Friday, January 18, 2013

Net.com Launches 25-Market Push to assist Modest Corporations Understand Tips on how to Marketplace On line

JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Jan. 18, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Net.com Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:WWWW) a foremost provider of world wide web solutions and on the web promoting answers, nowadays announced that neighborhood support is over the way for little corporations eager to produce or increase their world-wide-web presence.



Internet.com ideas to present over two dozen Modest Business enterprise Forums throughout the Usa in 2013 together with its umbrella sponsorship in the Net.com Tour, the pathway for the PGA TOUR. These forums will give attention to the precise problems and possibilities that little firms encounter when moving from extra regular media to possessing a web-based presence.



The forums, that are cost-free of charge, will give compact firms the advantage of Net.com's 15 many years of expertise in assisting compact enterprises with the many several on the net possibilities, together with web sites, on the web promoting, seo which includes nearby search, eCommerce, and even more not long ago, social media and mobile alternatives. The 1st forum will consider spot together with the Chitimacha Louisiana Open on March 21st, 2013.



"Small enterprises have lots of competing demands on their time and vitality, and we know the extra really need to efficiently market place their small business on line can seem to be challenging," explained David L. Brown, chairman and chief executive officer for Internet.com. "Our mission at Internet.com is always to share our knowledge with tiny companies to ensure they fully grasp the vital components of the prosperous on the internet promoting presence and may move forward with self-confidence."



Internet.com's Compact Small business Forum will concentrate on the main subjects that make up an effective world-wide-web presence: the components of the excellent internet site, how you can identify in case your web site is 'working' for you personally, escalating visitors for your web-site as well as your small business, and de-mystifying tips on how to effectively industry on Google, Facebook and Twitter.



Net.com will host these Compact Enterprise Forums along with SCORE, America's premier supply of absolutely free and confidential modest business enterprise information.



"SCORE's mission should be to develop thriving organizations across America, one particular at a time," says W. Kenneth Yancey, Jr., SCORE CEO. "Small firms will be the engine of our economic climate, and each SCORE and Internet.com are thrilled about this chance to attain additional compact corporations and support them be successful."



In June 2012, Net.com became the umbrella sponsor of your Internet.com Tour and an official promoting companion in the PGA TOUR. Net.com produced the Internet.com Smaller Enterprise Forums being a strategy to bring supplemental advantage to communities the place Internet.com Tour and PGA TOUR occasions are held.



Brown continued, "We are delighted to possess the chance to provide back to your communities the place the Net.com Tour and PGA TOUR occasions are played."



For the checklist of Net.com Smaller Small business Forum web sites and dates, please head to www.businessforum.internet.com.



About Internet.com



Internet.com Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:WWWW) is often a major provider of on line advertising and marketing for tiny companies. Internet.com meets the wants of tiny enterprises anyplace along their lifecycle by providing a total selection of on the web providers and help, like domain title registration providers, web-site style and design, emblem layout, seo, search engine advertising and community product sales prospects, e mail promoting, common contractor prospects, franchise and house owner association sites, purchasing cart software package, eCommerce web page style and phone center companies. For extra data around the organization, please check out http://www.net.com.



Regarding the Net.com Tour



Founded (1990), owned and operated through the PGA TOUR, the Internet.com Tour identifies these gamers that are prepared to compete and win on golf's greatest stage. As element with the PGA TOUR, the Internet.com Tour attributes 25 tournaments, played in 16 states and twenty cities within the U.S., plus 5 Latin American nations. Starting in 2013, the Internet.com Tour gets to be the path to your PGA TOUR with all 50 obtainable PGA TOUR cards coming with the Net.com Tour plus the season culminating on the four-event Internet.com Tour Finals in September. To understand extra in regards to the PGA TOUR and Internet.com Tour and also to stick to the season-long quest for the PGA TOUR card, check out PGATOUR.COM, Twitter and Facebook.


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Just after raid, no death toll in Algeria hostage crisis

The day right after Algerian forces finished an operation to no cost hostages, together with Americans, from a all-natural fuel facility deep inside the Sahara Desert, the fate, and quantity, of hostages kidnapped by Islamic militants remained unclear.



Following the raid, there was no official word from Algeria on the number of hostages have been freed, killed or nonetheless held by militants in the complicated.



Reports to the raid are already conflicting as well as variety of hostages kidnapped is uncertain through the start out of your crisis on Wednesday.



The world's comprehending in the occasion was more muddled Thursday immediately after Algeria's military launched a raid to free of charge the hostages with no alerting Western leaders they had been setting up an assault.



A U.S. official stated late Thursday that even though some Americans escaped, other Americans remained both held or unaccounted for, the Connected Press reported. The official spoke for the AP on affliction of anonymity for the reason that he was not authorized to examine the matter publicly.



The AP reported that no less than 6 men and women, and maybe numerous additional, have been killed ?a Britons, Filipinos and Algerians.



The AP can also be reporting that dozens far more remained unaccounted for: Americans, Britons, French, Norwegians, Romanians, Malaysians, Japanese and Algerians.



Reuters, citing an Algerian safety supply, is reporting that 30 hostages had been killed from the assault, which includes a number of Westerners. The supply also says 11 militants died, which include the group's leader, Tahar Ben Cheneb, described like a "prominent commander during the area."



Quoting a British official Friday, CNN reported that "ongoing action at a variety of locations" in Algeria was continuing, although it is not clear whether or not that action represented "mopping up and checking" or "something extra active" getting carried out by Algerian forces against the abductors.



The British official informed CNN there was a "significant" variety of British victims.



Based on Mauritanian news agency ANI, the assault by Algerian forces killed the leader in the Islamic terrorist group that orchestrated the hostage-taking in addition to at the very least 14 other terrorists. The kidnappers come from Algeria, Canada, Mali, Egypt, Niger and Mauritania, ANI stated.



The Algerian state news agency ANP stated the operation concerned airstrikes and also a ground operation to cost-free the hostages, a few of whom have been picked up by military helicopters. Algerian Television had mentioned that 4 foreign employees ?a two Britons and two Filipinos ?a died while in the operation and that 600 hostages had been freed.



On the other hand, a spokesman for that terror group Qatiba advised a Mauritanian news outlet that Algerian military helicopters strafed the gasoline complicated, killing 35 foreign hostages ?a like 5 Americans ?a and 15 militants, the Related Press is reporting. 7 survived, such as two Americans, the spokesman informed AP.



Including to your confusion was an earlier AP report, citing an unnamed Algerian official, that as numerous as twenty foreign hostages, like an unknown quantity of Americans, had escaped their captors.



Stephen McFaul, an Irish engineer who escaped, reported seeing Algerian forces assault Jeeps containing hostages who have been staying moved within the complicated, his brother informed Reuters. 4 cars blew up, and McFaul's automobile crashed, making it possible for him to flee.



McFaul mentioned the militants hung explosives throughout the hostages' necks.



The spokesman for Qatiba, which had earlier claimed obligation for Wednesday's hostage-taking, explained Abou El Baraa, the leader in the kidnappers, was between militants killed inside the Algerian army's helicopter assault.



Qatiba, which translates as Signers in Blood, was designed in December by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who broke off for unknown factors from al-Qaeda inside the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).



British oil giant BP's Group Chief Executive Bob Dudley released a statement saying that "Sadly, there are already some reports of casualties, but we're even now lacking any confirmed or dependable details."



Britain's Foreign Workplace warned that "We must be beneath no illusion that there might be some poor and distressing news to adhere to from this terrorist assault."



White Residence spokesman Jay Carney mentioned U.S. officials had been nevertheless gathering information. "We condemn while in the strongest terms a terrorist assault on BP personnel and amenities in Algeria, and we're closely monitoring the condition," he mentioned.



U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton ordered a protection evaluate for diplomats, civilians and enterprise across North Africa.



The Algerian military's managing from the hostage circumstance fits their total method to terrorists, says Geoff Porter of North Africa Danger Consulting, a political danger consultancy that focuses on North Africa.



"They do not negotiate with terrorists, plus they never spend ransoms," Porter mentioned.



On the list of factors oil installations have in no way been attacked prior to is any assault will be a suicide mission, Porter mentioned. The oil amenities are so remote and in this kind of barren terrain, that attacks are doable, "but the Algerians would deploy helicopters and destroy everyone," he mentioned.



Escape could be unattainable, but a suicide mission "becomes a lot more possible, which can be what we saw nowadays," Porter explained.



In latest months, the Usa continues to be courting Algeria in an unprecedented style. Clinton has twice visited Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.



Algerian leaders, nonetheless, have repeatedly warned against Western intervention within the area. Algeria warned the NATO operation in Libya, which defeated former leader Moammar Gadhafi, would destabilize the area, and the French intervention in Mali would do the exact same, Porter explained.



"They (Algerians) are very likely to truly feel vindicated, and also to reject any criticism for his or her reaction to a domestic crisis they really feel have been brought about by Western actions they suggested against," Porter mentioned.



Algeria's priority is "to restore stability and deter potential incidents," Porter explained.



The Qatiba spokesman advised Mauritanian news site Sahara Media Agency on Wednesday the assault within the fuel facility was in retaliation for Algeria's determination to permit French aircraft to implement its airspace in its intervention in Mali. Authorities say Qatiba is closely linked with or simply just an additional title for Masked Brigades.



The spokesman, pictured within a black turban and an automated weapon in front of the jihadist flag, mentioned his group took 41 foreigners hostage, together with Americans, French, British and Japanese nationals.



The spokesman extra that there have been 400 Algerian soldiers on internet site, but stated his group had not targeted the soldiers. None with the facts in the Mauritanian web site can be independently verified.



The Usa military includes a brief reaction force capable of deploying speedily to Algeria, as outlined by a military official who declined to get named since they aren't authorized to talk concerning the concern. The Pentagon also has "capabilities" to view in excess of the area, although officials wouldn't specify irrespective of whether that will involve manned aircraft or drones.



Countless Algerians function with the plant and have been taken within the assault however the state news agency reported they have progressively been released in modest groups.



Wednesday's assault started using the ambush of the bus carrying staff in the gasoline plant to your nearby airport however the attackers had been driven off, based on the Algerian government, which stated 3 cars of heavily armed males have been concerned.



"After their failed try, the terrorist group headed towards the complex's residing quarters and took a variety of employees with foreign nationalities hostage," stated the statement.



Al-Qaeda's influence within the poorly patrolled desert wastes of southern Algeria and northern Mali and Niger has grown. The group operates smuggling and kidnapping networks through the entire region. Militant groups that seized manage of northern Mali currently hold 7 French hostages together with 4 Algerian diplomats.



Algeria's protection forces have struggled for many years against Islamist extremists, and also have in recent times managed to practically snuff out violence by al-Qaeda from the Islamic Maghreb (northwest Africa) all around its house base in northern Algeria. While in the meantime, AQIM moved its concentrate southward.



AQIM has produced tens of countless bucks off kidnapping from the area, abducting Algerian businessmen or political figures, and occasionally foreigners, for ransom.



The assault may be the very first time the country's hydrocarbon business was targeted because the 1990s, Porter stated.



Even throughout the worst with the Islamist violence while in the 1990s, Algeria's hydrocarbon infrastructure was in no way attacked," Porter explained. "This can be a genuine departure."



Algerian leaders adopted an eradication policy against Islamist insurgents inside a war that expense a lot more than one hundred,000 lives. The insurgents sooner or later accepted amnesty and renounced violence. Remnants from the insurgency have already been fighting for an Islamic state in northern Mali, Porter stated.



All 3 AQIM factions in North Africa and also the Sahara have been "on a downward trend" till 2012, Porter mentioned. The collapse of Libya, which permitted weapons from Gadhafi's huge arsenal for being seized by extremists, "helped them acquire electrical power in northern Mali plus the group has transformed from 2011 and 2012," he mentioned.



Even though not all of the jihadi factions associated with violence throughout the area contact themselves al-Qaeda or are officially affiliated along with the group, their ambitions are usually precisely the same, Porter stated.



"The objective continues to be spread radical Islam, assault the close to enemy, assault the far enemy, make a sharia state ?a it really is just no longer termed al-Qaeda," he stated.



Aaron Zelin, an analyst on the Washington Institute for Close to East Policy, stated that though al-Qaeda is "probably the weakest it truly is ever been," the jihadist motion has adapted and has strengthened in North Africa.



"The central organization continues to be weakened, however the branches have gotten more powerful since loads of them are a lot more embedded inside of the neighborhood milieu," he stated.



In its new kind, al-Qaeda and its jihadi affiliates and sympathizers are much less capable to launch attacks to the USA or Europe, exactly where safety is far better than a decade ago, and even more targeted on "setting up very little emirates" and threatening U.S. and Western interests inside their very own nations, Zelin stated.



"They need to bleed the U.S. and its allies dry and exhaust them more than an extended time period," he mentioned.


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Sunday, January 13, 2013

Oelwein local gives kidney; begins incidents of bestower

One kidney donation set off a chain reaction of very similar great deeds at a single Des Moines hospital. In 1 week, 5 people today donated their nutritious kidneys to other individuals in need to have.

The guy who began all this, Tyler Weig, is initially from eastern Iowa. Weig graduated from Oelwein Large College in 2001. He basically went to prom with KWWL's Danielle Wagner, also an Oelwein graduate.

Tyler Weig now lives within the Des Moines location. He aided conserve a daily life by choosing to donate a kidney to a comprehensive stranger.

"Right now its commencing to hit me, what it usually means, how exclusive it is actually," stated Tyler Weig.

On Monday, Weig went into surgical procedure to possess his kidney eliminated, to become transplanted right into a patient who required it to survive. Dr. Cass Franklin eliminated his kidney in the course of a 3 hour operation when one more patient waited to acquire it.

"Today I get blessed using a new kidney," explained Lance Beyer.

The Mercy workers place the wholesome organ into an ice bath to put together it. A quick time later on, health professionals started the extended complex transplant surgical treatment on 42-year-old Lance Beyer of Pella, who had kidney sickness for 25 many years. Right after an effective surgical procedure, two days later on, the 2 met for that initial time.

"So you happen to be the donor? Enjoy it. Thanks a great deal. It truly is doing work actual very good," explained Beyer.

But how can you thank another person for that present of existence?

"I see his family members, what he'll be capable to do now helps make me content," stated Tyler Weig.

Weig's want to conserve 1 particular person set off a chain reaction that bring about an additional kidney transplant that exact same day.

45-year-old Jay Lindahl of Boone was wheeled in to obtain a further kidney. Turns out his donor was the wife on the initial recipient.

"You can give your kidney to another person, anyone can help my husband in that way, it is a no brainer," explained Julie Beyer.

Her kidney was not a match for her husband, so she paid it forward to assist a stranger as an alternative.

Immediately after operating on individuals two pairs Monday, two much more kidney transplants had been carried out Tuesday. On Wednesday, even one particular far more. None on the recipients knew his donor, but 4 donors have been good friends or family members of one more patient during the chain who they wished to assist but did not match.

5 new beginnings and 10 lives impacted by one particular preliminary and generous present.


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HPV vaccine for boys to become produced readily available quickly

Efforts are currently being undertaken through the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp.'s Public Well being Division to avoid cervical cancer while in the CNMI, together with the human papilloma virus vaccination for boys during the Commonwealth for being created readily available quickly.

"So this isn't only a woman's issue-it's everyone's situation," mentioned Public Overall health director Roxanne Diaz on Friday right after Lt. Gov. Eloy S. Inos signed the proclamation designating January as Cervical Cancer Awareness Month.

Cervical cancer frequently develops gradually but could be prevented and cured by means of early screening and therapy of pre-cancerous problems.

HPV leads to as much as 70 % of cervical cancer, such as anal and oral cancers, consequently the want to get a vaccine as a part of the Commonwealth's prevention efforts, in line with Diaz.

She explained that about 91 % of youthful female college students from the Public College Method are already provided the HPV vaccine, and their workplace is operating tough to get the younger female population vaccinated.

With all the male HPV vaccine anticipated quickly, Diaz explained they may be targeting younger boys at PSS.

"We need to ensure that that our younger women and boys are vaccinated prior to they are exposed, so I inspire our dad and mom to sign the consent types if they see it so we are able to safeguard our boys and women," she mentioned.

Diaz mentioned how the local community are not able to eliminate sight on the statistics revealing the amount of individuals impacted by cervical cancer, urging the public not only to get one particular day but an daily awareness of this fatal illness.

"These information are certainly not just numbers. They are real men and women, and a lot of them are members of the family," she explained.

Inos acknowledged Public Wellbeing for its efforts in disseminating information and facts on preventive screening and therapy of cervical cancer.

"Let's carry on to complete what we are able to to stop individuals from finding infected with this particular significant sickness," he additional.


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Sophisticated Search Marketing and advertising Workshop - Blizzard Online Advertising - Glenwood Springs Colorado

Hotel, lodging, travel, and hospitality organizations looking for to produce in-house search marketing and advertising experience are invited to an intensive 2-day Google Workshop built to educate search promoting techniques verified to boost internet site presence, assured.


Glenwood Springs, Colorado (PRWEB) January twelve, 2013


Blizzard Net Advertising, Inc. is presenting a 2-day Innovative Search Engine Promoting workshop on January 21 and 22 in Glenwood Springs. This workshop is open towards the public and can emphasis on methods for hotel, lodging, travel, and hospitality organizations to boost their on-line advertising and marketing outcomes and enhance web-site presence working with verified techniques that ensure effects and enhance their return on promoting investments.


"Blizzard World-wide-web Marketing and advertising is actually a standard fixture at holiday rental field conferences. Trent Blizzard's presentations are amid by far the most very anticipated and heavily attended occasions at just about every conference. Their blend of experience in world-wide-web marketing and advertising and getaway rentals make them the premier provider of SEM (Search Engine Promoting) solutions." - Park Brady, ResortQuest


Advertising has moved far past print and conventional media alone. Companies can no longer depend upon previous practices so as to remain competitive. Individuals are more and more savvy and also have the equipment readily available to examine critiques, review rates, and look for their preferred goods and providers. So as to compete, corporations have to apply the on-line promoting methods and procedures that get them observed. That is what this workshop is all about.



Blizzard World wide web Advertising and marketing, Inc. is based mostly in Glenwood Springs, Colorado and presents full-service on the web promoting answers to your hospitality, travel, and lodging industries. Their suite of search marketing and advertising solutions contains search engine marketing, paid promoting, hyperlink promoting, e mail advertising, social media and track record management, web page style and design, reserving engine integration and content material management procedure style.


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Friday, January 11, 2013

Alabama's Delicate, Milliner, Fluker Type in National football league Draw up

Alabama tailback Eddie Lacy, cornerback Dee Milliner and appropriate tackle D.J. Fluker are getting into the NFL draft following assisting lead the Crimson Tide to a 2nd straight nationwide title.



Lacy and Milliner announced their ideas to skip their senior seasons Friday at a news conference. Fluker could not be there to the announcement since he was traveling.



It truly is one more exodus of talented underclassmen for the crew which has won 3 on the previous 4 nationwide championships. Nearly all of the 4 first-round picks in every with the previous two drafts that left Alabama have been underclassmen.



"I value what they've accomplished for your University of Alabama but we also acknowledge the truth that from a organization standpoint, these guys are creating very good selections about their potential and what they could do," coach Nick Saban mentioned.



Contrary to latest groups of departing juniors from Alabama, only Milliner is pegged being a certain first-round choose.



He was a Jim Thorpe Award finalist and unanimous All-American just after recording two interceptions and 22 pass deflections. He and guard Opportunity Warmack, who was a senior, are projected since the Tide's major existing prospective customers.



"I consider although I was right here, I met every one of the objectives and group affirmations that I set for myself as being a freshman by winning a championship, getting an All-American, just getting element of the group that normally loved to win," Milliner explained. "I imagine I fulfilled all my objectives and am prepared and ready to visit the subsequent degree."



Lacy was MVP of your nationwide championship game against Notre Dame following rushing for 140 yards and scoring two touchdowns. He stated he was not a hundred % healthier all season till the title game Monday evening, but Lacy nevertheless ran for one,322 yards and 17 touchdowns when averaging six.five yards per carry.



"We will not possess a large amount of many years to perform this place, which means you need to go whilst you could," Lacy stated. "I would really like to come back. This can be a excellent spot. We've got the very best enthusiasts, but I truly did not desire to threat coming back and never owning this kind of a great year or perhaps even risking injury. I have had my share of injuries this year. I really feel like you have got to have out although it is possible to."



Lacy thinks he "made a fairly strong statement" within the title game, when he created a spin move to the finish zone on the TD catch and on yet another run pushed 248-pound linebacker Danny Spond away with one particular hand.



Lacy was recruited from the very same class as Trent Richardson, final year's No. three choose by Cleveland, but redshirted after which spent two seasons like a backup. He's not broadly projected to stick to Richardson and 2009 Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram in to the 1st round. Lacy explained he was projected like a second- or third-round choose in feedback from your NFL, but was outstanding from the finale. Ordinarily, Saban only suggests projected first-round picks leave early.



"I'm totally supportive of what Eddie's carrying out," Saban stated. "It's just a little bit of the diverse circumstance than we have had during the previous, but it really is somewhat bit one of a kind also. Just about every certainly one of these circumstances is special to that distinct person and what his condition is. "



The 6-foot-6, 335-pound Fluker commenced 35 video games to the Tide and was a second-team Connected Press All-American.



He was among the Tide's top-rated signees in 2009 but came in overweight at about 395 pounds and was redshirted.



"I definitely truly feel like this year has become his very best year like a player, and I truly feel that he's created a very good selection about what he desires to try and do," mentioned Saban, including that Fluker has enhanced as considerably as any player around the crew.



The mammoth Fluker, who wears a size-22 shoe, mentioned inside a statement that leaving early "is never ever a simple selection when you find yourself taking part in at a location like Alabama."



"''These 4 many years in Tuscaloosa have already been the very best 4 many years of my lifestyle and I value every person who assisted me along the way in which," he explained.



Quarterback AJ McCarron, All-America linebacker C.J. Moseley and guard Anthony Steen have presently stated they are returning for their senior seasons. Saban did not rule out other juniors perhaps declaring for your draft just before Tuesday's deadline.



The Tide does have promising gamers who've logged an abundance of taking part in time behind Lacy and Milliner, particularly. Two freshmen - tailback T.J. Yeldon (one,108 yards, twelve touchdowns) - and cornerback Geno Smith saw substantial action.



"You've got men and women which can be likely to visit the NFL annually and you have got people today behind them which are likely to do the identical factors when their time comes," Milliner stated.


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Wells Fargo Profit Jumps, but Mortgage loan Company Slows

Wells Fargo WFC -0.85% & Co. posted a larger-than-expected 24% rise in fourth-quarter net income despite signs that a mortgage-refinancing boom that has boosted profits at a number of large banks may be fading.

But investors focused on a second consecutive quarterly decline in a figure analysts use to gauge future gains in the lucrative home-loan enterprise.

In addition, a surge of deposits and near record-low interest rates continued to squeeze profit margins at the fourth-largest U.S. bank by assets.

The drop in the San Francisco company's mortgage loan pipeline is "likely to be a source of concern," said Citigroup C -1.14% analyst Keith Horowitz.

Overall, fourth-quarter net income was $5.09 billion, or 91 cents a share, compared with the year-ago $4.11 billion, or 73 cents a share. Revenue rose 6.3% from a year earlier to $21.95 billion. The figures beat Wall Street analysts' consensus estimates.

Shares of Wells Fargo, up 22% over the past year, dropped 30 cents, or 0.8%, to $35.10 amid a broad pullback in financial shares.

A $30 billion rise in deposits during the quarter, to $945.75 billion, underscores an industrywide struggle to make new loans; credit-worthy borrowers are scarce amid soft employment growth and stagnant incomes.

Chief Executive John Stumpf said on a call with analysts that the company feels "no urgency" to put the excess funds to work. "Virtually all these deposits are part of relationships," he said. "This is going to benefit this company for years and years and years to come."

Wells Fargo currently lends out about 80% of its deposits, while banks typically like their loan-to-deposit ratio to be near 100%. Chief Financial Officer Timothy J. Sloan acknowledged the slow pace of economic growth has affected the bank's ability to lend. "It's not where we'd like it to be," he said.

As a result of the deposit inflow, net interest margin?aan important gauge of lending profitability?awas 3.56%, down from 3.66% in the third quarter and illustrating the impact of low interest rates on profits. "I think you have to recognize that this interest-rate environment is very difficult," said Fred Cannon, an analyst with Keefe, Bruyette & Woods.

The results also point to early signs that an end may be coming for the U.S. home-refinancing boom, which has been spurred by low interest rates and has resulted in a lucrative stretch for large mortgage loan banks including Wells Fargo and J.P. Morgan Chase JPM -0.02% & Co.

Mortgage-banking income for the fourth quarter totaled $3.07 billion, up 30% from a year earlier. But home loan originations fell 10% from third-quarter levels to $125 billion, and the company's unclosed-mortgage pipeline dropped for the second quarter in a row, tumbling 16% to $81 billion at year-end from $97 billion at Sept. 30.

The drop in the home loan pipeline is especially important to Wells Fargo, which has become the nation's biggest home loan lender as rivals such as Bank of America Corp. BAC -1.27% have pulled back from the business enterprise amid hefty losses. Early signs show that Wells's U.S. mortgage-market share slipped slightly, according to Mr. Sloan, but full numbers won't be known until other banks report earnings.

Mr. Cannon said it is unclear if the pipeline at Wells has slowed because the bank is tightening its standards or if its market share has slipped.

But Paul Miller, an analyst with FBR Capital Markets, cautioned against reading too much into the numbers.

The second and third quarters tend to be stronger ones for home loan production.

"A lot of people are looking at the pipeline decline and saying it's the beginning of the end," he said. "I think it's more seasonality than anything else."

Mr. Sloan said he didn't know if the refinancing boom was coming to an end, but said "it's prudent to plan for an environment where volumes come down and margins come down."

Total loans at the bank rose 4% from a year earlier to $799.6 billion. Wells kept on its book some $10 billion of mortgages, forgoing fees that lenders can reap when selling loans to the government-backed mortgage loan investors Fannie Mae FNMA 0.00% and Freddie Mac FMCC -1.69% but adding to the company's income stream.

Wells recorded a $644 million fourth-quarter pretax charge for its portion of a foreclosure settlement announced earlier this week.


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