a la economía.

En operaciones en Asia, el dólar retrocedía a 84,94 yenes, acercándose más a mínimos de 15 años tocados este mes a 84,72 yenes.

[admin]

Sell off -117

[admin]

Los yields siguen bajando 2.51%

Absolutamente todo a la baja, excepto por el yen.

[admin]

-106

[admin]

Las ventas de las casas viene a la baja y los indicadores de Richmond tambien, esperemos no sean peor a lo esperado.

Yields mejroando 2.53%

Oil debajo de $72 a 71.84

Au down 1,215.10, se desinfa el oro ha bajado mas de $13

-104

[admin]

Alaska y Arizona tienen elecciones hoy dia. Se espera que McCain gane.

[admin]

Algunas companias estan adoptando el iPad para sus negocios. Es una historia diferente a la de la introduccion del iPhone en el 2007 cuando las empresas le dijeron a sus empleados que el iPhone no era apropiado en sus oficinas. El Ipada es una historia diferente.

Mencionan una firma de abogados que adoptara el iPad para sus abogados en lugar de laptos empezando el proximo anio.

Apple dijo que estabana muy sorprendidos que 50 de las 100 companias mas grandes del S&P 500 esten probando el iPad para sus negocios.

Por lo menos 500 aplicaciones del iPad son para negocios.

Mercedes Benz ya adopto el uso del iPad para sus vendedores de autos quienes pueden empezar el proceso del credito en frente del auto en lugar de ir a sus oficinas.

Todos los vendedores de Baush & Lomb tienen un iPad.

Los iPads tambien estan siendo probados en el sector salud donde es usado para ver radiografias, scans, historia medica, etc. Y tambien esta siendo probado en hospitales.

Businesses Add iPads to Their Briefcases
Some Companies, Which Barred the iPhone, Build Apps for Tablet Computer and Give Apple Gadget to Employees

By BEN WORTHEN
When Apple Inc.'s first iPhone came out in 2007, many companies told their employees that the device wasn't appropriate for the workplace. The iPad is a different story.

The company's tablet-style device seems to be sidestepping the resistance that the iPhone and other consumer-oriented devices have faced in the corporate environment. Indeed, many businesses have raced to snap up iPads.

James Yang
.One example is the Chicago law firm Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP, which banned the iPhone when it first came out yet preordered 10 iPads in the run up to the tablet's release in April.

"We made sure that we knew as much about these devices as possible," said Michael Barnas, the firm's director of application services. The technology department now offers access to its internal systems for more than 50 iPad-toting attorneys, and anticipates issuing iPads as an alternative to laptops as soon as next year.

Apple, which said it sold more than three million iPads through the end of June, attributes some of the device's success to businesses. The Cupertino, Calif., company's Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook said in July that "very surprisingly" half of the Fortune 100 are testing or deploying iPads.

More than 500 of the 11,000-plus applications built specifically for the iPad are in the business category. A free app from Citrix Systems Inc., which allows people to access internal corporate programs from the iPad, has been downloaded more than 145,000 times.

"Everyone in IT is jumping on this one," said Ted Schadler, an analyst at Forrester Research. "Rather than wait for people to start complaining they're saying why don't we get a few of them in and see what they are good for."

Companies have often imposed policies against consumer-oriented technologies—ranging from thumb drives to Web-based email accounts—because of worries that include keeping corporate data secure and other impact on internal computing systems. But many employees defied rules and used these tools anyway, partly out of a belief they improved productivity, said Mr. Schadler. In many cases, IT departments eventually relented and relaxed their rules.

Experience WSJ professionalEditors' Deep Dive: Firms Adopt Smartphones, TabletsENTERTAINMENT CLOSE-UP
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Market Researchers Get New Tool in iPad . Access thousands of business sources not available on the free web. Learn More.Businesses are behaving differently with the iPad, in large part because the new device is starting out as more of a known quantity from a technical standpoint. The iPad runs the same operating software as the iPhone, which has been enhanced with a number of business-friendly features.

The iPhone, at the outset, faced the hurdle that it didn't work with Exchange, the Microsoft Corp. email software that is a mainstay of the business world. Nor could information-technology managers remotely erase data on the handset in the event it was stolen or lost.

But Apple has addressed these and other issues, including the ability for companies to encrypt information on iPhones and set up secure ways for employees to connect to corporate networks. The latest version of the operating system used by the iPhone and iPad adds features that make the devices easier for a tech department to manage, including the ability for businesses to distribute internally developed apps without going through Apple's App Store.

IPads, with list prices ranging from $499 to $829, are also less expensive than the laptop computers most companies buy. They also have advantages over laptops for certain chores, such as when employees work standing up or give demonstrations.

For example, Mercedes-Benz Financial, which provides loans and leases for Daimler AG, has equipped some dealerships with an iPad loaded with its app. The goal is to begin the credit-application process while customers are standing near a vehicle.

Bausch & Lomb Inc., which makes eye-care products, built its own iPad app for its salespeople. The company said it had about 50 employees using iPads in the field within a week and a half of the device's release.

One selling point is that the iPad starts up much more quickly than laptops and has a longer-lasting battery. "We don't get a lot of time in front of a customer," said Simon Woods, Bausch & Lomb's vice president of global technologies and applications.

When the iPhone came out three years ago "many of us were skeptical" that it could be a business tool, said Sean Chai, senior IT manager at Kaiser Permanente, the health-care organization based in Oakland, Calif.

But when the iPad was announced, Kaiser preordered a pair, and it has since been testing them in a 37,000-square-foot technology lab. Among the uses so far are viewing medical images such as X-rays and CT scans, and accessing medical records through a trial version of an iPad app developed by the electronic-record system's maker.

Kaiser is also testing a tablet specifically designed for hospitals, but so far is impressed by the iPad. "Apple didn't design this for the health-care industry," said Mr. Chai. "But it's a tremendous form factor."
.

[admin]

Los iPads son perfectos para ls negocios por que son mucho mas baratos que los laptops. (y los empleados felices por que pueden usarlo para otras cosas tambien, llevarselo a sus casas, etc. y son pagados por la empresa)

-110

[admin]

Hay hoteles que tienen un iPad por habitacion, algunos restaurants tambien lo tienen, algunos colegios y universidades tambien.

[admin]

Un Fed dividido

La reunion del 10 de Agosto mostro que por lo menos 7 de los 17 miembros tienen reservas acerca de alterar la manera como el Fed trabaja y maneja su gigante portafolio de securities.

Al final Bernanke se impuso y se dio la decision de mantener el balance del Fed en $3.05 billones. Es decir no se redujo el portafolio del Fed.

Fed Split on Move to Bolster Sluggish Economy

By JON HILSENRATH
WASHINGTON—The Aug. 10 meeting of top Federal Reserve officials was among the most contentious in Ben Bernanke's four-and-a-half year tenure as central bank chairman.

As the economic recovery showed signs of sputtering, at least seven of 17 Fed officials spoke against or expressed reservations about a plan to alter the way the Fed manages its huge portfolio of securities before the move was approved on Aug. 10. Jon Hilsenrath discusses. Also, Jenny Strasburg discusses a Chinese sovereign-wealth fund in talks to invest a large sum of money in a hedge fund devoted to profiting from 'Black Swan' market swoons.
.With the economic outlook unexpectedly darkening, the issue was a seemingly technical one: whether to alter the way the Fed manages its huge portfolio of securities.

But it had big implications: Doing so would plunge the Fed back into the markets and might be a prelude to a future easing of monetary policy, moves that divided the men and women atop the central bank.

At least seven of the 17 Fed officials gathered around the massive oval boardroom table, made of Honduran mahogany and granite, spoke against the proposal or expressed reservations. At the end of an extended debate, Mr. Bernanke settled the issue by pushing successfully to proceed with the move.

The debate over the decision to keep the Fed's $2.05 trillion stock of mortgage debt and U.S. Treasury holdings from shrinking, described in interviews with several participants, set the stage for a more consequential discussion inside the Fed that remains very much alive: what to do next, if anything, about America's stubbornly weak recovery and troublingly low inflation.

Mr. Bernanke gets an opportunity to elaborate on this crucial and unresolved question when he and other Fed officials gather Friday and Saturday, along with foreign counterparts and a gaggle of academic experts, at the Fed's annual meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyo.

After steering the economy away from another Great Depression, Mr. Bernanke confronts a painfully slow rebound. Unemployment is still high and inflation is uncomfortably low. Fed officials, who spent much of the early part of this year planning for an exit from easy-money policies, have been forced to think about doing more to jolt the economy to life.

Fed officials emphasize they have common objectives despite being deeply divided over what to do next: They seek to avoid either deflation, a broad decline in prices and wages, or an upsurge of inflation. And they share a strong desire to get the economy growing fast enough to sustain a recovery without unusual government support.

The Fed already has cut the short-term interest rates it targets to near zero, vowed to keep them there for an extended period and purchased trillions of dollars in securities, with money the central bank creates, to push down long-term interest rates.

Journal Community
Vote: What is the biggest threat to the economic recovery?
.The most contentious issue now is whether to print more money and buy even more long-term securities, which would expand the Fed's portfolio further. An earlier bond-buying program ended in March.

A decision hinges largely on whether the Fed sees inflation falling much further or if economic growth fails to revive. The Fed and most private forecasters still expect faster growth in 2011, and few economists are predicting outright deflation.

.Among the other issues: Should the Fed act quickly, or should it wait for firmer evidence that the economy is truly faltering? And if it does decide to act, should it take small, cautious steps or large, dramatic ones?

Fed officials have divergent views on both issues, and all sides knew that the decision at the Aug. 10 meeting would be widely seen as an indication of which way the Fed was leaning. In the event, it leaned toward action.

Before the meeting, officials at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which manages the Fed's portfolio, had grown concerned, according to people familiar with the matter. The Fed's portfolio of mortgage-backed securities was about to begin shrinking much more rapidly than anticipated, as low mortgage rates led more Americans to refinance their mortgages. That in turn meant the mortgage-backed securities held by the Fed were being paid off.

The size of the Fed's portfolio has become one of the central bank's major monetary tools. A shrinking portfolio in the face of slowing economic growth was unwelcome to many officials, including New York Fed President William Dudley. It amounted to prematurely applying the brakes.

Behind Closed Doors
The Fed's vote to alter its portfolio disguised internal disagreements

View Full Image
..The New York Fed's markets chief, Brian Sack, had been revising up his estimates of how much the portfolio would contract. In a memo circulated by Mr. Sack's group a few days before the meeting, the estimate was revised up again. In March, the group projected the portfolio would contract by a bit more than $200 billion by the end of 2011. In a memo circulated by Mr. Sack's group a few days before the meeting, the estimate was revised to up to $340 billion. In addition, about $55 billion in debt issued by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that the Fed held would likely be paid off. Taken together, it represented a potential 20% drop in the Fed's holdings in 18 months' time.

"The shrinking of the balance sheet just didn't feel right to me under the circumstances," says Dennis Lockhart, president of the Atlanta Fed, who tends to be in the middle of the road in most Fed debates.

As is the custom, Fed staff in Washington offered the members of the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee—the five current Fed governors in Washington and the presidents of the 12 regional Fed banks, five of whom have a vote at each meeting—a range of options before the meeting.

.The declining mortgage portfolio was the focal point of debate. The Fed could allow it to continue going down or it could try to keep it stable by putting the money from maturing mortgage bonds into new securities, either Treasurys or other mortgage bonds. Officials spent very little time discussing the idea of expanding the securities portfolio beyond its current size.

The group was under added pressure because this meeting was scheduled to last a single day, a time frame that was standard before the financial crisis, but that had more recently expanded to two days. And unlike many Fed meetings, there was no clear consensus, either inside the Fed or among the cadre of Wall Street pundits who predict and second-guess Fed policy. To allow more time, the meeting was called for 8 a.m., an hour earlier than usual.

Officials were clustered in two camps. In one camp, Mr. Dudley, and the presidents of the Boston and San Francisco Fed banks, Eric Rosengren and Janet Yellen, were distressed that the Fed was far from its objectives of low unemployment and stable inflation. Unemployment was at 9.5%, above the 5% to 6% range that the Fed considers full employment. Inflation was running at around 1%, below the Fed's informal target of 1.5% to 2%. This camp was more inclined to act.

The other camp was skeptical. Fed governor Kevin Warsh, a former Wall Street investment banker who worked closely with Mr. Bernanke during the crisis and who attends many Washington Nationals baseball blacklisted_site with the chairman, worried that a decision to reinvest mortgage proceeds into Treasurys would confuse investors and lead many to believe the Fed was paving the way to resume major purchases before it had decided to do so. An abrupt change in stance, he argued, could lead the public to believe the Fed was more worried about the economy than it really was.

.Some officials wanted the Fed to acknowledge the softer economy in its policy statement but hold off on changing the management of the portfolio until there was more clarity on the economy.

Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Fed, and others expressed a concern that Fed moves might be ineffective, arguing that businesses weren't using already ample, cheap credit to fund investments because they were uncertain about many other problems, including government deficits and new financial regulations.

Narayana Kocherlakota, president of the Minneapolis Fed, argued that a large part of today's unemployment problem is caused by issues the Fed can't solve, such as the mismatch between the skills of jobless workers and the skills that employers wanted. "The Fed does not have a means to transform construction workers into manufacturing workers," Mr. Kocherlakota said in a speech after the meeting.

The president of the Philadelphia Fed, Charles Plosser, who has had misgivings before about Mr. Bernanke's initiatives, deemed the latest move premature because, though the Fed was lowering 2010 growth estimates, it wasn't significantly ramping down its estimates for growth in 2011 and beyond. Two other frequent dissenters, Thomas Hoenig of Kansas City, and Jeffrey Lacker of Richmond, Va., also objected. Fed governor Betsy Duke, a former commercial banker, also expressed reservations, according to participants.

The meeting was a case study in Mr. Bernanke's management style, which reflects his days as chairman of Princeton University's economics department when he had to manage a collection of argumentative academics with strong personalities and often divergent views. Mr. Bernanke encourages debate and disagreement, and then weighs in at the end with his own decision, which has helped him win loyalty at the Fed, even among those who disagree with him, several officials say.

"He sees an unusually uncertain time and he puts his Socratic professor hat back on," says one official familiar with the Fed chairman. "He's comfortable with democracy around the Fed. His view is that is going to help him get to a better judgment."

After listening intently, Mr. Bernanke summed up the debate, acknowledged the disagreements, and then said that the Fed shouldn't allow the passive tightening of financial conditions that was being caused by its shrinking balance sheet. In practice, that would mean taking proceeds from nearly $400 billion in maturing mortgage bonds and buying Treasury debt. The Fed also needed to acknowledge the slower growth outlook, he said. The meeting ended later than usual.

The formal vote—9 to 1—disguised the disagreements. Both Mr. Warsh and Ms. Duke voted with the chairman. So did vice chairman Donald Kohn, governor Daniel Tarullo and four of the five regional Fed bank presidents who have votes this year: Mr. Dudley, Mr. Rosengren, St. Louis' James Bullard and Cleveland's Sandra Pianalto. Mr. Hoenig, as he has at every opportunity this year, formally dissented.

Yields on long-term Treasury bonds fell after the announcement, as proponents of the move anticipated. But stocks later skidded, evidence to internal skeptics that the Fed misfired.

"We sent some garbled message about a weaker economy where we wanted to be more accommodative," says Mr. Plosser. "That was confusing and ran the risk of scaring the markets."

Now the internal debate turns to the future, particularly whether to do more, and if so whether to make small or large steps. In March 2009, when the economy was sinking fast, the Fed chose a big step, the move to buy large quantities of mortgages and Treasury bonds. One Fed official, Mr. Bullard of St. Louis, has drawn the attention of his colleagues by loudly advocating smaller steps as the outlook changes to calibrate Fed policy with changes in the economy, an idea that has gotten the attention of many officials.

"I don't think it's likely that the [Fed] would go with some kind of 'shock and awe' where you do some big policy move all at once," Mr. Bullard said in a recent interview.

Others disagree. "I don't see the benefits of these sorts of small fine-tuning symbolic gestures," says Philadelphia's Mr. Plosser. If the deflation threat becomes real, and he says it hasn't yet, then the Fed might need to attack the problem aggressively.

One thing is clear: Mr. Bernanke, though striving for consensus, is determined to avoid mistakes of past central bankers that created devastating bouts of deflation. As a Princeton professor in the 1990s, Mr. Bernanke lectured Japanese officials for being too timid about combating deflation. And in now-famous remarks he delivered as a Fed governor at a 90th birthday celebration for Milton Friedman in 2002, Mr. Bernanke promised the Fed would never allow a repeat of the deflation of the 1930s.

"The worst outcome for him personally would be to let something like deflation get under way on his watch," says Alfred Broaddus, the former president of the Richmond Fed who served alongside Mr. Bernanke from 2002 until 2005. "He will respond forcefully to evidence that the risk of a deflationary process getting under way is rising materially. He won't be ambivalent."

[admin]

Europa a la baja pero el volumen es anemico.

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