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July 24, 2009

NATIONAL: Business Highlights

By The Associated Press

Stocks pare gains; Higher crude boosts energy

NEW YORK (AP) — Investors waiting for earnings reports to flow in traded cautiously Monday, giving up early gains and leaving the market narrowly mixed. The Dow Jones industrials reached a new 2009 trading high, edging closer to 10,000. The Dow closed up 20.86, or 0.2 percent, at 9,885.80.

Volume was light because of the Columbus Day holiday. Bond markets were closed and there were no economic reports.

A weaker dollar and a spike in oil prices above $73 drove energy and materials prices higher, but weakness in technology and industrial shares held the market back. Stocks got an early boost from a better-than-expected profit report from Dutch company Royal Philips Electronics. That sent Britain's leading stock indicator to its highest level in a year.

———

Oil, fuel prices jump as dollar, temperatures fall

UNDATED (AP) — Energy prices rose Monday as an October chill across much of the U.S. sent thermometers plummeting along with the weakening U.S. currency.

Benchmark crude for November delivery gained $1.50 to settle at $73.27 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The last time crude closed above $73 was in late August with the U.S. driving season in full swing.

Heating oil rose 4.16 cents to settle at $1.8944 a gallon and natural gas jumped 11 cents to settle at $4.88 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Even though there are enormous supplies of all three due to the recession and there is little chance of a shortage in the near term, crude prices have risen 5 percent in three trading days.

———

American is first woman to win Nobel in economics

WASHINGTON (AP) — Elinor Ostrom became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in economics, honored along with fellow American Oliver Williamson on Monday for analyzing economic governance — the rules by which people exercise authority in companies and economic systems.

Ostrom was also the fifth woman to win a Nobel award this year — a record for the prestigious honors.

It was an exceptionally strong year for the United States, with 11 American citizens — some of them with dual nationality — among the 13 Nobel winners, including President Barack Obama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.

———

Data and contacts vanish from Sidekick phones

NEW YORK (AP) — Owners of Sidekick phones may have lost all the personal information they put on the device, including contact numbers, because of a failure of servers that remotely stored the data.

The incident is a huge blow to the reputation of the Sidekick and is a reminder of the dangers of trusting a single provider to safeguard information.

The phones are made by a Microsoft Corp. subsidiary and sold by T-Mobile USA, which says many Sidekick owners' information is "almost certainly" gone. T-Mobile is offering customers $20 to refund the cost of one month of data usage on the phone.

———

Survey: Most economists see recovery beginning

NEW YORK (AP) — More than 80 percent of economists believe the recession is over and an expansion has begun, but they expect the recovery will be slow as worries over unemployment and high federal debt persist.

That consensus comes from leading forecasters in a survey by the National Association for Business Economics released Monday.

The forecasters upgraded the economic outlook for the next several quarters, but cautioned that unemployment rates and the federal deficit are expected to remain high through the next year. Forecasters now expect the economy, as measured by gross domestic product, to advance at a 2.9 percent pace in the second half of the year, after falling for four straight quarters for the first time on records dating to 1947. They expect a 3 percent gain in 2010.











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