Holiday crowd boosts Best Buy

Customers snapping up electronics and gift cards for the holidays boosted Best Buy’s third-quarter profit, but the nation’s largest electronics retailer said Tuesday that shoppers are focused on prices, particularly of TVs and computers.
Best Buy predicted consumers will stay that way in the fourth quarter, squeezing its profit margin. That forecast sent […]

Valley Transportation Authority cuts $15M

The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority will reduce its operating budget $15 million next year and defer purchase of new buses as it continues to grapple with a $70 million budget deficit over the next two years.
Members of the board of directors of VTA — which provides bus, light rail and paratransit service throughout Santa […]

Goldman nixes cash bonuses for top execs

Top executives at Goldman Sachs will not be paid cash bonuses this year, the company said Thursday.
In the face of public outrage over Wall Street bonuses, the company said that its 30-member management committee will receive restricted company stock instead.
Goldman Sachs’ (GS, Fortune 500) bonus pool is currently on track to hit $21 billion […]

Fed reduces AIG’s debt by $25 billion

AIG announced Tuesday that it completed a deal wiping out $25 billion of its debt to taxpayers by selling stakes in two subsidiaries to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
The troubled insurer gave the New York Fed preferred shares of two of its international life insurance companies, including $16 billion of American International […]

Manufacturing grows again, but recovery fragile

The U.S. manufacturing sector grew for the fourth straight month in November, though at a slower pace, and questions remain about the staying power of the incipient economic recovery.
Signs the housing market was bouncing back in October were also tempered by a flat reading for construction spending for that month in other data reported […]

Animatronic hamsters have stores scrambling

The hamsters are fake, with a coating of fuzz over a mechanized chassis and a small sound system. But when it comes to creating intense desire among kids — and desperation among shopping parents — Zhu Zhu Pets are the real deal.
When the Post-Dispatch profiled the electronic rodents eight weeks ago, toymaker […]

GM wants aid from EU nations for restructuring

General Motors Co. on Monday asked European governments to help pay most of the $4.9 billion it needs to restructure its struggling European operations.
At talks in Brussels on Monday, EU nations where GM has plants vowed to avoid individual negotiations with the company before a Dec. 4 meeting, when they will coordinate […]

UBS client money still flowing to regional banks

Swiss regional banks attracted money from their bigger, troubled rival UBS AG in the third quarter but at a slower pace than previously, the head of the banks’ association told Reuters.
Hanspeter Hess said the influx of client money was largely due to changed client perceptions toward UBS, the big Swiss bank shaken by billions […]

Why ’say on pay’ won’t work

Waiting for investors to slam the brakes on runaway executive pay? Don’t hold your breath. Although Congress may give shareholders more of a say on pay soon, big money managers seem content to keep their mouths shut.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D.-Conn., unveiled a financial reform plan this month that would give […]

IMF chief does not see double-dip U.S. recession

The head of the International Monetary Fund said on Friday the pace of the recovery in the U.S. economy remains sluggish but he does not believe there will be a double-dip recession.
IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said that capital flows to emerging markets reflected the positive outlook for those economies but warned that they […]