Unemployment-claims data signal job
gains are near
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A government report
Thursday on claims for unemployment aid signaled that layoffs are easing and
that the economy could be on the verge of posting the first monthly gain in
jobs in two years.
The number of people claiming
first-time unemployment benefits barely rose last week, the Labor Department
said, after falling to its lowest level since July 2008 the previous week. And
the four-week average of claims fell for the 18th straight week -- to its
lowest point since September 2008, when the financial crisis intensified with
the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
December retail sales show signs of
life
NEW YORK (AP) -- A firm stand on prices
and a surge of last-minute holiday shoppers gave retailers a big present:
modest December sales gains and healthy profits, a big improvement from last
year's Christmas catastrophe.
Many retailers raised their
fourth-quarter outlooks Thursday. A big reason why: Stores never had to resort
to drastic price-cutting after keeping inventories lean.
The solid finish capped a rough year
that saw the biggest sales decline in at least four decades, according to the
International Council of Shopping Centers.
Stocks notch modest gains ahead of
employment data
NEW YORK (AP) -- Stocks ended mostly
higher Thursday as investors placed modest bets ahead of the government's
monthly employment report.
The gain in most stocks came as
investors traded cautiously before Friday's report on December employment.
Analysts are expecting modest job losses. The government reported a slight rise
in weekly claims for unemployment benefits Thursday, though the increase was
less than expected. The Labor Department said initial claims rose by 1,000 last
week.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose
33.18, or 0.3 percent, to 10,606.86.
Blackwater settles civil lawsuits over
Iraq deaths
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- The security firm
formerly known as Blackwater has reached a settlement in a series of federal
lawsuits in which dozens of Iraqis accused the company of cultivating a
reckless culture that allowed innocent civilians to be killed.
Plaintiffs' attorney Susan Burke filed
a motion in federal court late Wednesday requesting the cases be dismissed. The
seven lawsuits cited a pattern of illegal activity, including several killings
such as the 2007 shooting in Iraq's capital that left 17 Iraqis dead and
strained relationships between Washington and Baghdad.
Bank pay-insurance plan mulled
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal banking
regulators are considering a plan to link the insurance premiums U.S. banks
must pay to the degree of risk-taking encouraged by their executive
compensation policies.
The board of the Federal Deposit
Insurance Corp. is expected to make public next Tuesday a preliminary proposal for
using executive compensation as a factor in assessing the fees paid by banks
for the deposit insurance fund, a person with direct knowledge of the matter
said Thursday.
The discussions on a new FDIC plan are
at an early stage that may lead to a formal rule being proposed and eventually
adopted by the agency, two people familiar with the matter said. They spoke on
condition of anonymity because the process is still preliminary.
Ex-McKinsey director pleads guilty in
insider case
NEW YORK (AP) -- A former director of a
global management consulting firm pleaded guilty Thursday to securities fraud
charges, admitting making $2.6 million by feeding inside stock information to
one of America's richest men in history's largest hedge-fund insider trading
case.
Anil Kumar, 51, of Saratoga, Calif.,
entered the plea in U.S. District Court in Manhattan in a cooperation deal
aimed at strengthening the government's case against billionaire hedge-fund
operator Raj Rajaratnam.
Rajaratnam reaped $19 million from
investments made after Kumar, a former senior partner and director at McKinsey
& Co., fed him tips between March and July 2006 about the acquisition of
ATI Technologies Inc. by Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Assistant U.S. Attorney
Jonathan R. Streeter said.
Homebuilder Lennar posts profit for Q4,
CEO upbeat
Lennar Corp.'s stock rose more than 15
percent Thursday after the CEO said he sees a trend in rising prices and
anticipates the homebuilder will be profitable this year.
"Prices are no longer free-falling
downward and in fact in many instances, are actually starting to stabilize and
even recover," Stuart Miller said. "I feel comfortable today saying
that this is a trend and not an anomaly."
Miller added that he expects the
company, which has operations in 17 states, will ramp up hiring as it begins to
build new home developments this year. That's a clear signal Lennar is betting
the real estate recovery, while shaky, will hold.
Fed emergency loans to banks up
slightly
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Banks borrowed
slightly more from the Federal Reserve's emergency lending program over the
past week but the amount was still well below levels reached during the height
of the financial crisis, the Fed said Thursday.
Commercial banks averaged $19.45
billion in daily borrowing for the week that ended Wednesday. That was up from
$18.74 billion in average borrowing for the previous week.
As financial conditions have improved,
banks have scaled back their use of the Fed's emergency discount loan window.
At the peak of the crisis, which struck in the fall of 2008, banks' daily
borrowing from the discount window reached $110 billion, reflecting banks'
serious trouble getting loans through normal private-market channels.
Geithner's NY Fed told AIG to keep
quiet on deals
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Controversial deals
that sent billions of bailout dollars to Goldman Sachs and other banks were
kept quiet under pressure from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, then led
by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
E-mails between lawyers for the New
York Fed and bailed-out insurance conglomerate American International Group
Inc. show AIG wanted to disclose some details about payments it made to banks,
including Goldman and Deutsche Bank, to cancel financial deals.
But lawyers for the New York Fed, which
engineered AIG's bailout with the Bush administration's Treasury Department,
told AIG to remove the information from a draft.
American boosts investment offer for
JAL to $1.4B
DALLAS (AP) -- American Airlines has
dug deeper to save its relationship with Japan Airlines, raising the amount it
is willing to invest in the ailing airline to $1.4 billion.
American upped its previous offer by
$300 million in a bid to fend off Delta Air Lines Inc. Delta wants to create
its own partnership with the Japanese carrier that would operate across the
Pacific and throughout Asia.
Delta and its SkyTeam partners have
offered JAL $1 billion.
American executives told Japan
Airlines, or JAL, of its new offer on Thursday, according to two people close
to the situation in Tokyo, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the
talks were confidential.
By The Associated Press
The Dow Jones industrial average rose
33.18, or 0.3 percent, to 10,606.86.
The broader Standard & Poor's 500
index rose 4.55, or 0.4 percent, to 1,141.69. It was the highest close for both
indexes since Oct. 1, 2008.
Benchmark crude for February delivery
fell 52 cents to settle at $82.66 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange
as the dollar rebounded.
In other Nymex trading in February
contracts, heating oil fell 1.96 cents to settle at $2.1836 a gallon and
gasoline dropped less than a penny to settle at $2.1349 a gallon. Natural gas
futures fell 20.3 cents to settle at $5.806 per 1,000 cubic feet.
In London, Brent crude for February
delivery fell 38 cents to settle at $81.51 a barrel on the ICE Futures
exchange.