On Monday July 19, 2010, 6:11 pm EDT
Homebuilders losing
confidence in the recovery
WASHINGTON (AP) --
Homebuilders are feeling increasingly pessimistic about their industry, more
evidence that the economic recovery is slowing.
The National Association of
Home Builders said Monday that its monthly reading of builders' sentiment about
the housing market sank to 14 -- the lowest level since March 2009. Readings
below 50 indicate negative sentiment about the market.
The weak job market and an
increasing number of foreclosed properties have prompted builders to limit
construction of new homes. A modest revival in sales over the past year ended
in May after federal tax credits expired at the end of April.
Stocks rebound as investors
await earnings
NEW YORK (AP) -- The stock
market is fulfilling predictions of an uneasy trek through second-quarter
earnings season.
Stocks ended a choppy day
Monday with a moderate rebound that sent the Dow Jones industrial average up 56
points. Analysts said the advance was due in part to investors' regaining their
optimism about earnings. But that change in sentiment was fleeting: After the
market closed, IBM reported revenue that fell short of expectations, and
investors were back to selling in after-hours trading.
Analysts have predicted
that stock trading would be erratic throughout earnings season. Recent economic
data has been disappointing, and investors are having a hard time trusting
upbeat forecasts.
Nokia Siemens to buy
Motorola wireless gear unit
NEW YORK (AP) -- The
long-planned breakup of Motorola Inc., one of the founders of the U.S.
electronics industry, came a step closer Monday with a deal to sell most of its
wireless networks division.
The deal to sell the
division for $1.2 billion to Nokia Siemens Networks, a Finnish-German joint
venture, sets Motorola up to separate its cell phone manufacturing operations
from the police radio business early next year, essentially dividing the
82-year-old company into three parts.
The parts are aimed at different
types of customers. The division that is being sold supplies wireless carriers
such as Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp. with the equipment they need
to connect to cell phones.
Halliburton 2Q profit jumps
83 percent
NEW YORK (AP) -- Halliburton
Co. said energy companies have become so aggressive about exploring for natural
gas in the U.S. that its land-based drilling business will make up for a
suspension of deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Houston petroleum
services company on Monday reported an 83 percent surge in second-quarter
profits. The results beat Wall Street expectations, and shares rose more than 5
percent.
Halliburton is the first of
several companies connected to the Gulf oil spill to report second-quarter
financial results. The company was handling the cementing job on BP's Macondo
well before it blew up on April 20.
Obama to GOP: Restore
unemployment benefits now
WASHINGTON (AP) --
President Barack Obama took aim at Republican lawmakers Monday, accusing them
of holding the public hostage to Washington politics by blocking extended
unemployment benefits for millions of out of work Americans.
Lawmakers have battled for
weeks over legislation extending unemployment benefits to workers who have been
out of a job for long stretches of time. The last such extension expired at the
end of May, leaving some 2.5 million people without benefits, with hundreds of
thousands more losing benefits each week.
The Senate is set to take
up the measure again Tuesday, immediately after the swearing in of a
replacement for the late Sen. Robert Byrd. Filling that seat will give
Democrats the 60 votes they need to block a Republican filibuster.
IBM ups 2010 forecast, but
2Q rev falls short
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- IBM
Corp. jacked up its 2010 guidance Monday on the technology company's belief
that it can wring more profit from its workhorse services and software
divisions.
The numbers dovetail with
other encouraging signs about the health of the technology sector, but
uncertainties about the stability of world markets have weighed on the results.
IBM's second-quarter profit
topped Wall Street's forecasts, but revenue fell short. IBM shares fell nearly
4 percent in extended trading. IBM blamed the revenue discrepancy on currency
fluctuations that many analysts didn't include in their estimates.
Air show kicks off with
small flurry of orders
FARNBOROUGH, England (AP)
-- Boeing Co. and European arch rival Airbus racked up billions of dollars
worth of aircraft sales at the Farnborough International Airshow on Monday,
raising hopes that the aviation industry has touched the bottom of a deep
two-year downturn.
But the horizon remains
clouded -- major European airlines, which are still haunted by recession,
mostly kept their hands in their pockets as Middle Eastern carriers and U.S.
plane leasing firms made purchases to build up their fleets.
The optimism also isn't
extending to the defense side of the sector where massive cuts to Western
military budgets were the talk of the industry's premier event.
Feds: Oil, gas leaking from
cap on ruptured well
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Oil and
gas are leaking from the cap on BP's ruptured oil well but the cork will stay
in place for now, the federal government's point man on the spill said Monday.
The leaks aren't
"consequential," retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said, relieving
concerns that they are a sign the cap is creating too much pressure
underground. That could mean the cap that's stopped oil since Thursday would
have to be opened.
Allen said BP could
continue testing the cap, meaning keeping it shut, for at least another 24
hours. He said BP must keep rigorously monitoring for any signs that this test
could worsen the overall situation.
Court grants bail to jailed
ex-media mogul Black
CHICAGO (AP) -- Jailed
former newspaper magnate Conrad Black was granted bail by a federal appeals
court on Monday, weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court kicked his 2007 fraud
conviction back to a lower court.
The British baron and three
other former executives from the media empire Hollinger International were
convicted of swindling the company's shareholders out of $6.1 million.
But last month, the Supreme
Court weakened the "honest services" law that was central to Black's
fraud conviction. The justices left it up to a lower court to decide whether
the conviction should be overturned.
Delta posts $467M profit in
2nd quarter
Delta Air Lines Inc.
reported its largest quarterly profit in a decade Monday but investors dumped
its shares as sales didn't meet expectations and the carrier gave a cautious
outlook amid economic uncertainty.
The world's largest airline
said its second-quarter net income was $467 million, or 55 cents per share.
That reversed a year-ago loss of $257 million, or 31 cents a share, when the
airline industry was still reeling from the recession.
Delta's revenue rose 17
percent to $8.17 billion from $7 billion a year earlier. But that figure was
below analysts' revenue estimate of $8.25 billion
By The Associated Press
The Dow rose 56.53, or 0.6
percent, to 10,154.43.
The Standard & Poor's
500 index rose 6.37, or 0.6 percent, to 1,071.25, while the Nasdaq composite
index, lifted by a rally in tech stocks, rose 19.18, or 0.9 percent, to
2,198.23.
Benchmark crude rose 53
cents to settle at $76.54 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
In other Nymex trading
heating oil rose 0.57 cent to settle at $2.0170 a gallon, gasoline added 1.04
cents to settle at $2.0772 a gallon and natural gas lost 0.9 cent to settle at
$4.510 per 1,000 cubic feet.
Brent crude was up 25 cents
to settle at $75.62 a barrel on the ICE futures exchange.