BUSINESS BRIEFS
AT&T stock falls after CEO says sales have slowed
Associated Press
SAN ANTONIO — AT&T Inc.'s shares tumbled yesterday after Chairman and Chief Executive Randall Stephenson said the telecom carrier is experiencing some slowdown in its broadband and traditional wire phone sales to consumers.
Speaking at Citigroup Inc.'s Entertainment, Media and Telecom Conference in Phoenix, Stephenson said the bulk of the weakness is coming from service disconnections due to nonpayment on those lines.
AT&T's shares fell $1.87, or 4.6 percent, to close at $39.16, bouncing off an initial dive that sent the stock down 9.5 percent.
PENDING HOME SALES FELL IN NOV.
WASHINGTON — Pending U.S. home sales dipped in November, a trade group for real estate agents said yesterday, but it expects the sales pace to pick up significantly in the second half of 2008.
In another indication that the housing market's struggles aren't finished, the National Association of Realtors said its seasonally adjusted index of pending sales for existing homes fell 2.6 percent to a reading of 87.6 from an upwardly revised October index of 89.9.
MCGRAW-HILL WILL CUT 600-PLUS JOBS
NEW YORK — McGraw-Hill Cos., a major educational publisher that also owns the Standard & Poor's credit ratings agency and BusinessWeek , said it is cutting more than 600 jobs, resulting in a fourth-quarter charge of $43.7 million.
The job cuts will come across the company's divisions and will reduce its after-tax earnings by 8 cents per share, the company said in a statement. About half of the job cuts will come in its education division.
McGraw-Hill attributed the cuts in its financial services division to current business conditions, which were affecting both the credit ratings services and other businesses of Standard & Poor's.
GOLD HITS NEW HIGH ABOVE $880
NEW YORK — Gold's appeal as a safe-haven investment has carried it to record prices.
Gold futures surged above $880 yesterday to their highest level ever, not accounting for inflation, propelled higher by rising oil prices and a weak U.S. dollar. An ounce of gold for February delivery climbed as high as $884 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, topping by almost $10 its previous record of $875 set in 1980, and later settled at $880.30, up $18.30.
Market analysts who have watched gold's ascent weren't surprised that gold had reached a new high."I'm telling my friends," said Ashraf Laidi, an analyst at CMC Markets. "I've told them for the past three years to invest in gold."
APOLLO GROUP EARNINGS UP 23%
PHOENIX — Apollo Group Inc., an education company that owns the University of Phoenix, said yesterday its first quarter earnings jumped 23 percent as it boosted enrollment. Its shares surged more than 7 percent in after-hours trading.
The Phoenix-based company reported profits of $139.9 million, or 83 cents per share, for the three months ending Nov. 30, up from $113.9 million, or 65 cents per share, for the same period a year earlier.
Sales totaled $780.7 million for the quarter, about a 17 percent increase from the year-ago period. Total degreed enrollment grew by 11 percent year-over-year to 325,000 students.
MICROSOFT BUYS WEB SEARCH FIRM
SEATTLE — Microsoft Corp. said yesterday it agreed to buy a Norwegian search company for $1.2 billion, aiming to shore up its search technology for businesses against competition from Oracle Corp. and IBM Corp.
Microsoft's cash offer of $2.97 per share for Fast Search & Transfer ASA represented a 42 percent premium over the stock's Jan. 4 closing price.
Fast, a 10-year-old company, is one of the biggest enterprise search players.
