On Friday March 4, 2011, 5:55 pm EST
WASHINGTON (AP) --
Unemployment dips to 8.9 pct., 192K jobs added
Employers hired in February
at the fastest pace in almost a year, and the unemployment rate fell to 8.9
percent -- nearly a two-year low.
The economy added 192,000
jobs. Factories, professional and business services, education and health care
were among the sectors that hired. Retailers, though, trimmed jobs. State and
local governments, squeezed by budget gaps, slashed 30,000 jobs, the most since
November. Federal government hiring was flat.
Private employers added
222,000 jobs last month, the most since April. That shows companies are feeling
more confident about the economy and their own prospects. The job gains
bolstered hopes that businesses will hire aggressively through the rest of the
year and strengthen the economic recovery.
The unemployment rate is
now at its lowest point since April 2009. It's been falling for three months,
down from 9.8 percent in November, marking the sharpest three-month drop since
1983.
Factory orders up in
January, helped by airplanes
Businesses ordered more
manufactured goods from U.S. factories in January, but excluding a big surge in
demand for airplanes, the rise in demand was the smallest in three months.
Excluding the volatile
transportation category, orders rose 0.7 percent in January, the weakest
showing since October, the Commerce Department reported Friday. And a key
category that serves as a proxy for business investment plans fell by the
largest amount in two years.
Helped by the surge in
demand for commercial aircraft, total business orders rose 3.1 percent in
January, the biggest gain in more than four years. That pushed total orders up
to $445.6 billion, a level that economists view as healthy and 26.3 percent
above the recession low hit in March 2009.
Oil settles at highest
level since Sept. 2008
NEW YORK (AP) -- Oil prices
rose past $104 a barrel to end the week at a 29-month high, as fighting in
Libya intensified and the world's largest petroleum consumer, the U.S.,
reported that employers added nearly 200,000 new jobs in February.
The Labor Department said
Friday that the unemployment rate dropped to 8.9 percent in February. While that's
positive news for the economy, the report also suggests that more people are
driving to work at a time when world oil supplies are under pressure because of
unrest in Libya and the Middle East.
Benchmark West Texas
Intermediate crude for April delivery gained $2.51 to settle at $104.42 per
barrel in New York, the highest level since Sept. 26, 2008.
Gasoline prices have shot
up an average of 35 cents per gallon since an uprising in Libya began in
mid-February. A gallon of regular gained another 4.4 cents to a new national
average of $3.471 per gallon on Friday, according to AAA, Wright Express and
the Oil Price Information Service.
Pump prices are soaring
much faster than analysts expected as rebellions sweep across North Africa and
the Middle East. Prices should peak between $3.50 and $3.75 per gallon this
spring, according to Tom Kloza, OPIS chief oil analyst.
US food, farm exports could
have record year
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- Federal
officials are expecting a record year for U.S. agriculture exports.
Agriculture Secretary Tom
Vilsack says farm and food products are expected to reach a record $135.5
billion in fiscal year 2011, which ends in September.
Vilsack told The Associated
Press that U.S. agriculture may have its best export year ever. Compared to fiscal
2010, export value is expected to grow 25 percent.
Vilsack spoke Friday in
Tampa, Fla., at the Commodity Classic, a large convention and trade show for
the U.S. corn, soybean, wheat, and sorghum industries that draws some 4,500
farmers from around the nation.
S&P cuts long-term
rating on Toyota to AA-
TOKYO (AP) -- Standard
& Poor's cut Toyota's credit rating on Friday to AA- because profitability
at Japan's top automaker is not recovering as quickly as at its rivals.
Toyota Motor Corp. has been
plagued by defects in a range of models and has recalled more than 14 million
vehicles globally since late 2009. Continuing recalls are making Toyota's road
to complete recovery a challenge.
In announcing its decision,
S&P said it reflected the view that Toyota's profitability in the next one
to two years is unlikely to recover to the level appropriate for its earlier AA
rating.
S&P also cited the
tough business environment, including higher prices for raw materials and
gasoline.
The decision lowers
Toyota's long-term corporate credit rating one notch to the fourth-highest rank
of AA-.
Prosecutor: Galleon founder
got tips about Goldman
NEW YORK (AP) -- At the
trial of a one-time billionaire hedge fund founder next week, the government
plans to show that a former Goldman Sachs board member conspired with him,
feeding him inside tips within minutes of learning about them during the 2008
economic crisis, including word that Goldman would lose money for the first
time, a prosecutor said Friday.
Assistant U.S. Attorney
Jonathan Streeter told a federal judge in Manhattan that then-Goldman board
member Rajat Gupta called Galleon fund founder Raj Rajaratnam twice to give him
tips. Rajaratnam then traded hundreds of thousands of shares of Goldman Sachs
stock.
Gupta has not been charged
criminally in what prosecutors have called the largest hedge fund insider
trading case in history. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil
charges against him this week, accusing him of tipping Rajaratnam seven minutes
before the stock markets closed on Sept. 23, 2008, that the Goldman Sachs board
had approved an offer from Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway to invest $5
billion in the banking giant.
UBS CEO to forgo bonus due
to share price drop
GENEVA (AP) -- The chief
executive of Swiss bank UBS will forgo his bonus for the second year in a row
because the share price did not increase during 2010, the company said Friday.
Oswald Gruebel, who helped
UBS return to a profit last year for the first time since the start of the
financial crisis, will not draw on bonus payments he was entitled to for 2010.
His base annual salary is the same as when he joined the company in February
2009, at 3 million Swiss francs ($3.22 million), UBS said.
FDA warns of birth defects
with Topamax
The Food and Drug
Administration is warning women of child-bearing age that the epilepsy drug
Topamax can increase the risk of birth defects around the mouth.
Regulators said Friday that
data collected from a registry of pregnant women showed a higher rate of cleft
lip and cleft palate in babies whose mothers were taking the drug during the
first trimester. Infants who were exposed to the drug had a 1.4 percent rate of
mouth defects, which was more than three times greater than that seen with other
seizure medications. The frequency of the defects in mothers not taking any
epilepsy medication is .07 percent.
Pork board swaps `White
Meat' for `Be Inspired'
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) --
"The Other White Meat" has another slogan.
The National Pork Board on
Friday replaced the decades-old ad campaign with a new message: "Pork: Be
Inspired."
Board officials said after
nearly 25 years, it was time to move on from the old message that compared pork
to chicken and instead try to increase sales by focusing on the estimated 82
million Americans who already eat pork.
Pork sales totaled about
$117 per person in 2010. Pork consumption averages about 50 pounds per person
per year, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Snyder said research done by
the Pork Board shows 28 percent of U.S. households make up nearly 70 percent of
the nation's at-home consumption of fresh pork. The new campaign is aimed at
getting existing pork consumers to think more about how they can incorporate it
into their meal planning.
By The Associated
Press(equals)
The Dow Jones industrial
average dropped 88.32 points, or 0.7 percent, to 12,169.88. The Dow had been
down as much as 178 points earlier.
The Standard & Poor's
500 index fell 9.82, or 0.7 percent, to 1,321.15. The Nasdaq composite index
fell 14.07, or 0.5 percent, to 2,784.67.
Benchmark West Texas
Intermediate crude for April delivery gained $2.51 to settle at $104.42 per
barrel in New York.
In other Nymex trading for
April contracts, heating oil added 4 cents to settle at $3.0893 per gallon and
gasoline futures gained 2.02 cents to settle at $3.0464 per gallon. Natural gas
picked up 3.1 cents to settle at $3.809 per 1,000 cubic feet.
In London, Brent crude rose
$1.18 to settle at $115.97 per barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.