By KATHERINE CANCILA

A dusting of salt always helps punch up dinner, but nothing beats freshly cracked pepper when you’re looking for that final note of depth. We tested dozens of pepper mills and chose our winners based on range of grind, attractiveness and ease of use. Spice is nice; hand cramps aren’t.

Por ANDREW DOWELL

O braço financeiro da General Electric Co. avançou rapidamente em seu plano de entrar na área de banco on-line, anunciando a intenção de comprar uma divisão bancária da seguradora americana MetLife Inc.

A aquisição, anunciada na terça-feira, dará à GE Capital US$ 7,5 bilhões em depósitos e também a plataforma da MetLife para operações bancárias on-line, o que pode acelerar os esforços da GE para atrair mais pessoas físicas para suas contas de poupança. Não foram divulgados os termos do acordo, que aumentará a base de depósitos da GE Capital nos Estados Unidos, que é de US$ 23 bilhões, em cerca de um terço.

A GE Capital havia anunciado este mês que lançaria uma plataforma bancária on-line para atrair mais depósitos de varejo. A divisão de empréstimos da GE é maior que a de todos menos sete bancos americanos, mas seu modelo de negócios, o chamado financiamento por atacado, significa que ela tem que recorrer aos mercados de capitais regularmente para captar recursos para fazer empréstimos. Esse modelo foi abalado quando os mercados congelaram durante a crise financeira, levando a GE a buscar colocar seus negócios em bases mais sólidas.

Em paralelo, a MetLife colocou suas operações bancárias à venda em julho, na esperança de não ser atingida por novas regulamentações nos EUA. A maior operadora americana de seguros de vida informou que estava preocupada com o risco de ser designada uma “instituição financeira sistemicamente importante” e ficar sob uma supervisão mais estrita da Federal Reserve, o banco central dos EUA.

A GE Capital espera que o acordo seja fechado em meados de 2012, dependendo de aprovações regulatórias.

Essa é a mais recente iniciativa da GE para reduzir o risco da GE Capital, cujos problemas durante a crise financeira levaram o conglomerado a cortar seus dividendos e perder sua classificação de crédito AAA. A GE está reduzindo os ativos da divisão, limitando a contribuição desta para seus lucros globais e focando-se nas áreas essenciais, como empréstimos a empresas de médio porte.

Ao mesmo tempo, a divisão de financiamento continua sendo uma importante fonte de lucros para o conglomerado industrial. O interesse da GE em atrair depósitos de varejo como forma de ampliar sua base de financiamento ficou clara no ano passado, quando a empresa estudou uma aquisição do banco on-line ING Direct USA.

Mas a GE não quis assumir uma grande carteira de hipotecas que viria junto com o negócio. O ING Direct — um banco on-line muito maior do que a divisão equivalente da MetLife — acabou sendo comprado pela Capital One Financial Corp. por US$ 9 bilhões.

A GE Capital vai continuar construindo sua plataforma de varejo e planeja captar recursos suficientes através da plataforma on-line para cobrir seus empréstimos comerciais e suas operações de leasing nas Américas.

By DAN STRUMPF

Since MF Global Holdings Ltd. filed for bankruptcy protection last year, some customers of its failed brokerage have had little choice but to wait for the full return of their cash.

Investors that gobble up claims in bankruptcy or other distressed situations have begun approaching former MF Global customers with offers to buy their claims for cash at a discount. Dan Strumpf reports on Markets Hub. (Photo: Reuters)

That is beginning to change. Lately, investors that gobble up claims in bankruptcy or other distressed situations have begun approaching former MF Global customers with offers to buy their claims for cash, at a discount.

The moves are similar to offers that emerged after the December 2008 disclosure that Bernard Madoff‘s investment-advisory firm was a Ponzi scheme. Speculators ranging from boutique investment firms to big banks have been transacting for claims of defrauded Madoff customers with the expectation that the trustee will be able to recover and return additional funds.

In the MF Global matter, the investment firms’ offers are a bet that the trustee attempting to recover an estimated $1.6 billion in customer assets will find and return more—perhaps all—of the missing funds. Customers who choose to sell to these firms essentially relinquish their claim to the rest of their cash in exchange for money now.

Brokerage customers have already been reunited with 72% of the funds they lost access to at the time of MF Global’s Oct. 31 bankruptcy filing. One firm, Triax Capital Advisors, based in New York, is offering to bring that figure to 88% in exchange for a customer’s claim to the remainder of their funds.

Barrett Mikelberg, director of business development at Triax, said he has talked to between 60 and 80 customers of MF Global since late December about the possibility of buying their claims. He is targeting customers with larger claims totaling $1 million or more. None with claims that large have struck a deal yet, he said. But in the past week, a small number of customers with claims under $1 million have agreed to sell, he said.

“I’m willing to buy any claim,” Mr. Mikelberg said. “I don’t discriminate on size.”

David Rosen, for one, isn’t ready to deal. Co-owner of energy trading firm Rose Trading, he said he has been approached by multiple firms offering to buy his $50,000 claim. He is holding out. “I personally believe that at the end of the day the U.S. government, the CFTC [Commodity Futures Trading Commission] and the U.S. futures industry will not allow for a customer loss,” he said.

The trustee liquidating MF Global’s brokerage says on its website that it takes no view on whether customers should sell their claims.

Another firm, ASM Capital, said that in the past week it has begun mailing letters to customers with two different offers. The first offer is similar to Triax’s: the remainder of a customer’s claim for a discount. The second offer is for a smaller fraction of the customer’s claim now, plus a stake in any additional payout from the trustee.

“We’re trying to reach all customers, as many as possible,” said Adam Moskowitz, chief executive of ASM Capital, based in Woodbury, N.Y. “This is part of what we do here on a regular basis.”

Mr. Moskowitz declined to disclose how much he is offering customers. He said he is optimistic that additional money could be returned to customers partly because the trustee controls $1.4 billion that he is holding in reserve for matters such as litigation. “Whether or not all of that gets freed up to pay creditors is yet to be determined,” Mr. Moskowitz said.

For both customers and the investors, the deal is a gamble. The trustee overseeing the liquidation, James Giddens, has said he has no further plans to return funds to customers in bulk; rather, claims from customers for the rest of their funds were due to the trustee by Jan. 31.

Mr. Giddens has said that he faces challenges in getting back the remaining funds. Last week, he said he has traced a majority of the cash transactions made by MF Global during its final week in October, when a shortfall in customer accounts began to emerge. But he also said retrieving that money could be difficult and will involve “very complex legal and factual determinations.”

The Wall Street Journal reported last month that a “significant amount” of customer money could have “vaporized” in the chaotic final week before the firm’s bankruptcy filing.

In the Madoff matter, the value of offers for claims has fluctuated widely, from as low as 20 cents to as much as 75 cents on the dollar. So far, Mr. Madoff’s customers have received 6.5% of their principal back between distributions by trustee Irving Picard and the Securities Investor Protection Corp., a securities-industry group that provides insurance for bankrupt firms. That represents more than $1.1 billion of the $17.3 billion in potential claims.

—Michael Rothfeld contributed to this article.

By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN

After graduating in 2007 from Loyola Marymount University, Rachel Jones was laid off from two jobs consecutively in her chosen field, public relations. In the grueling nine-month job search that ensued, she sent her résumé to more than 130 employers, initially applying for just about any opening she could find—from office assistant to movie-production coordinator. She also sent the same generic cover letter to every employer.

“It’s easy to fall into a routine of just copying and pasting in a new company name,” the 24-year-old says.

It wasn’t until Ms. Jones started focusing on junior positions in her field and writing introductory notes tailored to specific opportunities she was aiming for that things started to turn around. She started receiving more interview invites for jobs she actually wanted. In August, she landed an account-coordinator position at a small Los Angeles public-relations firm.

For many out-of-work professionals, finding a job in today’s market requires far more effort than it did in the past—and a lot more stamina. Last month, the Labor Department reported that it takes unemployed workers an average of 27.2 weeks to land a job, up from 19.1 weeks in September 2008 and 16.7 in September 2007. But career experts say there are several ways job hunters can revive a stalled search.

Taking a highly targeted approach, as Ms. Jones eventually did, is one strategy. Another is to focus on obtaining leads to unadvertised positions where the companies seek out their own applicants. Relying solely on job-board listings, which have been shrinking, isn’t enough these days. There were roughly 3.3 million jobs advertised online last month, compared with 4.4 million in September 2008 and 4.7 million in September 2007, according to the Conference Board, a research firm.

Many employers have cut back on advertising jobs online because they are overwhelmed with applications, says Bradley G. Richardson, a partner at executive-search firm Kaye/Bassman International Corp. in Plano, Texas. Instead, they are relying on word of mouth and referrals to draw a more manageable number of applicants, he says. That requires more networking on the part of the job seeker—even tapping into people you don’t know well.

After getting laid off from a market-research firm in November, Jon Evoy says, he devoted most of his time to applying for positions he found online. “It’s easier to sit in front of your computer and just start looking for jobs as opposed to pounding the pavement,” he says.

But then a month passed during which Mr. Evoy, 30, says he failed to land a single interview. The lack of interest prompted him to shift gears. He reached out to everyone in his network—even people he hadn’t spoken to in years. One was an advertising professional he had met two years earlier at an industry event. Kaplan Thaler Group Ltd., the New York agency where she worked, wasn’t hiring at the time, but she agreed to set him up on an informational interview with a colleague who was a director at the firm.

Meanwhile, Mr. Evoy followed another bit of advice career counselors recommend to boost a lagging job search. He made a point of keeping up with news and trends in his target industry to identify potential job opportunities. When he came across an article in a trade magazine about how the firm he did the informational interview with had won a big client, he sent the director a congratulatory email and asked if the firm would be hiring soon to meet the new demands. He received a reply tipping him off to a coming job opening. He applied and got it. Later, Mr. Evoy learned that an employer he did a free-lance assignment for during his job search contacted the advertising firm and put in a good word for him—further proof of the power of networking.

A drawn-out job hunt also can give out-of-work professionals the time they need to fill a skills a gap—which in turn can jump-start a hunt. During her 10-month search last year, Laura Perry says she noticed many openings in her field, communications, required or preferred expertise in social media—something she lacked. “In my previous job, they had not embraced social media at all,” she says.

So Ms. Perry, 54, attended a conference on the subject and later volunteered to create a Facebook page for a local hair salon. She went on to build Facebook and LinkedIn pages for the Los Angeles chapter of the Executive Women’s Golf Association, of which she is a member. She also created a Twitter account for herself and tweets about the communications industry.

Ms. Perry added that social-media experience to her résumé and says what she learned helped her talk intelligently in interviews with employers—and she was able to point to samples of her work in this area. In July, she was hired as director of communications for the school of nursing at University of California, Los Angeles, where part of her job is to manage the school’s presence on Facebook and other social media Web sites.

In a recession, another way to put a job search back on track is to push your boundaries. That means including employers of all sizes and in more cities—even if that requires considering lower-paying positions at small, unknown firms.

Following a layoff from a midsize publishing company in February, Brian Rushton Phillips, 37, embarked on a search for a creative-director position in the Toronto area paying annual salary of $85,000 or more.

“I began lowering my expectations [for pay] once it became clear that the market wouldn’t accept it,” he says. In August, he accepted an offer for such a job but from a small publisher in New York that pays about $15,000 less than he earned in his last position. But he says he is happy to have a job, particularly one in the field he wants to work in.

If other changes aren’t helping refresh a job search, check for something as minor as a misspelled name or grammatical gaffe in your resume or cover letter. Job seekers should bear in mind that in a cutthroat market, employers are less inclined to ignore such errors, says Brad Karsh, president of JobBound, a career-coaching company in Chicago. It’s critical for job seekers to take the time to carefully proofread their resumes and every cover-letter submission, or have someone else do it. “The slightest mistake of any component of your job search can destroy your chances,” says Mr. Karsh. “This needs to be a flawless process.”

Write to Sarah E. Needleman at sarah.needleman@wsj.com

Por PRABHA NATARAJAN e ERIN MCCARTHY

Os mercados emergentes estão num bom momento, com investidores menos apavorados com a crise de dívida na Europa sendo atraídos pela perspectiva de crescimento do mundo em desenvolvimento.

A cotação de muitas moedas desses mercados parou de acompanhar a do euro, o que aumentou a confiança de que ocorrerá uma alta sustentada, mesmo enquanto a Europa ainda cambaleia para uma solução de longo prazo para sua crise.

As 25 moedas do Índice MSCI de Moedas de Mercados Emergentes subiram 4% em janeiro, desempenho melhor que a maioria dos ativos exceto ações. Já a cotação do euro em relação ao dólar subiu apenas 1,8% e o Índice de Commodities do Goldman Sachs apresentou expansão de 2,2%. O índice de 500 ações da Standard & Poor’s subiu 4,3% no mês passado.

A cotação do real também começou a oscilar com mais independência e deixou de acompanhar tão perto a movimentação do euro em relação ao dólar. O real subiu mais de 7% em relação ao dólar este ano, principalmente graças ao forte fluxo de investimento no Brasil. Os títulos de dívida interna no Brasil também pagam juros atraentes para investidores cansados dos rendimentos minguados do mundo desenvolvido.

Os fundos de títulos de dívida de mercados emergentes receberam um total de US$ 907 milhões em novas aplicações na semana encerrada em 25 de janeiro, o maior montante desde agosto, segundo a provedora de dados financeiros EPFR Global. De modo similar, as aplicações em fundos de títulos de dívida em moeda local voltaram aos níveis de agosto, com uma entrada de capital de US$ 373 milhões na semana encerrada em 25 de janeiro. Os investidores estrangeiros costumam comprar títulos de dívida de mercados emergentes em moeda local para aumentar a exposição tanto ao juro geralmente alto dos títulos quanto à moeda local em si.

Os investidores fugiram dos mercados emergentes nos últimos meses de 2011, em busca da segurança do dólar e da dívida soberana dos EUA. Eles temiam que a zona do euro estivesse à beira do colapso e que as moratórias soberanas iriam causar uma crise financeira mundial.

Alguns investidores dizem que o pêndulo está voltando a favorecer os mercados “desacoplados”, numa aposta de que a crise europeia não causará o mesmo contágio abrangente da crise financeira de 2008 e 2009, ou até mesmo durante o auge dos temores quanto à solvência do bloco, no ano passado.

Desde a crise de crédito de 2008, quando os mercados emergentes se recuperaram rapidamente, que o argumento de que eles estão em franca expansão supera os temores de volatilidade, disse David Creighton, presidente da Cordiant Capital, uma firma de investimentos focada nos mercados emergentes. “O apetite pelos [mercados emergentes] é maior agora do que antes”, disse Creighton. “Há uma mudança de percepção de que as oportunidades agora estão nos mercados emergentes, enquanto os países ricos seguirão num estado de confusão no curto prazo.”

Mesmo assim ainda existe quem não tenha se convencido de que todos os mercados emergentes cortaram totalmente seus laços com a crise da zona do euro.

“Você pode apostar nessas tendências de curto prazo e levar uma surra”, disse Robert Abad, administrador de carteira da Western Asset Management, numa referência aos movimentos súbitos do peso mexicano e da lira turca.

Se a crise europeia voltar a piorar, as moedas dos mercados emergentes provavelmente voltarão a acompanhar a oscilação cambial do euro.