AP Business Highlights
On Friday August 6, 2010, 5:44 pm EDT
3rd month of weak hiring
signals long slog ahead
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The
nation isn't creating nearly enough jobs to reduce persistently high
unemployment.
For the third straight
month, the private sector hired cautiously in July. And those meager gains in
the job market were nearly wiped out by tens of thousands of cuts at all levels
of government.
The unemployment rate was
stuck at 9.5 percent for the second straight month, the Labor Department said
Friday. Private employers reported a net gain of 71,000 jobs for July -- far
below the 200,000 it takes for the unemployment rate just to hold steady and
keep pace with the growing work force.
Stocks, dollar fall after
weak US jobs report
NEW YORK (AP) -- A
disappointing jobs report sent investors out of stocks and the dollar Friday
and into assets perceived as being safer. Foreign currencies and gold rose, as
did bond prices, which sent interest rates lower. The yield on the two-year
Treasury note hit a record low.
Stocks sank for most of the
day but pared their losses in late afternoon trading. The Dow Jones industrials
ended down 21 points after being down as much as 160 earlier in the day.
Consumers cut back on
credit cards again in June
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Consumer
borrowing fell in June for a fifth straight month as households keep cutting
back on credit card use.
Borrowing dropped at an
annual rate of $1.3 billion in June, the Federal Reserve reported Friday. That
marked the 16th drop in overall credit in the past 17 months.
Americans backed away from
swiping their credit cards for the 21st straight month. That offset a rise in
the number of auto loans.
AIG posts 2Q loss of $538M
on restructuring costs
NEW YORK (AP) -- The
insurance giant AIG on Friday reported a $538 million loss in the second
quarter due to charges related to selling assets to repay the federal
government bailout it received during the financial meltdown.
AIG's adjusted results
excluding the charges beat Wall Street expectations as its insurance business
improved. Its CEO also said discussions are under way regarding a government
exit from its huge stake in the company. Its shares rose in midday trading.
American International
Group Inc. said its net loss attributable to common shareholders amounted to
$3.96 per share. It had a profit of $311 million, or $2.30 per share, a year
ago.
HP CEO Hurd resigns after
sexual-harassment probe
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) --
Hewlett-Packard Co. said CEO Mark Hurd is stepping down following a
sexual-harassment probe that found other violations of company standards.
HP said Friday that Hurd
decided to leave after the investigation into a sexual-harassment claim made
against him and the company by a former HP contractor. The probe concludes that
the company's sexual-harassment policy was not violated, but that its standards
of business conduct were.
After the announcement, the
company's shares dropped more than 8 percent in after-hours trading.
Net income falls 40 percent
at Buffett's company
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- Warren
Buffett's company reported a 40 percent drop in second-quarter profit because
largely unrealized derivative losses of $1.4 billion outweighed improvements at
Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s operating companies.
Berkshire said reported
$1.97 billion net income Friday, or $1,195 per Class A share. That's down from
$3.3 billion, or $2,123 per share, a year ago. It's revenue grew 7 percent to
$31.7 billion.
Those results fell short of
the $1,360.44 profit per share analysts expected.
In sign of good times, Ford
to pay Bill Ford again
DETROIT (AP) -- After a
five-year wage freeze, Ford Motor Co. Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr. is
getting paid again.
It's another sign that the
automaker founded by his great-grandfather Henry Ford is healthy enough to
award its top executives generous pay packages. The company recently said it
earned $2.6 billion in the second quarter, its fifth-straight quarterly profit.
Bill Ford will be paid $4.2
million in salary and in stock options worth $11.6 million. The total
represents pay he has earned over the last two years. He was to be paid Friday.
Boeing reports loss of 26
airplane orders
DALLAS (AP) -- An
aircraft-leasing company in the United Arab Emirates has canceled orders for
dozens of planes from Boeing Co. and Airbus.
Dubai Aerospace Enterprise
canceled 25 orders in the past month at Boeing, including 15 for the company's
new 787 jet.
And Europe's Airbus
disclosed on its website Friday that Dubai Aerospace cut 25 planes from its orders
at the European company, including 18 orders for the medium-range A320 and
seven for the long-range A350.
Dubai Aerospace, the
government-backed aviation financing company, still has 91 planes on order at
Boeing and 75 at Airbus.
Washington Post shares off,
Kaplan faces scrutiny
NEW YORK (AP) -- Proposed
federal rules that could hurt The Washington Post Co.'s biggest revenue and
profit driver, the Kaplan education business, overshadowed a nearly eight-fold
surge in the company's quarterly earnings reported Friday. The company's shares
plunged.
The Post Co. said that
proposed changes in federal education policy may have a "material
effect" on Kaplan's future results.
Lawmakers have been raising
concerns that for-profit colleges of the kind run by Kaplan are loading
students up with debt and not preparing them to find jobs.
Weekend pump prices up a
few cents
Motorists heading out for
back-to-school shopping trips or a late-summer vacation will pay a few cents
more for a gallon of gas this weekend.
Pump prices rose this week
because of a rally in oil, yet they aren't expected to spike in the weeks ahead
because of typical light trading in the oil market in August, still-ample
supplies and fairly weak demand.
The national average for a
gallon of unleaded regular gasoline was $2.779 Friday, about 3.8 cents higher
than a week ago, according to AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information
Service. It's also 16.9 cents more than motorists paid a year ago.
By The Associated Press
The Dow Jones industrial
average closed down 21.42 points, or 0.2 percent, at 10,653.56, having been
down as much as 160 points earlier.
The Standard & Poor's
500 index fell 4.17, or 0.4 percent, to 1,121.64, while the Nasdaq composite
index fell 4.59, or 0.2 percent, to 2,288.47.
Benchmark crude for
September delivery fell $1.31 to settle at $80.70 a barrel on the New York
Mercantile Exchange.
In other Nymex trading in
September contracts, heating oil fell 3.96 cents to settle at $2.1472 a gallon,
gasoline lost 5.17 cents to $2.1127 a gallon and natural gas dropped 13.1 cents
to $4.467 per 1,000 cubic feet.
In London, Brent crude was
down $1.45 to $80.16 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.