Latest Harry Potter film enchants audiences, breaks records

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” was busy smashing records even before the sun rose
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With 3,800 locations screening the midnight showing of the final installment of the Potter franchise, the movie netted $43.5 million in its first three hours of release.

That number crushed the previous record held by “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse,” which recorded $30 million in midnight earnings in 2010. The vampire series “Twilight” is based on the books by Stephenie Meyer.

The “Harry Potter” films, of course, also have a literary predecessor. The films are based on the best-selling books by J.K. Rowling. All told, the “Potter” films have grossed more than $6 billion worldwide since the release of the first movie, “Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone” in 2001.

The scene outside of the AMC 24 at Quail Springs Mall, 2501 W Memorial Road, on Thursday evening was filled with fans dressed as their favorite characters.

The line into the theater wound its way from the ticket line in the food court all the way up to the third floor of the mall.

Quail Springs AMC showed the movie on all 24 screens, and a theater employee said every theater sold out for the midnight showing.

With the movie's opening-weekend projections targeted at $150 million, “Deathly Hallows: Part 2” may fall just short of the record for all-time best opening weekend. “The Dark Knight,” which starred Christian Bale and Heath Ledger, rocketed to $158 million the weekend of July 18, 2008.

LIC Housing Finance plans to launch Rs 500-cr fund in Sept

LIC Housing Finance Ltd plans to launch a Rs 500-crore venture capital (VC) fund for urban infrastructure development by September, according to its director and chief executive officer, V K Sharma.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the company’s property exhibition here today, he said LIC Housing Finance had already started the process for launching the fund. The company is also planning to launch a pure fixed rate housing loan product.


LIC Housing Finance would raise interest rates if the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) increases its key policy rates. “The increase in interest rates is squeezing our margin. We did not increase the rates when the central bank revised these last time. We are waiting for the RBI guidance and if the rates are increased again, we also have to go for a rate hike,” said Sharma. It had increased its interest rates by 25 basis points twice in the recent past, in March and June, following the interest rate hikes by RBI.

Sharma said there would not be more than two upward revision in interest rates in future. However, he expressed hopes that the rates would come down after that.
The current interest rate of LIC Housing Finance is around 10.15 per cent for loans up to Rs 20 lakh and around 10.75 per cent for loans above that, on floating rate basis.
The company is expecting a net interest margin of 2.7-2.8 per cent this financial year. It has a nine per cent market share in the country’s housing finance business and is expecting a 25 per cent overall growth this financial year. It is also looking at a loan disbursement of Rs 5,500 crore in southern states, compared to Rs 4,125 crore in the previous financial year, according to Sharma

Citigroup Estimates It Has $22 Billion at Risk in Five European Countries

Citigroup Inc. (C), the third-biggest U.S. bank, estimated it has at least $22 billion in loans, trading assets and other “exposures” to Greece,Italy, Portugal, Spain and Ireland.
The net figure includes $13 billion in so-called funded exposure as of June 30, mostly in the form of credit to financial institutions and companies, according to an earnings presentation today on the New York-based firm’s website. Sovereign entities account for “a little more than” $1 billion of that amount, it said.
The remaining $9 billion is unfunded exposure, mainly to international companies based in the five countries, where Citigroup provides settlement and clearing services, according to the presentation. Estimates were based on the firm’s internal risk measures, it said.
“Our exposure to the businesses and the sovereigns in those countries certainly is appropriate given our size, our stature and our business model,” Chief Financial Officer John Gerspach, 57, told reporters today on a conference call.
Citigroup, led by Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit, tumbled 5.3 percent in New York Stock Exchange trading on July 11 as concern mounted that Europe’s debt crisis may engulf Italy, which has the region’s second-highest borrowings.
The bank previously disclosed $12.3 billion in loans to Italian customers at the end of 2010, including banks and public entities, and a further $18.4 billion in legally binding “commitments.” This figure doesn’t include so-called hedges, when an investor makes a bet to protect against potential loss on an existing position. The company hadn’t made detailed disclosures on the five countries since then.

Gross Exposure

Pandit and Gerspach declined to tell analysts in a separate conference call what the bank’s gross exposure to the five countries was, not including hedges. In response to questions from Michael Mayo, an analyst at Credit Agricole SA in New York, Gerspach said the figure was irrelevant while Pandit defended the bank’s hedges and risk-management approach.
“If Europe turns into a real problem, the net exposure guidance or disclosure you gave isn’t going to give investors any comfort whatsoever,” Michael Holton, an analyst with Boston Co. Asset Management LLC, said on the call. “I would encourage you to give the gross exposure at some point if you’re not going to do it today.”
In addition to the $22 billion, Citigroup said it has money at risk to retail customers and small businesses through locally funded lending. Most of that is through Citi Holdings, a division that contains businesses tagged for sale, and is focused on Greece and Spain, it said.

Maintaining Relationships

“We fully expect to maintain our long-standing relationships” in the five countries, Citigroup wrote in the presentation.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) reported yesterday that its outstanding loans and contracts to the five countries total about $15 billion. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon, 55, said the amount “bounces around by several billion” after taxes and taking into account hedges against that risk. In the worst-case scenario, the bank may lose about $3 billion, he said.
“We’ve not dramatically reduced those exposures,” Dimon said. “We’re still doing a lot of business in Europe.”
Bank of America Corp., the largest U.S. bank by assets, said in a May regulatory filing that it has $16.9 billion at risk in the five countries as of March 31.
Citigroup today reported second-quarter net income of $3.34 billion, a 24 percent increase from a year earlier that beat analysts’ estimates, as it earned more from investment-banking fees and reduced losses tied to troubled assets.

Google's growth is go-go-go

Google is on the plus-side.

The search giant -- which is earning positive reviews for its new social-networking offering Google+ -- is also getting a thumbs up from Wall Street.

Yesterday, the stock jumped 13 percent to close at $597.62.

Shares in the company have been surging since the launch of its Facebook rival in June, giving investors reason to believe the company is on a Web 2.0 growth trajectory.

Also, the company reported blowout results yesterday, thanks to the strength of its core search ad business, easing fears that the company was spending too much on its social initiatives and other pet projects.

In a call with analysts to discuss earnings, CEO Larry Page went a long way to assure Wall Street that Google wasn't "betting the farm" on money-losing projects and had strong numbers to back it up.

Google's stock has stormed back from what was looking like a nasty start to the year, with its shares down as much as 20 percent. After yesterday's rise, the stock is almost in positive territory for the year.