STOCKS NEWS US-First Solar sees contract for China power supply

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1344 EST 23Feb2010
First Solar sees contract for China power supply

First Solar Inc expects to sign a sales agreement for electricity produced by its planned Chinese photovoltaic solar power plant, which will begin construction in June or July, Chief Financial Officer Jens Meyerhoff said on Tuesday.

The company first announced the project in September. It said then that it would begin construction on June 1 and that a final agreement would depend on China establishing a feed-in tariff to set a stable purchase price for solar-generated electricity.

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Shares of First Solar fell 5.7 percent to $106.62.

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1332 EST 23Feb2010
Greenspan: recovery is 'extremely unbalanced'

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Tuesday the U.S. economic recovery was 'extremely unbalanced,' driven largely by high earners benefiting from recovering stock markets and and large corporations.

Small businesses and the jobless are still suffering from the aftermath of a credit crunch that was 'by far the greatest financial crisis, globally, ever' -- including the 1930s Great Depression, said Greenspan in an address to a Credit Union National Association conference.

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1321 EST 23Feb2010
Stimulus added up to 2.1 mln jobs in Q4: CBO

The massive stimulus package passed last year to blunt the impact of the worst U.S. recession in 70 years created as many as 2.1 million jobs in the last three months of 2009, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday.

The package boosted the economy by up to 3.5 percent and lowered the unemployment rate by up to 2.1 percent during that period, the CBO said.

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1300 EST 23Feb2010
United Airlines open to mergers: CFO

UAL Corp's United Airlines is open to merging with U.S. or foreign carriers as the industry is 'poised for consolidation,' the airline's chief financial officer said on Tuesday.

'UAL has been supportive of consolidation for a long time,' CFO Kathryn Mikells said at the Reuters Travel and Leisure Summit in New York. 'It is something we will continue to look at.'

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Shares of UAL fell 0.8 percent to $15.41.

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1249 EST 23Feb2010-Kimberly
Clark raises dividend by 10 pct

Kimberly-Clark Corp said its board approved a 10 percent increase in the quarterly dividend, a month after the company said it anticipated a high single-digit to low double-digit percentage increase in the payout.

The company, best known for Kleenex tissues and Huggies diapers, has raised its dividend 38 years in a row.

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The stock rose 0.7 percent to $60.33.

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1232 EST 23Feb2010
Weak labor market seen keeping Fed on hold

Thursday's surprise hike in the Fed's discount rate is not a sign of material monetary tightening to come but should be viewed as a technical move by the Fed to normalize emergency liquidity programs, says Northern Trust's Chief Investment Strategist Jim McDonald.

The news on the unemployment front remains clear -- with the U.S. unemployment rate at 9.7 percent and going nowhere fast, the Fed must feel political pressure to remain accommodative, he said in a note.

'Fortunately, we expect the disinflationary pressure of high unemployment and the deleveraging process to allow the Fed to be patient in tightening policy. We don't see economic conditions forcing rate increases this year.'

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