BC-Business News Digest
Business News at 3:50 p.m.
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New this digest:
Adds: OBAMA-FED CHAIRMAN; TYSON-CATTLE FEED ADDITIVE; POSTAL-QUARTERLY LOSS; OBIT-LARRY STEPHENS; STUDENT LOANS
Updates: ELECTRONIC BOOKS-ANTITRUST LAWSUIT OIL PRICES; WALL STREET
TOP STORIES:
STUDENT LOANS
WASHINGTON — Students heading back to college this fall will save thousands in interest charges on their loans after they graduate now that President Barack Obama has signed into law a rare bipartisan compromise. By Philip Elliott.
AP graphic, photos.
With:
— STUDENT LOANS-GLANCE — A look at how the new law will affect student rates.
WALL STREET WEEK AHEAD
NEW YORK — Investors have seen big gains in small-company stocks this year. Entravision Communications, a Spanish-language media company, SunPower, a maker of solar panels, and MannKind, a biopharmaceutical company, have more than tripled in value. All are part of the Russell 2000, an index of small-company stocks that has surged in 2013. The Russell, which consists of companies with market values from about $310 million to $3.3 billion, is outpacing the gains of the Standard & Poor's 500 index and the Dow Jones industrial average. That suggests investors are just as comfortable owning stocks of smaller, riskier companies as they are holding big, multi-national companies, like Exxon Mobil and Apple. By Steve Rothwell.
PRICELINE-$1,000 STOCK
NEW YORK — Priceline.com comes close to becoming the first stock in the Standard & Poor's 500 index to ever cross $1,000. Investors jump onboard after the travel booking company reported better than expected second-quarter earnings. By Scott Mayerowitz.
JC PENNEY-ACKMAN
NEW YORK — Activist investor Bill Ackman escalates his battle with J.C. Penney with a letter saying its chairman should be replaced. The latest missive in an unusually public corporate squabble comes a day after Ackman pushed for a speedy search for a new CEO. By Mae Anderson and Anne D'Innocenzio.
AP photos.
TV FEE FIGHT-WORKAROUNDS
LOS ANGELES — As a fee fight between Time Warner Cable and CBS drags on, sports fans will be hanging out in bars, hooking up antennas and firing up their laptops to get around a blackout that jeopardizes coverage of major sporting events, including the PGA Championship golf tournament this weekend. By Business Writer Ryan Nakashima.
AP photo pursuing.
MARKETS & ECONOMY:
OBAMA-FED CHAIRMAN
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama says he has a range of outstanding candidates to lead the Federal Reserve and calls Lawrence Summers and Janet Yellen highly qualified to become the next Fed chairman.
AP photo.
POSTAL-QUARTERLY LOSS
WASHINGTON — The Postal Service says it trimmed its losses to $740 million over the last three months by consolidating processing facilities, cutting hours for workers and post offices and reducing workers' compensation costs. By Andrew Miga.
WALL STREET
NEW YORK — On the stock market, Friday is turning out to be a ho-hum capstone to a ho-hum week, where unimpressive earnings kept investors feeling wary. All three major indexes are lower, and almost everything about the day screamed summer.
— OIL PRICES — The price of oil rises more than 2 percent as positive economic news from China outweighed expectations that the U.S. Federal Reserve would soon start withdrawing its bond-buying program. Benchmark crude for September delivery gained $2.57, or 2.5 percent, to close at $105.97 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
— WHOLESALE INVENTORIES — U.S. wholesalers cut their stockpiles in June for a third straight month even as their sales rose again. The combination suggests businesses have underestimated demand, a trend that could lead to stronger economic growth in coming months.
— JAPAN-US-TRADE TALKS — U.S. and Japanese officials wrap up talks aimed at reducing trade barriers, but differences remain over autos, insurance and other industries. AP photos.
— JPMORGAN-LONDON WHALE — The London trader at the center of JPMorgan Chase's $6 billion trading loss is unlikely to face federal charges, according to a news report.
INDUSTRY:
SWITZERLAND-OPRAH
GENEVA — It's a glamorous playground of the rich and famous, filled with glitterati from Saudi princes to movie stars. Switzerland is also a land whose people have a symbiotic but sometimes uneasy relationship with foreigners and where racism can rear its head. Media mogul Oprah Winfrey says she ran into Swiss racism when a clerk at a pricey Zurich boutique refused to show her a black handbag, telling one of the world's richest women that she "will not be able to afford" the $38,000 price tag. By John Heilprin.
AP photos.
— OPRAH-PRICEY BAGS — A $38,000 handbag? For most people, it's unthinkable. But for the richest sliver of the global population, it's a realistic option — and buyers are not short of choices.
TYSON-CATTLE FEED ADDITIVE
WICHITA, Kan. — Tyson Foods Inc. tells cattle feeders this week it will no longer buy animals fed a supplement that's designed to bulk them up before slaughter, citing experts who suggest the drug may be causing cattle to become lame. By Roxana Hegeman.
PRISON PHONE CHARGES
WASHINGTON — A decade after families of prison inmates asked for action, the Federal Communications Commission moves to limit how much companies can charge for phone calls from behind bars. The FCC votes to cap interstate phone rates at 21 cents a minute for debit or prepaid calls and 25 cents a minute for collect calls. Companies wanting to set higher rates would have to file a waiver and could not charge more until that waiver was granted. By Suzanne Gamboa.
— SEC-STEVEN COHEN CHARGED — The SEC is delaying its civil action against billionaire hedge-fund manager Steven A. Cohen while federal prosecutors proceed with their criminal case against his firm, SAC Capital Advisors.
— MADOFF-FRAUD TRIAL — A New York judge is refusing to delay a fraud trial of Bernard Madoff's associates despite defense claims that the government has created an inflammatory indictment that dramatically changes the case.
—FRANCE-DANONE-YOCRUNCH — French dairy company Danone says it has acquired Connecticut-based yogurt maker YoCrunch to build its business in the U.S.
— CANADA-H&M HEADDRESSES — H&M pulls faux feather headdresses from its stores across Canada after receiving complaints the accessories are offensive to aboriginals.
— AMERICAN GREETINGS — The card company American Greetings is no longer trading on the New York Stock Exchange after being taken private by the family that has run the company for more than a century.
— FRANKS INTERNATIONAL-IPO — Shares of oil and gas services company Frank's International NV are surging in their debut on the New York Stock Exchange.
TECHNOLOGY & MEDIA:
ELECTRONIC BOOKS-ANTITRUST LAWSUIT
NEW YORK — A New York judge has refused a request by Apple to temporarily suspend her ruling that it violated antitrust laws by conspiring with publishers to raise electronic book prices in 2010.
NETHERLANDS-KPN-AMERICA-MOVIL
AMSTERDAM — Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim's America Movil will launch a $9.6 billion bid for the rest of KPN, a challenge to a rival offer for the Dutch telecom's prized German mobile group E-Plus. Movil has built up its stake in KPN over the past two years, its first major foray outside Latin America. By Toby Sterling.
AP photo.
OBIT-LARRY STEPHENS
WASHINGTON — Larry W. Stephens, who helped The Associated Press usher in a new era of technology from old-style teletype machines to modern-day satellite dishes and high speed delivery, died Friday after a battle with cancer. By Jennifer C. Kerr.
— SEAMLESS-GRUBHUB — Rivals Seamless and GrubHub complete their combination, creating an online takeout company covering about 25,000 restaurants in 500 cities.
— FILM-DISNEY D23 EXPO-ANIMATION — Marvel, "Star Wars" projects expected to be teased at Disney D23 Expo. AP photo.
INTERNATIONAL:
CHINA-ECONOMY
BEIJING — China's factory output and auto sales accelerated in July, adding to signs a slump in the world's second-largest economy might be stabilizing. By Joe McDonald. SENT: 600 words, photo. Incorporates BC-AS--China-Inflation, BC-AS--China-Auto Sales.
FRANCE-ECONOMY
PARIS — French industrial production continues to decline in June, widening the economic gap with Europe's largest economy, Germany, and raising concerns about its ability to emerge from recession.
AP photo.
PERSONAL FINANCE
OF MUTUAL INTEREST-EUROPEAN FUNDS
Stocks from Germany, France and other countries across Europe are rallying, just two years after the continent's debt crisis helped send global markets plunging. They're riding higher as investors buy into the promise made just over a year ago that the head of the European Central Bank would do "whatever it takes" to preserve the euro currency. This summer the European economy finally has shown signs that it can break out of its longest-running recession. By Stan Choe.
MONEY & MARKETS
CENTERPIECE
Is Groupon a daily deal?
Groupon stock shot up 22 percent this week to set a 52-week high. The struggling online deals company named co-founder Eric Lefkofsky permanent CEO and posted stronger-than-expected revenue for the second quarter after the market closed Wednesday. Should investors start to take a closer look?
COMPANY SPOTLIGHT
Noodles forecast disappoints
Noodles & Company made one of the strongest market debuts this year. But the stock slid Friday when analysts were underwhelmed by the restaurant chain's earnings forecast for the year.