On Friday June 25, 2010, 6:06 pm EDT
Federal regs set to
restrain Wall Street risk
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The
toughest financial regulations since the Great Depression are headed for final
votes in Congress next week, covering everything from debit card swipes at
Starbucks to the most complex securities, in an election-year salve for public
anger over the Wall Street risk-taking that cost millions their jobs, homes and
nest eggs.
House and Senate bargainers
approved the deal as the sun rose Friday, giving President Barack Obama a fresh
campaign-season triumph after his health care overhaul -- and an achievement to
tout at the weekend global economic summit in Toronto. Democrats hope lawmakers
can pass the legislation and ship it to Obama for his signature by July 4,
capping a burst of action prompted by the worst recession in seven decades.
Economy faces tough road
ahead with slower growth
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The
Commerce Department said Friday that the economy grew at an annual rate of 2.7
percent in the first quarter, offering its third and final estimate for the
period. It was slower than initially thought because consumers spent less and
imports rose faster that previously calculated.
Economists anticipate even
slower growth ahead as companies bring their stockpiles more in line with
sales. Factory output has climbed this year. But it was driven more by
businesses replenishing their warehouses after the recession and less by
consumer demand.
Bank stocks soar on
financial regulation agreement
NEW YORK (AP) -- Bank
stocks shot higher Friday after an agreement on a financial regulation bill
reassured investors that new rules won't devastate financial companies'
profits.
Banks outdistanced the rest
of the market after congressional negotiators agreed on a bill that increases
the regulation of financial companies, but that doesn't include some of the
harshest provisions that the government originally proposed. The legislation
imposes new rules on the complex investments known as derivatives, but the
rules aren't as strict as investors feared.
The Dow fell 8.99, or 0.1
percent, to 10,143.81.
Leaders differ on how to
nurture a global recovery
HUNTSVILLE, Ontario (AP) --
President Barack Obama carried a fresh congressional victory on tighter U.S.
financial rules Friday to a summit of world leaders debating how to keep the
world economy growing. There was little expectation of major breakthroughs from
sessions here and in Toronto.
Divided on economic
remedies, the leaders searched for common ground on other issues, such as confronting
nuclear standoffs with Iran and North Korea, maternal and infant health care
and dealing with the AIDs epidemic.
KB Home 2nd-quarter loss
narrows
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The
homebuyer tax credit party is over and the hangover may be just beginning.
KB Home on Friday became
the latest homebuilder to report a sharp drop in new home orders in the three
months ended in May as federal tax incentives aimed at spurring home sales
expired.
The builder's orders
plunged 23 percent versus the same quarter last year. On Thursday, rival Lennar
Corp. reported a 10 percent drop in orders, with the slide taking place
entirely in the weeks after the tax credits expired on April 30.
Merck hit with $8 million
verdict in Fosamax trial
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) --
Drugmaker Merck & Co. said it will challenge its first loss in a trial
blaming its osteoporosis drug for destroying a patient's jawbone after a
federal jury on Friday awarded $8 million to the Florida woman.
The U.S. District Court
jury in New York awarded that amount in compensatory damages to Shirley Boles,
72, of Fort Walton, Fla., who alleged Merck's Fosamax destroyed her jawbone
near her ears, causing serious pain and disability.
The three-week trial ended
after nearly 4 hours of deliberations Friday by a jury of three men and four
women. It was the second for Boles, a retired sheriff's deputy in the sex
crimes unit in Oskaloosa County, Fla. Her first trial ended last September in a
mistrial.
Boeing 787s not flying
while problem addressed
SEATTLE (AP) -- Boeing Co. is
halting flight tests on its new 787 jet after finding that some of the planes
have improperly installed parts in the tail.
The problem involves shims
and fasteners, which weren't installed correctly in the horizontal tail of the
plane, Boeing said. The whole assembly is built by Italian manufacturer Alenia.
Each inspection will take
about a day and any work required will take up to eight days for each aircraft
or tail assembly, Fancher said. The five flight-test jets will be the first
inspected. The company will inspect all 25 of the tail assemblies it has in the
factory, some of them not yet installed on airplanes.
BP says relief well is on
target as stock tumbles
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- BP's
effort to drill a relief well through 2 1/2 miles of rock to stop the Gulf
spill is on target for completion by mid-August, the oil giant said Friday. But
BP's stock tumbled anyway over the mounting costs of the disaster and the
company's inability to plug the leak sooner.
The relief well is
considered the best hope of halting the crude that has been gushing since April
20 in the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
The crew that has been
drilling the relief well since early May ran a test to confirm it is on the
right path, using a tool that detects the magnetic field around the casing of
the original, blown-out well.
China takes hands-off
approach to labor strikes
BEIJING (AP) -- When
workers at a Honda transmission plant in China went on strike for higher wages
last month, they touched off a domino effect of high-profile labor disputes.
As the strikes, many of
them at foreign-owned plants, rippled through China's southern manufacturing
heartland, the government -- usually quick to crush mass protests of any kind
-- did not step in, but allowed them to spread.
That's because it views the
strikes less as a political threat these days than as an economic tool -- a way
to help restructure China's current export-driven economy to a more
self-sustaining one, driven by ordinary people with more cash to spend.
SEC halts alleged $34M
Ponzi scheme
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The
government said Friday it obtained a court order to halt an alleged $34 million
Ponzi scheme targeting federal employees and law enforcement agents nationwide
with promises of safe investments in a nonexistent bond fund.
The Securities and Exchange
Commission said the order issued Thursday by a federal judge in Miami also
froze the assets of the estate of the late Kenneth Wayne McLeod, his consulting
firm Federal Employee Benefits Group of Jacksonville, Fla., and an affiliated
investment firm. The SEC alleged that McLeod and the firms defrauded an
estimated 260 investors starting in 1988.
By The Associated Press
The Dow fell 8.99, or 0.1
percent, to 10,143.81. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 3.07,
or 0.3 percent, to 1,076.76, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 6.06, or 0.3
percent, to 2,223.48.
Benchmark crude for August
delivery rose $2.35 to settle at $78.86 a barrel on the New York Mercantile
Exchange.
In other Nymex trading in
July contracts, heating oil added 5.50 cents to settle at $2.1122 a gallon,
gasoline gained 7.43 cents to settle at $2.1678 a gallon and natural gas picked
up 11.3 cents to settle at $4.861 per 1,000 cubic feet.
Brent crude rose $1.65 to
settle at $78.12 a barrel on the ICE futures exchange.
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