Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- Crude oil fell to a two-month low of $68.65 a barrel after an Energy Department report showed a surge in imports led to an unexpected increase in US inventories.
- China ordered lenders to increase the amount of foreign currency they hold at the central bank for the first time since 2004, limiting cash available for investment and easing pressure on the yuan to strengthen.
- US 10-year Treasuries gained, driving the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to the lowest since March.
- General Motors(GM) is cutting 25% from the renewal price of OnStar’s premium package, which will now include a real-time audio routing service, for 2007 models to retain more subscribers.
- The Federal Reserve signaled it’s in no rush to resume raising interest rates, and may even be done tightening as the slowing economy eases inflation.

Wall Street Journal:
- A dozen major Hollywood film studios such as Walt Disney(DIS) and Twentieth Century Fox are to release 75 films on Blu-ray discs in Japan in the so-called format war with HD DVD technology.
- President Bush plans a series of speeches to highlight the issues and progress of the war in Iraq.
- Dell Inc.(DELL) faces a crisis after it focused on sales of desktop computers to corporations and didn’t build enough capacity to supply demand for laptops.

NY Times:
- The percentage of NYC residents living in poverty is little changed since 2001, when the city was struck by terrorist attacks and had a recession, citing US Census stats.

Washington Post:
- More than 659 million records from more than 50 FBI and other government agencies have been amassed in one database designed to help law enforcement analyze data.
- A computer game company gave its training simulator software free of charge to municipal emergency departments yesterday so employees can train in managing crisis situations.

NY Daily News:
- Nokia Oyj(NOK) is set to open a 1,300-square-foot retail store on East 57th Street off Fifth Avenue in a posh NYC shopping district.

DigiTimes:
- Sony Corp.(SNE) may cut its target shipment of new PlayStation 3 video-game consoles in half by the end of the year to 2 million units because volume production isn’t set yet.

AP:
- An emeritus professor of marketing at the prestigious Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania has been arrested for the third time in 11 years on child sex charges.

Reuters:
- Ford Motor(F) expects to double its sales of cars in Russia to about 120,000 this year, citing Henrik Nenzen, head of Ford’s Russian unit.

Iran News:
- Iran exports 60% of its crude oil to Asian markets, 32% to Europe and 8% to Africa.

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