UK unemployment rate drops as economy strengthens but wages remain subdued + MORE Jun 11th

VANCOUVER – The founder of Lululemon yoga wear wants a shakeup among board members at the company he founded.
Chip Wilson voted against the re-election of two board members, saying a change is needed to increase shareholder value.
Lululemon Athletics Inc. (Nasdaq: LULU) holds its annual shareholder meeting today in Vancouver.
The company has had to deal with the fallout from a style of yoga pants that had fabric which was sometimes see-through and a drop in its stock price.
Wilson says he voted against the re-election of former Starbucks executive Michael Casey and RoAnn Costin, president of a private U.S. equity company, adding the company’s board is weighted towards short-term results at the expense of product, brand and long-term corporate goals.
He says his vote against the two directors sends a signal to the financial community that Lululemon must address the board member issue if the company is to recover.
Wilson founded the company in 1998, is a board member and holds a 27 per cent stake in the company…

NEW YORK, N.Y. – Soccer fans will focus on Brazil and the start of the World Cup Thursday, but investors have been entranced by that nation’s stock market for months.
Brazil has company. From Sao Paulo to Mumbai, investors are regaining their faith in emerging markets this year.
It’s a big shift from 2013, when investment in those markets dried up because of worries about their slowing economic growth. It got so tough that five big developing markets — Brazil, South Africa, India, Indonesia and Turkey — were dubbed the “Fragile Five” by analysts at Morgan Stanley.
Now those countries are much more appealing to investors. Some have taken actions to strengthen their economies. Others have gone through political changes that have bolstered investor confidence. At the same time, slower growth in the U.S. has made investing overseas more alluring.
“These countries have done some homework to reduce their fragilities,” says Jorge Mariscal, chief investment officer for emerging markets at UBS Wealth Management…

This GIC rate is offered by DUCA Financial Services and was updated on 2014-05-31. Click on the link above to get more details or apply online.

LONDON – Britain’s unemployment rate is falling sharply as the economy continues to strengthen, but wage growth continues to lag, official figures showed Wednesday.
The Office for National Statistics said the jobless rate dropped to 6.6 per cent in the three months ending in April from 7.2 per cent in the period ending in January.
Some 72.9 per cent of the population aged 16 to 64 was working, still just slightly less than before the 2008-2009 economic downturn brought on by the global financial crisis. There were 780,000 more people working than a year earlier.
Pay including bonuses inched up by just 0.7 per cent from a year earlier — well below the inflation rate of 1.8 per cent. Chris Williamson, the chief economist of Markit, says the weak growth and the “‘cost of living crisis’ remains the Achilles Heel of the economic recovery.”
He expects wage growth to accelerate as the labour market tightens. How long that will take is likely to affect how early interest rates rise…

This GIC rate is offered by Oaken Financial and was updated on 2014-06-06. Click on the link above to get more details or apply online.