www.heraldtribune.com The Associated Press

Crude oil futures ended higher Tuesday, as traders awaited weekly inventory data and President Bush's State of the Union address.

"What news is out there is not big enough to drive the market one way or another," said Jan Stuart, an analyst at ABN Amro in New York, referring to the market's lackluster performance.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, nearby March crude rose 38 cents to close at $32.67 a barrel

February heating oil slipped 0.39 cent to close at 93.04 cents a gallon. February gasoline jumped 2.57 cents to close at 92.72 cents a gallon.

On London's International Petroleum Exchange, March Brent advanced 38 cents to close at $30.24 a barrel Natural gas for February delivery rose 4.8 cents to settle at $5.44 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Bush is expected to use his annual speech to Congress to persuade the American public that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and links to the al-Qaida terrorist network pose a threat to the nation.

Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said that "from the president's point of view, it remains a very grave threat" that Saddam Hussein will strike soon at U.S. interests. However, Bush plans neither a declaration of war nor an announcement of what Iraq's last-ditch deadline is for complying with a demand to disarm in his address.

Secretary of State Colin Powell will present new evidence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, perhaps at the United Nations, early next week, officials said.

Although growing international calls for more inspections helped spur Monday's sell-off, traders remain jittery as the United States steps up preparation for a possible attack on Iraq.

Traders fear that an attack would lead to a large-scale disruption of oil supplies from the Middle East - a concern that was heightened by comments from Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz.

"Kuwait is a battlefield and American troops are in Kuwait and preparing themselves to attack Iraq," Aziz told Canada's CBC television. "If there will be an attack from Kuwait, I cannot say that we will not retaliate."

Separately, Venezuelan oil output topped the 1 million barrel a day mark, according to dissident workers at state-owned monopoly Petroleos de Venezuela.

The increase in output and exports comes amid signs of a breakdown in the eight-week-old general strike.

The erosion of the strike could result in further increases in output, but longer-term, the erosion is bullish because it means President Hugo Chavez "stays in power, and PdVSA does not go back to the efficient company that it was," Jan Stuart of ABN Amro said.

Meanwhile, traders were awaiting weekly inventory data from the American Petroleum Institute and the Department of Energy due out early Wednesday.

The data is expected to show an average decline of 2 million barrels in crude oil stocks for the week ended Jan. 24, according to a Dow Jones Newswires survey of analysts.

Distillate stocks, which include heating oil and diesel fuel, are expected to show a decline of 4.4 million barrels, while gasoline inventories are mostly seen building by about 1.25 million barrels.

orlando.bizjournals.com 15:36 EST Wednesday 

Economic development agency Enterprise Florida has shed 22 jobs this month in response to a funding shortfall.

Thirteen workers lost their jobs and nine vacant positions were eliminated in the January cuts. Cuts were made in Orlando, Tallahassee and Miami.

The quasi-public agency receives 43 percent of its funding from a $2-a-day state fee on rental cars.

The agency was told to expect a $1.6 million shortfall from those funds, says Kim Prunty, a spokeswoman for Orlando-based Enterprise Florida.

Additionally, the agency interrupted contracts with six international offices in Taiwan, Venezuela, Israel, South Africa, Japan and Korea.

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But Prunty says Enterprise Florida is now hopeful that three or four of those operations could continue.

Next year's funding looks better for the agency. In the governor's proposed budget, Enterprise Florida would receive the full amount it was to receive this year, before the $1.6 million shortfall.

www.forbes.com Reuters, 01.29.03, 2:23 PM ET By Noel Randewich

MEXICO CITY, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Corporate Mexico's fourth quarter earnings are likely to be marred by a sluggish economy as well as weakness in the peso at the end of 2002, although some companies, like beer giant Grupo Modelo and financial group Banorte, could impress investors.

"In general we can see that it's not going to be a very favorable quarter, for a number of reasons," said Jesus Viveros, an analyst in Mexico City's Bursametrica consulting company.

The reporting period, which stretches on to Feb. 27, started on a gloomy note last week when giant global cementcompany Cemex (nyse: CX - news - people) <CEMEXCPO.MX> reported a weak fourth quarter due to poor sales in the United States and Venezuela.

Final figures are yet to be released, but Mexico's central bank expects the economy to have grown by about 2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2002, compared with shrinkage in the fourth quarter of 2001.

"Although there was a certain recovery in the data, companies are still not going to report very favorable numbers," Viveros said. Analysts agreed that increasing weakness in the peso also harmed corporate results.

After strengthening to highs that led it to be coined the "super peso" in 2001, Mexico's currency lost 12 percent of its value against the dollar in 2002, damaging the profits of import-reliant businesses and companies with large dollar-denominated debts to service.

Top wireless telecom America Movil's <AMXL.MX> (nyse: AMX - news - people) net profits are expected to come in 22.5 percent lower at 1.31 billion pesos, the result of increased costs associated with servicing dollar-denominated debt as Mexico and Brazil's currencies weakened, according to a Reuters survey.

Mexico's rival television broadcasters TV Azteca <TVAZTCACPO.MX> and Televisa <TLEVISACPO.MX> will both probably announce lower earnings as a result of the weakening peso.

UBS Warburg predicted Televisa's earnings per American Depositary Receipt (ADR) (nyse: TV - news - people) would come in at $0.33, down from $0.64 a year before, as a result of the peso impact and higher tax rates.

TV Azteca's earnings per ADR (nyse: TZA - news - people) will likely be $0.16, down from $0.37 a year earlier, also because of the weak peso, said UBS Warburg.

PESO SUPPORTS MODELO But Grupo Modelo <GMODELOC.MX>, the maker of Corona, the No. 1 imported beer in the United States, will gain from the peso's weakness, analysts said.

"Modelo is going to see significant growth in operation and net earnings because a large part of its revenues are in dollars," said Rogelio Gallegos, a fund manager at Mexico City's Actinver. "They're among the few to benefit from the weaker peso."

Mexico's two widely traded banks, BBVA-Bancomer <GFBBB.MX> and Banorte <GFNORTEO.MX>, are both likely to report increased earnings -- largely the result of higher interest rates in the fourth quarter that improved the banks' interest margins, or the difference between what banks pay on deposits and the rate they collect on loans.

While analysts said both banks are likely to show some loan growth over the prior quarter, JP Morgan analyst Yolanda Courtines predicted that the growth in Banorte's credit portfolio would outpace BBVA-Bancomer's thanks to its "more aggressive" lending program.

The earnings of Mexico's largest telecom Telefonos deMexico (Telmex) <TELEMXL.MX> (nyse: TMX - news - people) are expected suffer after 18 months of frozen local and long-distance rates.

"There is not enough traffic volume to compensate for rates being frozen," said Vector brokerage telecom analyst Manuel Jimenez. Telmex, expected to report its fourth quarter results in early February, will probably show a 4 percent decline in earnings over the year-ago period, according to a Reuters poll of analysts.

Fourth-quarter earnings of Wal-Mart de Mexico (Walmex) <WALMEXV.MX>, the country's top retailer, will almost certainly suffer from the loss of an important Mexico City government gift voucher program that in previous years guaranteed a steady flow of government employees at its cash registers.

Walmex is likely to report earnings per share of 0.42 pesos, flat with the year-earlier period, forecast Credit Suisse.

reuters.com Wed January 29, 2003 12:26 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Argentina and the United States will work together to craft a new Washington Consensus, the ideological framework that marked relations between the White House and Latin America in the 1990s, a senior Argentine official said on Wednesday.

Born in the late 1980s, the Washington Consensus consisted of a cocktail of policy recommendations that went from privatizations to the elimination of trade barriers.

Many governments embraced the recommendations enthusiastically, but the Consensus failed to better the lot of most Latin Americans, which recently have shown their displeasure at the polls by electing left-leaning governments in Venezuela, Ecuador and Brazil.

Worse, the economy of Argentina, the poster-child of economic reforms in the 1990s, crashed early in 2002, plunging that country into its deepest recession ever.

Martin Redrado, the vice minister of foreign affairs, talked about the consensus during a two-hour meeting with Richard Haass, the State Department's policy director.

"We agreed that there must be a new Washington Consensus," he told Reuters in a telephone interview. "Clearly, the consensus has been insufficient to bring about a better standard of living for our people."

Redrado, who is meeting with other top administration officials during a two-day visit to Washington, said the United States "understands that the Consensus lacked a political side."

"We see that it lacked a social side."

The Consensus recommendations were also embraced by multilateral organizations like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The World Bank now makes social programs a hallmark of its lending strategy.

The creator of the original Washington Consensus term, John Williamsohn, an economist with the Institute of International Economics, is working a new set of guidelines, which will be presented in March at the annual meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank, to be held in Milan.

Williamsohn said the paper, co-authored with other top Latin American economists, will carry a new name tag.

Argentina, the United States and other Latin American nations will work together to generate a "new consensus that underscores the main guidelines for development in this decade," he said.

Redrado also heads a Buenos Aires economic think tank, the Capital Foundation.

news.ft.com By Nerma Jelacic in London Published: January 29 2003 13:16 | Last Updated: January 29 2003 14:07

Investors in gold and oil on Wednesday reacted cautiously to the overnight State of the Union address by George W Bush in which the US President continued to beat the war drum.

Mr Bush put US troops on standby in his State of the Union speech. The president of the United States accussed Saddam Hussein of showing "utter contempt" for the UN and international public opinion.

"We will consult, but let there be no misunderstanding - if Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm for the safety of our people and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him," Mr Bush said.

He added that his Secretary of State Colin Powell would reveal information on Baghdad's weapons of mass destruction to the UN Security Council on February 5.

"This suggests that the decision to wage war has been taken and the case is now being made," said Lawrence Eagles an analyst at GNI commodities brokerage.

Stock markets tumbled on Wednesday morning while the dollar came under further pressure with major commodites also dipping as investors waited for the US to present its case against Mr Hussein to the UN Security Council.

By midday on Wednesday the IPE Brent contract for March delivery was 34 cents lower at $29.93 a barrel, off a close of $30.27 a barrel on Tuesday.

"While we continue to feel that the US will build its case for war against Iraq over the coming weeks, the fact that Powell will present evidence on February 5 could leave the market with little more than conjecture until then," said Mr Eagles.

Investors also kept their eye on the developments in Venezuela where the general strike showed signs of ending.

But Mr Eagles said traders seemed bored with the Venezuelan issue although it seemed increasingly likely that either a deal would be reached to end the strike or production would increase further.

"Outside of Iraq the news is clearly negative, so we look for prices to decline, but do not expect a complete rout," he added.

Gold also showed a guarded reaction to developments in Iraq on Wednesday. Spot gold was trading at $369.50 an ounce in London, unchanged from the late New York fix recorded some hours before Mr Bush's speech.

"Talk of war, especially if supported by fresh intelligence on weapons of mass destruction will keep the gold price supported although the uncertainty of the timetable for military action may delay any move higher for now," said John Reade, precious metals analyst at UBS Warburg

James Moore of the BullionDesk.com said the market was looking over-bought and expected to see some consolidation.

"I think we could fall back to $364 but with the weekend aproaching I wouldn't be surprised if the highs get pushed up to $375-$380," Mr Moore said.

Earlier in the week bullion hit $372.55, its highest level for six years.