Stocks drifted downward Friday on Wall Street as the dollar strengthened further, and after a week of mixed economic reports.

With little economic news to help sway the market Friday, the dollar was again pressuring stocks. A disappointing earnings report from the computer maker Dell is also weighing on the market.

With investors leaving stocks, Treasury prices were up, pushing yields lower. The three-month T-bill&S217;s yield was hovering near its lowest level of the year.

In the first minutes of the session, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 0.2 percent, at 10,312.95 points. The Standard &&8; Poor&S217;s 500-stock index was down 0.4 percent, at 1,090.62, and the Nasdaq composite index was down 0.8 percent, at 2,140.72.

Overseas markets declined. The European Central Bank president, Jean-Claude Trichet, said the bank plans to start pulling back some of its stimulus programs as the economy begins to recover.

With little American economic news to help sway the market Friday, the dollar was again pressuring stocks. A strengthening dollar drives down foreign demand for commodities, which are often traded in dollars. It also can depress exports, which become more expensive as the dollar rises.

That can hurt the price of energy and materials stocks that are closely tied to commodities and companies with large operations overseas.

The ICE Futures dollar index, which measures the United States dollar against other major currencies, rose 0.48 to 75.77.

A disappointing earnings report released after the market closed Thursday, Dell said that sales of its computers to big businesses remain sluggish. Its quarterly revenue and profit missed analysts&S217; expectations.

The homebuilder D. R. Horton said its fiscal fourth-quarter loss narrowed as it took smaller write-downs on its inventory. Even as its losses shrank, revenue fell 42 percent as the housing market remained unsteady.

&S220;Investors seem to need a constant reassurance with where we are in the economic recovery,&S221; said Brett D&S217;Arcy, chief investment officer at CBIZ Wealth Management Group in San Diego. &S220;We just haven&S217;t gotten it in the past few days.&S221;

Mr. D&S217;Arcy expects stocks to continue to sell off Friday given the disappointing economic data earlier this week.

Weak housing and mortgage data the past two days has helped bring the market&S217;s nearly relentless rise to a halt amid concerns that any economic recovery will be slow and bumpy. On Thursday, the Mortgage Bankers Association provided fresh evidence that the housing market is still fragile. The trade group said more than 14 percent of homeowners with a mortgage were behind in their payments or facing foreclosure at the end of September.

As investors have jumped out of stocks in recent days, they have moved money into safe assets like Treasury bonds, pushing their prices higher. The yield on the three-month T-bill, which moves opposite its price, fell to its lowest level since last December as the credit crisis was mushrooming. The yield hit 0.005 percent late Thursday.

The three-month yield moved higher Friday, rising to 0.02 percent.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose to 3.35 percent from 3.34 percent late Thursday.

Overseas, Japan&S217;s Nikkei stock average declined 0.5 percent. Britain&S217;s FTSE 100 fell 0.2 percent, Germany&S217;s DAX index declined 0.5 percent, and France&S217;s CAC-40 dropped 0.5 percent.

Wall Street Slips Lower at Start

LONDON -- KBC Group said Wednesday that the European Commission is expected to decide later in the day on whether to approve its restructuring plan. The plan sets out how the group will repay state aid and could include requirements to dispose of assets. KBC said it's requested that its shares be suspended until the decision is announced.

KBC Shares Suspended Ahead Of E.U. Decision

PLOPPED in a white leather chair in a small office in Bloomberg L.P.&S217;s Manhattan headquarters, Andrew Lack knows exactly how to articulate the aspirations of this 28-year-old media and technology company.

Skip to next paragraph Enlarge This Image Daniel Acker/Bloomberg News

Daniel L. Doctoroff, Bloomberg's president, talked with employees last month about the BusinessWeek acquisition.

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Michael R. Bloomberg, right, with Matthew Winkler in 1991. Mr. Winkler has overseen the Bloomberg news operation from its beginning.

&S220;We want to be the world&S217;s most influential news organization,&S221; says Mr. Lack, who oversees Bloomberg&S217;s television, radio and dot-com endeavors.

Very clear. The most influential. On the planet.

It&S217;s a goal several other Bloomberg executives have already mentioned to a pair of visitors. And when Mr. Lack, 62, a former head of NBC News, hears his guests wonder if something funny is in his company&S217;s coffee &<51; a special sauce that keeps all Bloombergians marching so efficiently and effectively to the same tune &<51; he looks a tad chagrined.

&S220;Oh, my! I don&S217;t want to sound as if I&S217;m on message,&S221; he says, laughing apprehensively while also sending a &S220;help me&S221; look to a Bloomberg spokeswoman nearby.

These days, truth be told, the entire company is on message. That&S217;s because the data behemoth that Michael R. Bloomberg created and named after himself in 1981, long before he became mayor of New York, finally has the reach, resources and appetites to try snaring the mantle of Most Influential &<51; at least in the rarefied world of business news.

After years of being an underdog pushing its troops to be better and faster, Bloomberg now has an upper hand. Publishing giants like Cond&>33; Nast, Time Inc. and The New York Times, with their veteran scribes and rich histories, have laid off people and scaled back. Bloomberg may lack the pedigree and gloss of some of its rivals, but it has one thing they don&S217;t right now: money to throw around.

This year alone, Bloomberg, deploying the cash spouting from its data business, has recruited refugees from The Wall Street Journal and Fortune and opened bureaus in places like Ecuador and Abu Dhabi. Its editorial staff (which includes radio, TV and Web site workers) now numbers 2,200, compared with 1,250 journalists at The Times and 1,900 at Dow Jones (a figure that includes the newswires and the Journal staff).

When the 80-year-old BusinessWeek went on the block, Bloomberg opened its wallet and snatched it away from circling private equity firms in October for just $5 million in cash &<51; a relatively small sum that still represents a big change. For the last decade, Bloomberg has barely bothered to venture outside the realm of high finance; its news was produced to help subscribers to its terminals make more money for themselves.

With BusinessWeek, likely to be renamed Bloomberg BusinessWeek, the company is setting its sights on a much broader audience. That includes Main Street readers and, much more important for Bloomberg, senior executives, government leaders and other global movers and shakers. It&S217;s also trying to revamp its Web site and television programming &<51; long neglected inside the company &<51; into services that appeal to people who don&S217;t trade securities for a living.

At a time when most media companies can barely pay for cake at going-away parties, Bloomberg appears to be rolling in dough.

Its headquarters, on the East Side, has the crystalline look and smooth textures of an airport terminal from the 22nd century. It has sleek, elegantly curved glass walls, outdoor patios, art installations hanging over escalators, fish tanks filled with exotic species and digital screens overhead that display the weather &<51; with lightning flashes &<51; and trading levels for the Nasdaq. Employees snack on free kiwis and pomegranates and gulp fancy sodas. The company even employs full-time bathroom attendants to wipe up errant droplets of water on the countertops.

Although Bloomberg, which is privately held, draws attention for its media ambitions, a vast majority of the company&S217;s projected $6.3 billion in revenue &<51; and nearly all of its profit &<51; derives from financial information systems. These software packages, still known as &S220;terminals&S221; from when Bloomberg made the hardware, can be found on virtually all Wall Street trading desks, housing huge amounts of data and analytics, from price quotations for fixed-income and derivative products to complex risk analysis &<51; making Bloomberg a live-on-Wall-Street, die-on-Wall-Street enterprise.

During the financial boom of the last two decades, Bloomberg terminals flew out the door. This year, for the first time in the company&S217;s history, the number of installed terminals will fall, albeit modestly. Some analysts wonder whether the company&S217;s fast-growth days could be behind it, spurring it to seek new ways to make money on Wall Street while upping the ante in its media game.

The time has come, company officials say, to move beyond a hard-core clientele of financial information hounds.

&S220;We need a broader audience,&S221; says Daniel L. Doctoroff, Bloomberg&S217;s president. &S220;The history of this company is you do the counterintuitive, countercyclical thing. It&S217;s part of our DNA.&S221;

1 2 3 4 Next Page »

At Bloomberg, Modest Strategy to Rule the World

LONDON -- Former London-based UBS client adviser Andrew Cumming was banned and fined 35,000 pounds ($58,000) by the U.K. Financial Services Authority for allegedly documenting false loans which were used to conceal losses arising from unauthorized trading. UBS was recently fined 8 million pounds by the FSA for systems and controls failings. Because Cumming agreed to settle at an early stage of the FSA's investigation he qualified for a 30% discount on the financial penalty.

Ex-UBS Adviser Cumming Banned By FSA

Hot News: Airline Stocks Mixed; Major Carriers Trade Up

WASHINGTON (AP) &<51; After a slow start, the Obama administration&S217;s mortgage relief program has reached one in five eligible homeowners, a government report said Tuesday.

More than 650,000 borrowers, or 20 percent of those eligible, have signed up for trials lasting up to five months, the Treasury Department said Tuesday. The modifications reduce monthly payments to more affordable levels.

Started with great fanfare in March, the plan got off to a weak start, but now nearly 920,000 loan modification offers have been sent to more than 3.2 million eligible homeowners. That works out to 29 percent, up from 15 percent at the end of July.

In California, about 130,000 homeowners have been enrolled in the &S220;Making Home Affordable&S221; loan modification plan, which President Obama introduced in February. That works out to about 19 percent of homeowners who were either two payments behind or in foreclosure at the end of last month, according to Treasury Department data.

Two other hard-hit states, Arizona and Nevada, had similar rates of assistance as California, at 22 percent and 18 percent. Florida, however, was much lower, at 12 percent, possibly because of high numbers of investor-owned properties that did not qualify for the program.

The $50 billion plan got off to a slow start, but government officials say they are pressing the industry to improve performance. Still, many housing advocates have been disappointed with progress and say that getting a loan modification is still a battle.

And economists doubt the Obama administration will reach its broad goal of helping three million to four million borrowers within three years.

Most of the borrowers enrolled so far have been signed up for preliminary trial modifications for up to five months. To make the change permanent, though, they must complete a big stack of paperwork and show they can make their payments on time. The government expects to release details in the coming weeks on permanent modifications.

Mortgage Aid Is Said to Be Reaching More

For many women, a $1,000 dress is something they admire in the pages of a glossy magazine or see draped on the frame of a celebrity &<51; not an item hanging in their closet.

Skip to next paragraph Enlarge This Image Todd Heisler/ The New York Times

Through the mail-order service from Jennifer Carter Fleiss, above left, and Jennifer Hyman, a four-night dress rental costs $50 to $200.

Enlarge This Image Todd Heisler/The New York Times

But a nascent Web site called Rent the Runway is hoping to make high-end fashions much more accessible and almost as easy as renting a movie from Netflix.

The mail-order service, which finishes the testing phase on Monday, allows women to rent dresses from notable fashion designers like Diane Von Furstenberg, Herv&>33; L&>33;ger and Proenza Schouler for roughly one-tenth of what they would cost to buy in a retail store.

The rentals run $50 to $200 for a four-night loan and are shipped directly to the customer&S217;s doorstep. After wearing the dress, she puts it into a prepaid envelope and drops it in the mail. Dry cleaning is included in the price, but damage insurance costs $5, and in the case of outright destruction of the dress, the renter is responsible for the full retail price.

Rent the Runway is a recession-era twist on the Internet rent-by-mail model, which has been used for things like textbooks and video games in addition to movies. Unlike those utilitarian items, however, the dresses offer a touch of Cinderella &<51; on a budget.

Julia Harris, a 27-year-old graduate student living in New York, turned to Rent the Runway when she needed something chic for a fall wedding. For $50, she got a fuchsia Catherine Malandrino number with an elaborately ruffled bust that would have cost $495 to buy.

&S220;It was so easy. You just wear it and drop it back in the mail to them,&S221; Ms. Harris said. &S220;I don&S217;t spend $2,000 on a dress regularly, so it&S217;s nice to be able to wear some of the more expensive brands I wouldn&S217;t be able to buy otherwise. And instead of just buying one or two dresses for this season, I can still have a lot of things to wear.&S221;

Rent the Runway was founded by two recent Harvard Business School graduates, Jennifer Hyman and Jennifer Carter Fleiss. Ms. Hyman said she got the idea for the service last year after watching her younger sister agonize over whether to buy an expensive new outfit to wear to a wedding.

&S220;Here was this young girl who loves fashion and was willing to spend a good portion of her salary on a dress that she&S217;s only going to wear once or twice, and I thought, there has to be a solution for this,&S221; said Ms. Hyman.

The founders say that more than 20,000 women have signed up for the service, which has been shipping dresses for only a week. Bain Capital Ventures provided seed financing, which the company used to build its inventory of 160 styles.

Rent the Runway declined to discuss its business strategy, but it is clear the company faces several risks. Unlike DVDs, fashion changes quickly, and there is no guarantee that the company will be able to rent each dress enough times to cover its costs.

In addition, retail stores in major cities have offered dresses for rent for years. Rent the Runway is betting that its shop-by-Web convenience and the appeal of its top-quality fashions will persuade women across the country to rent a dress for a special occasion without trying it on beforehand.

The company has also chosen to make the service invitation-only, which gives it an air of exclusivity but may limit its audience.

Jeff Roster, an analyst with Gartner, said that execution would be critical. &S220;If my movie doesn&S217;t come on time, I might be mad, but life goes on,&S221; he said. &S220;But if my fancy dress for a big important event doesn&S217;t arrive, that&S217;s a customer service problem like you&S217;ve never had before.&S221;

Ms. Hyman and Ms. Carter Fleiss said they had taken several steps to guard against service fiascos. For starters, they use a reservation system to ensure that a customer can get a specific dress for the night she needs it.

To assist with fitting, they have on-call stylists who can advise customers on how certain materials feel and how a particular dress might hang on various body types. In addition, the site offers returns within 24 hours for any reason and will include an extra size of a first dress at no additional cost.

Customers who want to be extra-safe can choose a second style as a backup, for an additional $25. And all dresses come with a custom garment bag and a &S220;fit kit,&S221; which includes double-sided tape, bra strap adjusters and deodorant stain removers.

For fashion designers, the service is a creative marketing strategy and a way to reach a new generation of customers, said Ms. Hyman. &S220;If someone wears a dress and absolutely loves it, she will go out and buy it,&S221; she said.

Although most designers are selling their dresses directly to the service, some are providing exclusive runway pieces that are not commercially sold in exchange for a cut of the revenue.

Christian Siriano, a New York designer who was the winner in the fourth season of the &S220;Project Runway&S221; reality TV show, said Rent the Runway was a way to introduce his collection to a broader audience.

&S220;Even though most people probably know who I am, they don&S217;t know the brand yet,&S221; he said. At a boutique, Mr. Siriano&S217;s pieces can cost as much as $3,000. On Rent the Runway, his styles are offered for $150 to $200.

Those prices are especially appealing in a tough economy, said Karen Scheck, president of Lela Rose, a label whose fans include celebrities like Anne Hathaway.

&S220;In challenging economic times, it&S217;s important for brands to reach a larger audience and age demographic that you wouldn&S217;t normally because of the price,&S221; she said. &S220;This is a great way to do it without jeopardizing the brand.&S221;

The real test of the service will be the quality of its collection, said Samantha Durbin, editor of FabSugar.com, a fashion blog. &S220;The key is to have really great products that are on trend,&S221; she said. &S220;No one wants to rent last season&S217;s dress.&S221;

Haute Couture, Available Through the Netflix Model

SAN FRANCISCO -- Berkshire Hathaway said late Friday that it plans to borrow roughly $8 billion to help the company pay for its acquisition of railroad operator Burlington Northern Santa Fe . Berkshire agreed earlier this week to pay $26 billion for the rest of Burlington it doesn't already own. The company is paying 60% of that with cash and the rest with Berkshire stock. In a regulatory filing late Friday, Berkshire said it "expects to fund about 50% of the total cash consideration of approximately $16 billion with internally generated cash and the remainder with borrowings expected to be repaid over a three year period."

Berkshire To Borrow $8B To Pay For Burlington

NEW YORK -- Energy stocks briefly moved higher but then fell back to mixed trading after the Federal Open Market Committee kept interest rates unchanged. The NYSE Arca Oil Index rose 0.7% to 1,077. The NYSE Arca Natural Gas Index rose 0.8% to 504. The Philadelphia Oil Service Index fell 0.4% to 193, mostly on weakness in Baker Hughes , down nearly 6%.

Energy Stocks Mixed After Fed Move

Filed at 9:46 a.m. ET

Skip to next paragraph Add to Portfolio Clorox Co

Go to your Portfolio &<87;

CHICAGO (AP) -- The Clorox Co. said Monday profit rose 23 percent in its fiscal first quarter, as consumers paid higher prices and stocked up on disinfecting products because of worries about the flu.

Consumers stocking up on bleach and disinfectant wipes helped Clorox exceed its own earnings expectations.

The maker of Brita water filters and Glad bags says profit rose to $157 million, or $1.11 per share, compared with $128 million, or 90 cents per share, a year ago.

For the quarter ended Sept. 30, revenue declined less than 1 percent to $1.37 billion because of unfavorable exchange rates and weak demand for Glad trash bags. It also stopped making store-brand food bags.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of 95 cents and sales of $1.34 billion.

The company also benefited from higher prices, especially overseas, which boosted gross margin. Consumers still paid premium prices for Clorox's products, even though many shoppers have been trading down to cheaper products to save money amid layoffs and tighter credit.

For full-year 2010, Clorox expects earnings between $4.05 per share and $4.20 and sales growth between 1 percent and 2 percent. The company previously forecast earnings per share between $4 and $4.15.

Clorox said its outlook is based on a weaker dollar that will offset increased costs for both marketing and commodities. U.S. companies that record business overseas benefit when the dollar weakens because revenue made in local currencies is converted into more dollars.

Analysts expect earnings per share of $4.18 and sales of $5.57 billion.

Swine Flu Concerns Help Clorox Profit

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama said Saturday that reports the economy is growing again and that more than 1 million jobs were saved or created by his stimulus plan show "we are moving in the right direction."

But he tempered his upbeat message with a cautious word about further job losses and progress yet to be made.

Unemployment hit a 26-year high of 9.8 percent in September, and the October report due next week could show it topping 10 percent.

The government reported this week that the economy grew 3.5 percent from July through September, the first signs of growth in a year and unofficial confirmation that the economic slide that began in December 2007 is over. Separately, the White House said Obama's $787 billion stimulus plan — a mix of spending and tax cuts — had saved or created more than 1 million jobs.

That news, "while not cause for celebration, is certainly reason to believe that we are moving in the right direction," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.

"It is easy to forget that it was only several months ago that the economy was shrinking rapidly and many economists feared another Great Depression," the president said.

Obama's assessment came a day after an independent federal board reported that nearly 650,000 direct jobs have been saved or created because of stimulus program money provided to businesses, contractors, state and local governments, nonprofit groups and universities.

The new data released late Friday represents 156,614 federal contracts, grants and loans worth a total of $215 billion that went to more than 62,000 recipients. The largest number of jobs were created or saved by state governments. About half of the reported jobs were among teachers and other education employees. With state budgets in crisis, federal aid helped governors avoid major cuts in education, which officials said spared many teachers and school workers from the unemployment line.

The 1 million jobs cited by Obama include those from direct economic assistance, plus those linked to the economic boost from $288 billion in tax cuts under the stimulus program, according to White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein.

Republicans expressed doubt on the administration's job-creation claim. GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell described the jobs reports as "bewildering" when 3 million jobs have been lost since Congress approved the stimulus program.

In his address, Obama acknowledged that economic growth is no substitute for job growth. He also telegraphed what is expected to be sour unemployment news when the October figures are released next Friday, saying: "We will likely see further job losses in the coming days."

"But we will not create the jobs we need unless the economy is growing," he said.

Job creation also depends on the willingness of consumers to open their wallets and purses. But on Friday, the Commerce Department reported a 0.5 percent decline in consumer spending in September. It was the first drop in five months and the biggest since last December.

Obama said his administration has taken steps to help get credit to people and businesses of all sizes, stem home foreclosures, cut taxes, create jobs and help people who need it, such as seniors and the unemployed.

"So we have made progress," he said. "At the same time, I want to emphasize that there's still plenty of progress to be made. For we know that the positive news for the economy as a whole means little if you've lost your job and can't find another, if you can't afford health care or the mortgage, if you do not see in your own life the improvement we are seeing in these economic statistics."

___

On the Net:

http://www.whitehouse.gov

Obama highlights fresh signs of economic growth

Filed at 2:36 a.m. ET

Skip to next paragraph

TOKYO, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Honda Motor Co (NYSE:HMC) , the world's seventh-biggest car maker, nearly tripled its annual profit forecasts as second-quarter earnings fell less than forecast, thanks to government stimulus schemes around the world that boosted sales.

Honda has weathered the industry turmoil, which drove two U.S. automakers to bankruptcy this year, better than many as its profitable and dominant motorcycle business cushioned the blow.

Sales by the maker of Honda Civic cars have turned up thanks to government sales incentives such as the United States' cash-for-clunkers programme. That has helped Honda and others gradually lift production levels from a nadir earlier this year.

Honda said on Tuesday its operating profit for July-September fell 56 percent to 65.54 billion yen ($712 million) from 148.85 billion yen in the second quarter last year as sales volumes fell and the yen strengthened against the dollar.

The result beat an estimate of 42 billion yen in a poll of five analysts by Thomson Reuters (NYSE:TRI) (TSX:TRI) I/B/E/S.

Net profit, which includes its earnings from the red-hot Chinese market, was 54.04 billion yen, against 123.32 billion yen last year.

For the full year to March 31, 2010, Honda nearly tripled its operating profit outlook to 190 billion yen from 70 billion yen.

The seventh biggest car maker by first-half sales also nearly tripled its net forecast to 155 billion yen from 55 billion yen.

That topped consensus forecasts from 21 brokerages for Honda's operating profit for the full year to March 2010 to hit 139 billion yen, with net profit of 113 billion yen.

Rivals Toyota Motor Corp (NYSE:TM) and Nissan Motor Co (NASDAQ:NSANY) are also expected to report improved second-quarter earnings next week, but Honda is seen making the most profit by far for the full year, partly due to its more flexible operations, fewer exports from Japan and a slim car line-up.

While market forecasts suggest earnings will continue to improve for Honda next year, auto executives are concerned about volatile currency moves and repercussions on demand when government stimulus measures around the world end.

Honda's sales in Japan, for one, have been powered by generous tax reductions on hybrids such as its new Insight model, and executives have said sales could suffer when the incentives run their course.

Shares of Honda gained 3.9 percent during the second quarter, outperforming Tokyo's transport sector subindex, which was flat.

Honda ended down 1.9 percent at 2,845 yen on Tuesday before the results were announced, against the transport sector's 1.7 percent fall.

Honda Raises Forecast as Stimulus Fuels Sales

Mr. Mosler, 52, has for five years served as the president and chief executive of Cushman & Wakefield, a global real estate services firm whose majority owner is Exor S.p.A. of Italy. The company said on Oct. 15 that Mr. Mosler would give up those posts and become a co-chairman, alongside John C. Cushman III.

Skip to next paragraph Enlarge This Image Richard Perry/The New York Times

Mr. Mosler.

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Q. Why are you stepping aside as C.E.O.?

A. Anybody who knows me knows I didn&S217;t take the job for it to be a career job. I had objectives in mind when I took over in 2005, and most of them were met.

Q. It wasn&S217;t a loss in confidence by Exor, as some speculate?

A. No, no, quite the contrary, and I&S217;ll explain. I took over with some objectives in mind. One was to increase the shareholder participation by our people in the field&<51; our sales force and our most talented young professionals.

The other was to find a majority investor, which we did with Exor in 2007, because our prior majority investor made it clear this was the appropriate time to exit.

Then, finally, my objective was to realign the business given the fact that from 2007 on we were in one of the most challenging economic environments in the world.

Q. What would you say then to those who still believe that you were merely kicked upstairs?

A. My response is very simple to those folks: if being kicked upstairs is continuing in the role until we find the right person, being allowed to go out with the most mature title as co-chairman of the board, generating new business for the firm and going back to what you&S217;re passionate about, then that&S217;s O.K. All those people would have to see where Cushman &&8; Wakefield is a year or two from today, and if we&S217;re the better for this decision, then it&S217;s irrelevant. The firm comes first.

Q. How will your new job differ from that of C.E.O.?

A. The C.E.O.&S217;s job is principally focused on the business itself &<51; where the business is growing, every financial aspect of that business and the day-to-day running of the business. My job will be focused on revenue generation and client interface, and therein lies the difference. I will mentor the new C.E.O. into the business as was done for me.

Q. Is there a time frame for finding someone?

A. I think we will accomplish this between now and year-end.

Q. As part of growing revenue, your new focus will be on the global business. Are there some areas in particular?

A. Asia has been an area of focus. I think it&S217;s one of the most challenging areas to acquire and grow in that capacity. It really has to be done on an almost one-off basis &<51; team by team, person by person. The acquisition of a business in Asia has so many nuances that you&S217;re almost better off to hire key teams into your system; provide, as we have, scholarships to universities; and get young people in and teach them from the get-go the C. &&8; W. way of doing business.

Q. Where were inroads made?

A. India has always been a great success story. We have probably the largest market share on the tenant rep side. We have one of the largest appraisers, property managers, project managers and investment sales in India. The key is great local leadership.

Q. Moving on to New York, what&S217;s your outlook here?

A. This is a marketplace that has an 11 percent vacancy, roughly. That&S217;s not good, but with perspective looking back to the early &S217;90s, it&S217;s not bad.

We have to recognize that what we&S217;re going through is an adjustment. We have lost 30 to 35 percent of market value, and in most of the major buildings there is lease depreciation. Rents were averaging $75; now they&S217;re averaging $57 a square foot.

What&S217;s happened in the last 90 days is that tenants have recognized the value out there. Today, we&S217;re seeing people begin to lock up this particular opportunity.

Q. So tenants are locking in now and for longer terms?

A. Yes and yes. Basically we&S217;ve seen rent capitulation; the result of that, there is demand in the marketplace again. We&S217;re seeing landlords willing to lock in long term because they too recognize that this is where the new market value sits. We&S217;re seeing 15- and 20-year leases more often.

I think we&S217;ve hit the bottom &<51; we all feel that way in this industry. We&S217;re beginning to feel there&S217;s a bit of wind at our back. This is a wonderful time to think about two things: investing and leasing.

Interview conducted and condensed by Vivian Marino.

Square Feet | The 30-Minute Interview: Bruce E. Mosler

PARIS &S212; Initial data on British third-quarter growth showed the economy there remained mired in recession, while survey releases from the euro area Friday presented a picture of steadily improving economic activity.

A preliminary release from the Office of National Statistics in London showed that Britain&S217;s economy remained deep in recession during the third quarter. Gross domestic product contracted by 0.4 percent between July and September from the previous three months and shrank by 5.2 percent compared with a year earlier, the agency said.

The data confounded analysts, who had expected a 0.2 percent growth on the quarter, based on recent improvements in housing, purchasing managers&S217; indexes and the weak pound, which should make exports more competitive.

There was weakness in the service sector, where output fell 0.2 percent; industrial production, down 0.7 percent; and construction, off 1.1 percent. Within the service sector, distribution, hotels and restaurants were notably weak.

The British economy has now contracted for six successive quarters and appears to be lagging developments on the Continent.

Going into the fourth quarter, the economy consisting of the 16 countries that use the euro currency is being lifted by broad improvements in manufacturing, services and consumer demand.

German business confidence in October rose to its highest level in 13 months high, according to the Ifo economic research institute in Munich. Its business climate index, which surveys 7,000 executives, rose to 91.9 from 91.3 in September. The index touched a recent low of 82.2 in March.

&S220;The third quarter was a good quarter for the German economy,&S221; said Carsten Brzeski, an analyst at ING. &S220;Probably even an excellent quarter.&S221; He said the economy had benefited from the pick-up in global activity, stock rebuilding, stimulus-driven private consumption and tax relief.

&S220;Today&S217;s Ifo gives hope that the economy can take some of the current momentum into the next quarter,&S221; he added. &S220;Stable but positive consumer confidence, several months of increasing new orders and ongoing restocking bode well for the coming months.&S221;

A separate release Friday from the data firm Markit showed a composite index of manufacturing and services industries in the euro area improved to 53 in October from 51.1 in September.

The reading this month was the highest in 22 months, Markit said. Economics had expected a gain to 51.6; a reading above 50 indicates expansion.

Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit, said the data &S220;indicate that the euro-zone economy has entered the fourth quarter on a strong note, with growth accelerating in both manufacturing and services&S221;

Mr. Williamson said the data were consistent with G.D.P. rising at a quarterly rate of around 0.4 percent in the month of October.

For Germany, the Markit composite purchasing managers&S217; index, which surveys the services and manufacturing sectors, showed growth for the third month running with a reading of 52.6, up from 52.4 in September.

The manufacturing index rose to 51.1 from 49.6, lifted by a jump in new orders.

Activity in the French private sector also expanded. The Markit/CDAF flash composite purchasing managers&S217; index, for manufacturing and services sectors, rose to a 35-month high of 58.4 in October from 54.8 in September.

A senior economist at Markit, Paul Smith, said: &S220;While employment continues to fall, emerging signs of capacity pressures and optimism in the strength of the upturn raise hopes that job losses will dwindle over the coming months.&S221;

Separately, the national statistics office INSEE said Friday that French consumer spending jumped 2.3 percent in September from August, well above expectations of a 0.5 percent rise, and following a 1.0 percent decline in August and a similar decline in July.

In particular, sales of automobiles rose by 10.2 percent after falling in July and August.

Christine Lagarde, the economy minister, said the improvement was not only linked to better auto sales, which have been helped by tax breaks on trading in old models; she stressed that the rebound was broad based.

This week, Ms. Lagarde said the third quarter in France would be stronger that the second. The French economy grew 0.3 percent in the second quarter.

U.K. Economy in Recession for 6th Straight Quarter

Morgan Stanley announced on Wednesday that it had returned to profitability in the third quarter after three successive quarterly losses.

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The bank said it earned $498 million or 38 cents a share, compared with $7.7 billion, or $7.38 a share, in the quarter a year ago when results were helped by a one-time gain.

Earnings from continuing operations were $757 million in the third quarter, after a loss of $159 million in the second quarter. The results beat expectations. Analysts had expected earnings 29 cents a share on revenues of about $6.99 billion.

Net revenue in the third quarter was $8.7 billion compared with $18 billion a year ago. The bank said revenue in the most recent quarter was lower in part because a continued improvement in debt-related credit spreads that reduced sales and trading revenue.

It also announced compensation expenses of $5 billion for the third quarter compared with $5.1 billion in the period a year ago. Over nine months, the Morgan Stanley has set aside $10.9 billion for compensation and benefits, down 9 percent from a year ago.

Last week, another Wall Street titan, Goldman Sachs, announced it had put $16.7 billion into its bonus pool for compensation in the first nine months, or nearly half of its revenue, to reward its employees &<51; a common practice on Wall Street, even in this post-bailout era.

Wall Street bonuses have once again moved front and center of the public debate as some big banks return strongly to profitability, even though it is only a year after Washington rode to the rescue of the financial industry.

&S220;Morgan Stanley continued to build momentum across our business this quarter,&S221; the chairman and chief executive, John J. Mack, said in a statement. &S220;I am confident that we are well positioned to serve our clients and realize new opportunities as markets continue to recover.&S221;

&S220;We still have work to do in sales and trading,&S221; he said.

The investment banking business, he added, &S220;delivered particularly strong results,&S221; and that there were also improvements from the previous quarter in fixed-income sales and trading, commodities, prime brokerage and wealth management.

Mr. Mack said Morgan Stanley ranked No. 1 in fees from global announced and completed mergers and acquisitions, as well as for global initial public offerings.

The results on Wednesday mark a reversal of fortune for Morgan Stanley. In September, it announced that its chief executive, John J. Mack, would step down at the end of the year.

He is to be succeeded by James P. Gorman, although Mr. Mack will remain as chairman.

That announcement ended months of speculation over who would succeed Mr. Mack as head of what was, until recently, one of the most prestigious and successful banks on Wall Street.

Only a year ago, Morgan Stanley nearly foundered like Lehman Brothers. It was saved, like so much of Wall Street, by a multibillion-dollar bailout and other government aid. Its share price has more than doubled this year from its lows in January.

But as Wall Street has emerged from last year&S217;s financial crisis, Morgan has fallen behind rivals like Goldman Sachs.

While Goldman rebounded to a strong profit this year, on the back of aggressive trading, Morgan took a more conservative approach in trading after its near-death experience.

It was also weighed down by souring real estate investments and as a result remained mired in red ink.

Last week, Goldman reported another set of robust results, saying it earned a profit of $3.19 billion in the third quarter.

Mr. Gorman, currently co-president in charge of Morgan Stanley&S217;s global wealth management, joined Morgan Stanley less than four years ago, from Merrill Lynch, where he ran the global private client business. Before that he was a senior partner at McKinsey &&8; Company.

Now, analysts are waiting to see whether he will be able to steer Morgan Stanley on to a permanent road to recovery.

He has overseen the push to lure ordinary investors to the bank&S217;s blossoming brokerage business. The bank is now relying on the expansion of its retail brokerage business to power future earnings.

Morgan Stanley Returns to a Profit

Amgen has failed to win approval from the Food and Drug Administration, for now at least, for the bone-strengthening drug that the company has been counting on to propel its growth.

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The company said on Monday that the F.D.A. had instead asked for more information &<51; though not new clinical trials &<51; for the drug, denosumab. The drug is meant to be a treatment for osteoporosis, the bone-thinning disease, in women who have passed through menopause.

In recent days some Wall Street analysts had speculated that the F.D.A. would delay its decision on denosumab by 90 days past Monday&S217;s deadline. Such a delay is not uncommon because the agency&S217;s staff is stretched thin. But the F.D.A. instead issued a &S220;complete response&S221; letter, essentially a rejection, which could possibly delay approval well beyond 90 days.

Amgen&S217;s stock fell $1.08, or nearly 2 percent, on Monday, closing at $60.24.

Analysts have predicted that denosumab, which Amgen would sell under the name Prolia, could reach sales of at least $1 billion a year, and possibly much more. Amgen needs a hit product because sales of Aranesp, its flagship drug for anemia, have been hurt by safety concerns. And growth in sales of its other big-selling drugs has slowed.

In a news release Monday morning, Amgen said the F.D.A. had asked for several items before it could approve denosumab to treat osteoporosis, including more information on the studies the company would perform after the drug is approved. The agency is also still discussing Amgen&S217;s plans for limiting the risks from the drug&S217;s use.

However, the company said, the F.D.A. did not ask for more clinical trials, which would have meant a much longer delay.

&S220;We are confident that we can quickly respond to the F.D.A.&S217;s request for the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis indication and plan to do so in the near term,&S221; Dr. Roger M. Perlmutter, the company&S217;s executive vice president for research and development, said in a statement.

Analysts generally said they expected Amgen to be able to satisfy the F.D.A.&S217;s requirements.

Geoffrey Meacham of JPMorgan predicted the drug could be approved by the first quarter of 2010. Joshua Schimmer of Leerink Swann predicted a delay of five to 10 months.

But while Amgen could win approval next year for treatment of osteoporosis, it will be harder to win approval for prevention of the disease. The company said Monday that the F.D.A. had asked for another clinical trial of the drug to prevent the bone disease in women who have less severe bone weakness.

In August, an advisory committee to the F.D.A. had voted 15-0 in August in favor of approval of denosumab to treat osteoporosis, but 12-3 against approval for preventing it.

Amgen is also expecting a decision soon on its application to sell denosumab as a treatment for the bone loss caused by hormone suppression therapies used to treat breast and prostate cancer. The advisory committee was not very enthusiastic about those uses of the drug.

About 10 million women in the United States have osteoporosis, and an additional 34 million are at risk for it, according to the National Osteoporosis Foundation.

The main drugs now used to treat the condition are bisphosphonates &<51; including Fosamax, Actonel and Boniva &<51; which are taken as pills every day, or every week or every month. But those drugs can be hard to tolerate, and many patients stop taking them.

Denosumab, which works through a mechanism discovered in Amgen&S217;s own laboratories, is a protein called a monoclonal antibody. It would be given by an injection every six months, which could make it easier for patients to remain on therapy.

But insurers are likely to require that patients try bisphosphonates first, particularly since generic versions of Fosamax are now available and likely to be far less expensive than denosumab.

F.D.A. Says No to an Amgen Bone Drug