Florida-based financial institutions as a group turned a profit last year, reversing major losses the previous two years in one of the biggest turnarounds in the country, according to a new federal report.

Although many banks in the state still carry weighty baggage from the economic woes of recent years, they managed to earn a combined profit of $178 million in 2011, after losses of $1.52 billion in 2010 and $2.2 billion the year before that, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. stated this week in its latest report.

The industry’s statewide improvement was one of the best in the country last year, though banks in some other key states have preceded Florida in returning to profitability since the Great Recession ended in mid-2009. After losing $1.36 billion in 2009, for example, Massachusetts banks earned $2.54 billion in 2010 and $2.5 billion last year.

And while the new report was generally promising for Florida’s financial institutions, it also indicated that many of them were still wrestling with non-performing loans and other lingering effects of the real estate slump and recession.

“Conditions for banks in Florida have been stabilizing for the past seven quarters or so,” said Paula Johannsen, managing director of Carson Medlin & Co., a Tampa-based investment-banking firm. Read all…

WASHINGTON — The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage jumped after standing pat for three straight weeks at record lows. But the rate stayed below 4 percent for the 12th straight week, keeping home-buying and refinancing attractive for those who can qualify.

Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac says the rate on the 30-year loan rose to 3.95 percent. That’s up from last week’s rate of 3.87 percent, the lowest since long-term mortgages began in the 1950s.

The average on the 15-year fixed mortgage rose to 3.19 percent from 3.16 percent. It hit a record low of 3.14 percent three weeks ago.

So far, low rates have done little to help the housing market, which is slowly improving. Few people can qualify for the rates and many who can have already done so.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The discovery that a fake version of the widely used cancer medicine Avastin is circulating in the United States is raising new fears that the multibillion-dollar drug-counterfeiting trade is increasingly making inroads in the U.S.

The criminal practice has largely been relegated to poor countries with lax regulations. But with more medicines and drug ingredients for sale in the U.S. being manufactured overseas, American authorities are afraid more counterfeits will find their way into this country, putting patients’ lives at risk.

The Avastin discovery follows other recent instances in the U.S. of counterfeiting, involving such drugs as Viagra, the cholesterol medicine Lipitor and the weight-loss pill Alli.

“We do know there are counterfeits continuing to try and make their way onto the U.S. supply chain,” said Connie Jung, an associate director in the Food and Drug Administration’s office of drug security.

The FDA announced Tuesday it is investigating fake vials of Avastin that were sold to at least 19 doctors and clinics, including 16 sites in California, two in Texas and one in Chicago.

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The new boss of Woolworths Grant O’Brien took the astute decision today to announce the sale and $300 million writedown in its Dick Smith electronics business at the same time as releasing the group’s half year-sales figures.

The original plan was to hold off unveiling the divestment of Dick Smith until the half-year profit results. But given the supermarket giant experienced one of its worst comparative quarterly sales figures in food and liquor, the early announcement helpfully took the spotlight off what is going on at Woolworths.

The company highlighted the fact that half-year sales figures for supermarkets in Australia and New Zealand rose 5.6 per cent to $25.2 billion for the 27 weeks to January 1. However, if you look behind the figures and particularly the second quarter, during the all-important Christmas period, comparable store sales in Australian food and liquor was up 1.1 per cent in supermarkets and liquor.

It was up 2.5 per cent in the previous corresponding period, which is a sharp slowdown in growth.

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The Walt Disney Co.’s cruise line will send one ship back to Europe and try sailing another out of Miami next year, as it spreads out its soon-to-expand cruise fleet.

As expected, the 2013 schedule announced Tuesday for Disney Cruise Line calls for the company’s two newest ships the Disney Dream, which launched in January 2011, and the Disney Fantasy, which begins cruises this March to sail out of Port Canaveral. The ships, each of which can carry approximately 4,000 passengers, will sail a variety of Caribbean and Bahamian itineraries from the Brevard County seaport, Disney Cruise Line’s home base.

Disney will rotate its older ships through a variety of other ports, from Alaska to Venice.

The company’s original ship, the 2,700-passenger Disney Magic, will spend the first five months of 2013 sailing Caribbean voyages out of Galveston, Texas. But that June, it will shift to Europe, where it will spend the summer selling Mediterranean cruises out of Barcelona, Spain.

One of the ship’s ports of call: Civitavecchia, Italy, near Rome.

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ST. CROIX, U.S. Virgin Islands — The giant Hovensa oil refinery that has dominated the economy and part of the landscape of the island of St. Croix for decades will cease operations next month, the operator said Wednesday.

The refinery, the largest employer in the U.S. Virgin Islands and once one of the largest refiners in the Western Hemisphere, will shut down and be converted to an oil storage terminal, said Brian K. Lever, president and chief operating officer of Hovensa LLC.

Losses at Hovensa, a joint venture of U.S.-based Hess Corp. and Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, have totaled $1.3 billion over the past three years and were projected to continue due to reduced demand caused by the global economic slowdown and increased refining capacity in emerging markets, Lever said in a statement.

“We deeply regret the closure of the Hovensa refinery and the impact on our dedicated people,” Lever said.

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