Mortgage rates fall, applications jump

Mortgage rates fall, applications jump Mortgage applications jumped last week, as low interest rates fueled refinancing activity. The Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday its weekly application index climbed 21.2 percent for the week ended March 13. The index was 876.9, up from 723.4 a week earlier, the trade group said. Almost 73 percent of applications came from borrowers seeking to refinance home loans at lower rates, not home buyers. The survey provides a snapshot of mortgage lending activity involving mortgage bankers, commercial banks and thrifts. It covers about half of all new residential mortgage loans made each week. An index value of 100 is equal to the application volume on March 16, 1990, the first week the association tracked it.

Current-account balance improves again The deficit in the broadest measure of U.S. trade fell sharply in 2008 for the second consecutive year, thanks partly to a larger surplus in services trade. The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that the current-account deficit, which includes investment flows and other transfers as well as trade, dropped 7.9 percent to $673.3 billion in 2008 from $731.2 billion in 2007. Economists expect the improvement in the U.S. current account to continue this year, but mostly because of rapid falls in imports as the recession cuts into consumers' buying power. Exports also are falling as the global economy slows.

British unemployment hits 12-year high Unemployment in Britain rose above 2 million in January, the highest in 12 years, as the world economic downturn hit the manufacturing sector especially hard, the government said Wednesday. The rise from 1.97 million out of work in December to 2.03 million in January raised the unemployment rate from 6.3 percent to 6.5 percent, said the Office for National Statistics. Employment in manufacturing fell by 120,000 since last year to 2.78 million.

China blocks Coke's bid for juice company China denied Coca-Cola Company's closely watched $2.5 billion bid to buy a major Chinese juice producer Wednesday, highlighting Beijing's rejection of foreign control over its top companies even as they step up acquisitions abroad. The refusal to allow the foreign acquisition in a non-strategic business such as fruit juice could backfire abroad as state-owned Chinese companies pursue investments in mining and other sensitive industries. Coca-Cola's acquisition of Huiyuan Juice Group Ltd. was rejected because it would reduce competition and raise prices, the Commerce Ministry said. But the bid also provoked an outcry from nationalists who opposed letting a successful Chinese brand fall into foreign hands.

Copley selling San Diego Union-Tribune The parent company of the San Diego Union-Tribune said Wednesday that it agreed to sell its flagship newspaper to a private equity firm for an undisclosed price, a rare vote of confidence in an industry that's hurting so badly that several other once-prized newspapers have been unable to find buyers. Copley Press Inc. agreed to sell the dominant newspaper in the nation's eighth-largest city to Platinum Equity, based in Beverly Hills, Calif., eight months after it put the newspaper on the block. It marks the end of the Copley family's 80 years in the newspaper business.

Gannett cut CEO's pay 60 percent last year Gannett Co. slashed its chief executive's pay package by 60 percent last year, passing along the financial misery that has tormented the largest U.S. newspaper publisher as its stock price and profit shrank amid an industry-wide drop in advertising revenue. CEO Craig Dubow was granted 2008 compensation valued at $3.1 million, based on the Associated Press' analysis of figures Gannett filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission Wednesday. That's down from 2007 compensation of $7.9 million, which included estimates provided by the company of restricted stock and stock options that overstate what they now are worth. As big as the decline in Dubow's 2008 pay package was, it still fell short of the 79 percent plunge in Gannett's market value last year.