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The St. Louis area is home to all four Missouri firms on Fortune Magazine’s 100 Fastest-Growing Companies list for 2010.

Chemical and ammunition maker Olin Corp. (NYSE: OLN) came in at No. 40 after not having made last year’s list.

Brokerage and banking firm Stifel Financial Corp. (NYSE: SF) came in at No. 65, having ranked 25^th last year.

Food company Ralcorp Holdings (NYSE: RAH) was 75^th for the second year in a row.

And restaurant operator and franchisor Panera Bread (Nasdaq: PNRA) was No instant payday loan. 99 on this year’s list but hadn’t been listed last year.

Topping Fortune’s 2010 list as the fastest-growing company was mining company Eldorado Gold of Vancouver, Canada, with three-year annualized EPS growth of 119 percent.

Fortune compiled the list based on a firm's revenue and profit growth, as well as annualized total return for the three-year period ended June 30. The list will appear in the magazine’s Sept. 6 issue.

For the full list, go here.

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Accounting and business consulting company LECG Corp. officially closed its first acquisition since merging with Smart Business Advisory & Consulting and relocating from California to the Philadelphia area earlier this year.

LECG agreed to buy Bourne Business Consulting, a 36-person consulting firm in London, on June 22 and the deal closed officially on Monday.

LECG (NASDAQ:XPRT) didn’t say what it plans to pay in the deal. But in a release Monday, the investment banking firm that assisted Bourne with the transaction, Equiteq, said the deal includes “an initial consideration of 2.75 million British pounds plus contingent consideration over the next four years.”

Picking up Bourne will give LECG more clout in the valuation, transfer pricing, intellectual property and tax consulting areas in Europe. Danny Ryan is LECG’s managing director in London.

Bourne was started in 2002 and has offices in London and Farnham in Surrey. It is led by four partners: Philip Feibusch, Colette Moscati, Ian Mackie and Toni Dyson.

LECG has 39 offices around the world and Devon, Pa.-based Steve Samek serves as CEO. LECG and Smart completed a merger in March and chose to operate under the LECG name but locate its headquarters and take its CEO from Smart. Samek said earlier this spring that he expected 50 jobs to transfer from LECG’s Emeryville, Calif., offices to Smart’s Devon, Pa., location and held a job fair to hire candidates.

With the headquarters transition, the combined firm has already named two new senior managers to handle chief financial officer and general counsel duties. Steve Fife, LECG’s CFO, and Deanne Tully, LECG’s general counsel, will resign from their roles this summer and will not make the move to the East Coast. Fife will be replaced on Aug payday loans. 15 by Warren D. Barratt and Tully stepped down June 30 in favor of Yuri Rozenfeld.

“Having the management team centralized in one location is an important part of our strategy to drive operational excellence, effectively manage costs, and provide support for our professionals,” Samek said. “With more than two-thirds of our clients located in Europe or on the East Coast of the U.S., we cannot underestimate the value of having our leadership close to our engagements and the professionals who serve them.”

Barratt has more than 27 years of financial, accounting and general management experience. In addition to 11 years in public accounting with PriceWaterhouseCoopers, he has served as CFO for a variety of public and private companies in the services, technology and life sciences industries. Most recently, he was senior vice president and CFO of Epitome Systems, a privately held business process software company. Prior to that, he was CFO of Oncura, a multinational medical device joint venture.

Rozenfeld joined LECG June 1 and brings nearly 15 years of legal experience, most recently as senior securities counsel at Walgreens. Previously, he was general counsel and secretary at I-trax.

LECG also recently said it promoted two managing directors who joined the firm earlier this year from Huron Consulting to the positions of regional managing partners in the firm’s litigation, forensics and finance practice. Joe Decilveo, who joined the firm earlier this year from Huron Consulting, has responsibilities on the east coast while Stan Logan oversees the firm’s Midwest region and operations in Asia-Pacific, including the firm’s new Shanghai office.

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SPO Advisory Corp. has sold a significant chunk of its holdings of cellphone tower operator Crown Castle International Inc.

According to regulatory filings, the institutional hedge fund investor disposed of 3.05 million shares in multiple transactions between June 17-24. The shares were sold in a range between $38.95 and $39.43 apiece and were worth just over a combined $120 million.

After the sale, SPO still holds 32 online payday loans.6 million shares, worth some $1.27 billion based on the June 28 closing price of $38.92.

Houston-based Crown Castle (NYSE CCI), which has been a favorite investment of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in recent years, has 290 million shares outstanding.

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Woe is us.

Unemployment is 9.7 percent. The U.S. stock market is still 25 percent off its high. The federal deficit is measured in trillions. Our dollar is mocked overseas.

The Chinese lecture us on fiscal responsibility as they lend us billions of dollars so that we can buy their TVs, clothing and other trinkets of an American lifestyle built on credit.

The 20th century was the American Century — with our nation the premier economic and military superpower. The 21st century may belong to someone else.

That possibility has implications for investors. If growth is going to be faster overseas, is that where you should be investing?

That’s not an easy question. Venturing abroad means taking currency and political risks that we don’t get at home. And foreign stock prices may already reflect high growth prospects, making them no bargain.

The chances are you’re already investing more globally than you think. The S&P 500 companies — all big American firms — draw 40 percent of their revenue from overseas, up from 32 percent eight years ago, according to T. Rowe Price, the Baltimore mutual fund firm.

At least in the short run, growth in the developing world will be more rapid than in the U.S., or Europe and Japan for that matter.

The International Monetary Fund expects economic growth of 2.7 percent in the U.S. this year, only 1 percent in the Eurozone and 1.8 percent for Japan. By contrast, the IMF expects 10 percent growth in China, 7.7 percent in India, 4 percent in Mexico and 6 percent in emerging markets overall.

This may be the first global economic recovery led by China. The world usually follows the U.S. The IMF expects the growth gap to continue through 2011, with 2.5 percent growth in advanced countries, and 6.9 percent in emerging markets.

Those growth rates should, in theory, mean higher company profits and higher stock prices. So, should we be buying stocks in Brazil, India or the Far East?

Over the past decade, you’d have been much better off investing in the developing world than at home.

Since March of 2000, the Hang Seng Index of stocks traded in Hong Kong is up 66 percent with dividends reinvested and measured in U.S. dollars. The Mexican Bolsa and Brazilian Bovespa were both up 269 percent and the Russian Trading System Index was up 725 percent as of midweek. By contrast, the S&P 500 index of large American stocks lost 3 percent over the last 10 years.

The last five years also favored the foreigners. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index gained 84 percent in that time, excluding dividends. The S&P was flat.

American investors have noticed. Lately, 95 percent of American investments in foreign stocks have gone into the emerging markets, notes Alan Skrainka, chief market strategist at Edward Jones in Des Peres.

Skrainka thinks that’s a mistake. "When the crowd heads one way, you’d better head the other," he notes. The emerging markets have largely had their run, and it’s too late to jump aboard, he argues.

As they say on the fund prospectuses; past performance is no guarantee of future return.

"The emerging markets have been temporarily underperforming the U.S. markets for the last three months. This could persist for a year or two," says Chad Morganlander, portfolio manager in global asset allocation at Stifel Nicolaus & Co.

Morganlander’s bottom line: Don’t jump into emerging markets with both feet. Tiptoe in during dips in the market.

If you’re thinking of investing there, you had better enjoy roller coasters. Emerging markets are 60 percent more volatile than the developed world.

The great stock market crash sent U.S. stocks down 56 percent from their 2007 highs by March of last year. Emerging markets fell 66 percent before bouncing back.

"It has a much rougher road on the downside than the U.S. market," said Morganlander.

There’s more oomph on the way up, too. Both the emerging markets and the S&P are now both 25 percent off their highs of 2007.

Step outside the developed world and an investor finds a whole new set of worries: the whims of Latin strongmen and Iranian ayatollahs, unstable currencies, religious conflicts and guerilla insurgencies.

While world stock markets were crashing in late 2008, investors in India had an extra worry — nuclear war as Indian and Pakistani rattled swords in the wake of the Mumbai massacre. The Indian market had dropped 73 percent by March 2009.

On the other hand, the emerging markets aren’t as wild and woolly as they used to be. Currency blowups, rampant inflation and outright fraud aren’t as common and fiscal controls are better. "In some cases, their sovereign debt picture is better than Japan, the UK, Greece, maybe even the U.S.," says Paul Christopher, senior international strategist at Wells Fargo Advisors in St. Louis.

All this argues for letting a pro do the stock picking, which is what you get when you buy a mutual fund.

Morningstar, the mutual fund analysis firm, recommends Oppenheimer Developing Markets (ODMAX) and American Funds New World (NEWFX). New World supplements emerging markets stocks by buying developed-country stocks in companies that do a lot of business in the developed world. That tends to smooth out the roller-coaster ride a bit, says Morningstar.

You could also buy the whole shebang at once. iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index (EEM) is an exchange-traded fund that tracks an index of third-world stocks in 20 countries, with the bulk in China, Korea, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, India, and Mexico.

Another alternative is to target certain countries through country-specific funds. "The best opportunities in the world come from selecting countries the way you select stocks," says Christopher, of Wells Fargo.

China has been the big growth story of the past decade, but some think the Chinese market is overheated. Stifel’s Morganlander sees a bubble building. Much of last year’s growth was government-manufactured, the result of stimulus spending designed to make up for falling exports. Stimulus doesn’t last forever, he notes, and when the building boom ends, the nation could have a nasty fall.

India is a better bet, he says. It’s economy is less dependent on exports than China and the Indian government is friendlier to foreign investors.

Countries such as Brazil and Mexico are natural resource plays. They supply food and raw materials for the high-growth Asian markets.

Meanwhile, a stronger dollar is making one developed market — Europe — look a little sweeter at the moment.

The dollar was on a long decline against major currencies from 2002 to 2008, weighed down by our trade deficit. That’s one reason that foreign investments performed so well, when measured in dollars. The financial panic of 2008 sent the dollar up as worried investors fled back to the buck, but the greenback’s slump resumed last year.

Lately, though, Europe has been having its own financial panic over the chance that Greece might default on government bonds, followed possibly by Spain and Ireland. The euro is down 10 percent against the dollar since November.

If you think that the euro’s problems are temporary, and the dollar is still a dud, then European stocks look interesting. "If the dollar’s weakness resumes, you’ll earn a good return," says Skrainka.

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Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress on Wednesday that government action has helped start an economic recovery, but that he’s worried about the state of the job market.

Bernanke also changed his stance and said he’d be willing to consider supporting some legislation that’s pending before Congress that would make the Fed more accountable.

In testimony about monetary policy before the House Financial Services Committee, Bernanke noted that the recession continues to abate, but not when it comes to the job market, which "has been hit especially hard," he said.

"The job market remains quite weak, with the unemployment rate near 10 percent and job openings scarce," Bernanke said.

The Fed chairman said he’s particularly worried about the long-term impact on workers skills and wages and the increasing incidence of long-term unemployment.

"Indeed, more than 40 percent of the unemployed have been out of work six months or more, nearly double the share of a year ago," he said.

Bernanke also said that he expects inflation to remain in check for some time, as oil prices have flattened out and housing costs have risen very slowly, thanks to high vacancy rates.

"According to most measures, longer-term inflation expectations have remained relatively stable," he said.

Over the past year, Bernanke has faced a mixed reception whenever he’s appeared on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers credit him for pulling the economy out of the greatest recession since the Great Depression. But they also blame him for missing signals of the recession and for overlooking consumer protections.

However, the Senate voted overwhelmingly in January to confirm him for a second term.

Before Bernanke spoke, several Republican lawmakers said they particularly wanted to ask the Fed chairman about why the job market remains weak, even though Congress passed a massive $700 billion stimulus package last year quick payday loans.

House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., noted that after the stimulus package passed, fewer jobs were lost.

"It is possible to debate what is the best way to do the stimulus, but no sensible human being can deny that the stimulus had a positive effect," Frank said.

Frank asked Bernanke, specifically, whether stimulus helped stem job losses and Bernanke answered "Yes.""I think most economists would agree that the stimulus created jobs, relative to the baseline," Bernanke said.

Surprising endorsement

Bernanke also said he is prepared to support pendinglegislation authorizing Congress’ Government Accountability Office to audit "the operational integrity, collateral policies, use of third-party contractors, accounting, financial reporting, and internal controls of these special credit and liquidity facilities."

Previously, Bernanke has fought any move by Congress to audit the Fed. But his new support is for a limited audit that would not venture into monetary policy.

He also said he now supports revealing the names of firms who got emergency cheap Fed loans during the financial crisis, "after an appropriate delay." The Fed has, in the past, fought such revelations.

But he drew the line at making immediately available the names of banks coming to the discount window on a short-term basis, saying it could undermine confidence.

– CNN senior producer Scott Spoerry contributed to this report 

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New home construction rose more than expected in January, while the number of building permits issued in the month dropped, according to a government report issued Wednesday.

Construction of new homes climbed to an annual rate of 591,000 during the month, up 2.8% from December’s revised rate of 575,000, the Commerce Department said. This is an increase of 21.1% from the 488,000 rate in January 2009.

Economists surveyed by Briefing.com expected January housing starts to rise to an annual rate of 580,000.

"We’re continuing to see signs of stabilization," said real estate analyst Mike Larson of Weiss Research. "We had this Olympic ski slope-looking plunge starting in 2005 and 2006, and it looks like we’re almost getting to the bottom of that."

Larson said that housing starts picked up in January as the new home supply dwindled.

"All the excess inventory that had built up has been exhausted, and when the supply gets so lean, builders start constructing homes again," he said.

The number of building permits issued during January fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 621,000. That was 4.9% below the revised December rate of 653,000, but up 16.9% from the January 2009 rate of 531,000.

Economists had expected building permits would fall to 620,000.

The decline in permits and gain in housing starts were each led by activity in the multi-family sector: Multi-family building permits plummetted 26% while starts jumped 17.6%.

Meanwhile, single-family housing starts and building permits were both up last month. Single-family starts climbed 1.5% from December and permits edged up 0.4%.

Larson said that the increase in single-family activity was an encouraging sign of stabilization, but with such a large supply of existing homes, "nothing suggests a vigorous upturn."

"I think we’re going to be treading water in this range for some time," he said. "We’re going to be making small gains or losses throughout 2010, we’re not going to be making new lows or rebounding." 

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WASHINGTON – A U.S. federal appeals court has upheld a US$290-million judgement against Microsoft Corp. in a patent case launched by Toronto-based i4i Inc.

The ruling also includes an injunction, set to go into effect Jan. 11, that would prevent the sale of at least some versions of Microsoft's popular Word word processing software.

The Tuesday decision was on an appeal Microsoft launched against a verdict returned by a Texas jury in favour of i4i . The jury found recent versions of Microsoft Word infringed on a software patent.

I4i sued Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) over the way Word 2003 and Word 2007 customize XML, or extensible markup language, used in encoding and displaying information.

The injunction prevents Microsoft from selling Word products that have the capability of opening an XML file containing custom XML.

Kevin Kutz, Microsoft's director of public affairs, said the world's biggest software company is "moving quickly to comply with the injunction."

Kutz said the injunction "applies only to copies of Microsoft Word 2007 and Microsoft Office 2007 sold in the U.S. on or after the injunction date of Jan. 11, 2010."

"Copies of these products sold before this date are not affected," he added.

"With respect to Microsoft Word 2007 and Microsoft Office 2007, we have been preparing for this possibility since the District Court issued its injunction in August 2009 and have put the wheels in motion to remove this little-used feature from these products," he said.

"Therefore, we expect to have copies of Microsoft Word 2007 and Office 2007, with this feature removed, available for U.S. sale and distribution by the injunction date.

"In addition, the beta versions of Microsoft Word 2010 and Microsoft Office 2010, which are available now for downloading, do not contain the technology covered by the injunction."

Kutz also said Microsoft was considering it legal options, “which could include a request for a rehearing by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals en banc or a request for a writ of certiorari from the U.S. Supreme Court."

– With files from The Canadian Press

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Australia’s economy probably expanded in the three months through September for a third straight quarter, boosted by government spending on roads, ports and schools.

Gross domestic product gained 0.4 percent from the second quarter, when it rose 0.6 percent, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 17 economists. The economy probably grew 0.7 percent from a year earlier, the survey showed. The Bureau of Statistics will release the GDP report tomorrow at 11:30 a.m. in Sydney.

Australia’s economy, one of the few to skirt the global recession, grew in the third quarter and will accelerate in 2010 as consumer confidence gains and demand rises for exports such as iron ore, the central bank said today. Faster growth adds to pressure on Governor Glenn Stevens to raise borrowing costs in February after this month becoming the only policy maker in the world to increase interest rates three times this year.

“The economy is gaining good momentum into the end of the year and we continue to expect a further Reserve Bank rate adjustment in February,” said Paul Brennan, an economist at Citigroup Inc. in Sydney.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s government is spending A$22 billion ($20 billion) on ports, roads, hospitals and schools, adding 0.8 percentage point to GDP in the third quarter, Citigroup estimates.

Global Rebound

Tomorrow’s report may add to global evidence of an economic rebound. Europe’s economy emerged from its worst slump in more than six decades in the third quarter, expanding 0.4 percent from the previous three months, a report showed on Dec. 3. The U.S. economy grew at a 2.8 percent annual pace.

Australia’s economy is expanding faster and generating more jobs than the government and central bank forecast at the start of the year as China’s demand for raw materials including iron ore, coal and gas prompts mining and energy companies such as BHP Billiton Ltd., Woodside Petroleum Ltd. and Santos Ltd. to increase investment and hire workers.

Treasurer Wayne Swan last month forecast GDP will rise 1.5 percent in the 12 months through June 30, 2010, compared with a May prediction of a 0.5 percent contraction. The central bank says the economy will grow 2.25 percent this fiscal year and 3.25 percent in 2010-11.

Employers added 99,500 workers between the start of September and Nov No teletrak payday loan. 30, the biggest three-month hiring surge in three years, a report showed last week. The jobless rate fell to 5.7 percent from 5.8 percent.

Gas Deal

Chevron Corp. said this month it has signed a deal with Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Co. to supply liquefied natural gas from its Wheatstone venture in Western Australia. The project, estimated to be worth $82 billion, is forecast to generate 6,500 jobs during construction.

It is in addition to the $39 billion Chevron-led Gorgon gas venture, also in Western Australia, which is forecast to create 10,000 jobs when construction starts early next year.

Stronger economic and jobs growth will increase Governor Stevens’s scope to increase borrowing costs next year. He raised the overnight cash rate target by a quarter percentage point on Dec. 1 to 3.75 percent, adding to similar moves in October and November.

The central bank said today its decision to raise borrowing costs two weeks ago gives it more flexibility in future.

“Members agreed that, if developments unfolded as currently expected, monetary policy would need to be adjusted further over time to lessen the degree of stimulus,” officials said in minutes released today of their Dec. 1 gathering.

‘Appropriate Stance’

“That adjustment would not be intended to slow demand compared with the current forecast path, but aimed simply at keeping the stance of policy appropriate for improving economic conditions.”

Figures available at the time of the central bank’s board meeting two weeks ago “suggested a rise in GDP for the quarter,” today’s minutes added.

Investors are betting there is a 62 percent chance of a quarter-point increase in the benchmark lending rate to 4 percent at the central bank’s next meeting on Feb. 2, according to Bloomberg calculations based on interbank futures on the Sydney Futures Exchange at 12:02 p.m.

The statistics bureau, which normally publishes third- quarter GDP figures in the first week of December, delayed publication of the report this year by two weeks as officials adopt new accounting standards.

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U.S. shoppers may stretch tight budgets this year to reward loved ones after months of thrift, a softening of heart that store chains hope will erase the holiday season sales debacle of 2008.

Retailers from Wal-Mart Stores to Gap, RadioShack and Walgreens opened their doors on Thursday as U.S. families celebrate Thanksgiving, aiming to capture early bird shoppers a day before the official start of holiday shopping on “Black Friday.”

The unsettled state of the U.S. economy, with a 26-year high in unemployment and tighter access to credit, has industry holiday sales forecasts varying from a decline of 3 percent to an increase of 2 percent.

“The consumer is confused. They don’t know whether to spend or not,” said Marshal Cohen, senior analyst at retail consultant NPD Group.

Carlos Abril was browsing at an Old Navy in Manhattan on Thursday, but said he would not shop nearly as much this year.

“It’s tough this year, so we’re cutting back,” he said. Abril does not plan to spend on himself but would buy gifts for his nephews and other children in his family.

A weak U.S. dollar, however, has been a boon to tourists.

“Stuff is always cheaper here anyway and even more so with the dollar,” said Katy Moore, a visitor from Ireland, who was shopping at Foot Locker. She exited the store with a bag and said she would spend quite of bit of money while on vacation.

As the year-end holidays draw closer and deeper discounts beckon, consumers may splurge a bit more. Industry experts expect a strong turnout on the Black Friday weekend, but caution it will not mean a bumper holiday season as shopping trails off in the weeks before Christmas.

“The recession last year was a shock to the consumer. This year they are already tired of it,” Cohen said. “They might even reward themselves for being frugal for the whole year.”

The psyche of American shoppers is being closely watched, as a return to spending would drive overall U.S. economic growth. Early hopes for a consumer-led recovery have pushed retail shares up 47 percent this year, compared with a 23 percent rise for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

Cohen, a 30-year industry veteran, travels to malls all along the U.S. East Coast over the holiday weekend. He now sets out on Thanksgiving Day as so many more stores open on the holiday itself. While traffic to stores on the Thursday is relatively light, people who do make it out are mostly hard-core shoppers and highly likely to buy.

“It’s the ultimate conversion factor,” he said.

For a graphic on U.S. holiday sales trends, click on (here)

For a Reuters Insider segment on holiday sales, click on(link.reuters.com/wuj63g) 

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Poland’s economic growth will be at least 0.7 percent this year and will sustain that rate or accelerate in 2010, Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski said.

“GDP growth won’t be less than 0.7 percent in 2009, although we hope for more,” Rostowski said today in comments confirmed by ministry spokeswoman Alina Guzinska by telephone. “In 2010, economic growth will at least match that in 2009.”

The forecast compares with a July government projection of 0 car loan.2 percent growth this year and 0.5 percent in 2010.

Poland’s economy expanded by an annual 1.1 percent in the second quarter, according to data published by the Central Statistical Office yesterday. That makes it the European Union’s only eastern member to escape a recession since the credit crisis began.

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