AP
Business Highlights
Friday November 14, 6:23 pm ET

Wall Street ends turbulent week sharply lower

NEW YORK (AP) -- Wall Street ended a turbulent week with another astonishing show of volatility Friday, with stocks plunging, recovering and then plunging again as investors absorbed another wave of downbeat economic news. Hedge fund selling in advance of a Saturday deadline contributed to the market's gyrations, which set back the Dow Jones industrials almost 340 points to 8,497.31 and helped the major indexes fall sharply for the second straight week.

Bush wants $25B in loans released to carmakers

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House on Friday threw its support behind a plan to speed release $25 billion in existing loans to the Big Three automakers but rejected a Democratic proposal to use money from a financial bailout to help the troubled industry.

But since Democratic leaders in Congress are pressing forward with a proposal to carve out a piece of the $700 billion financial rescue package for the auto industry, the White House has decided to accelerate the availability of federal loans Congress first approved in September.

Freddie seeks gov't aid after $25.3B loss

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Freddie Mac is asking for an initial injection of $13.8 billion in government aid after posting a massive quarterly loss Friday.

The mortgage finance company is making the first request to tap the $200 billion promised by the Treasury Department to keep it and sibling company Fannie Mae afloat after the two were seized by federal regulators in September. Freddie Mac said it expects to receive the money by Nov. 29.

The McLean, Va.-based company posted a loss of $25.3 billion, or $19.44 per share, for the third quarter. The results compare with a loss of $1.2 billion, or $2.07 a share, in the year-ago period.

Sun Microsystems slashes jobs in survival fight

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The economic downturn might be pushing Sun Microsystems Inc., one of the storied names in computing, to the brink of extinction.

The company's servers and software helped stimulate the Internet boom, and its engineering acumen is revered. But Sun never fully recovered from the previous financial crisis -- the dot-com meltdown -- and it has been steamrolled by big shifts in the way businesses buy their back-end computers.

The company plans to slash up to 6,000 jobs, or 18 percent of its global work force, as it scrambles to cut costs to offset a devastating slump in sales of its high-end servers.

Crude continues decline despite signals from OPEC

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Oil prices slumped Friday, despite signals from OPEC that it may slash production again, with the markets instead focused on the most recent reports showing drastic cutbacks in spending and consumption by businesses and consumers.

Gasoline prices again fell overnight, prompting one analyst to note a "half price holiday sale on gas" with Americans fueling up for the Thanksgiving holiday at half the price they did in July.

Light, sweet crude for December delivery fell $1.20 to settle at $57.04 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Outlooks point to painful holiday for retailers

NEW YORK (AP) -- Grim seemed an understatement for the retail sector on Friday, as J.C. Penney Co. and Abercrombie & Fitch Co. both posted quarterly profits that fell by about half, and gave outlooks for the rest of the year that were far below Wall street expectations.

J.C. Penney said third-quarter profit fell 52 percent, hurt by weak mall traffic. Teen apparel retailer Abercrombie & Fitch Co., meanwhile, reported third-quarter profit fell 46 percent to $63.9 million, hurt by weak demand for its girls' tops and the overall consumer spending slowdown.

Countries using euro officially in recession

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- The 15 countries that use the euro are officially in a recession, the European Union said Friday, as their economies shrank for a second straight quarter because of the world financial crisis and sinking demand.

The euro zone shrank 0.2 percent in both the third and second quarters from the quarter before, further stoking expectations the European Central Bank will cut interest rates to limit the economic damage. Two successive quarters of shrinkage is one common definition of a recession.

FDIC says plan could help 1.5 million keep homes

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Publicly breaking with the Bush administration's official stance, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. proposed Friday to use $24 billion in government funding to help 1.5 million American households avoid foreclosure.

Where to find that money, though, is in dispute. FDIC officials want to use part of the $700 billion bailout of the financial industry to pay for it. But the Treasury Department is opposed to that idea.

US: InBev must sell Labatt USA to close Bud deal

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Justice Department approved a $52 billion beer buzz Friday, allowing Belgium-based InBev SA to buy out Anheuser-Busch and create the world's largest brewer.

But InBev's buzz comes with a slight hiccup: It must sell subsidiary Labatt USA to win regulatory approval.

Labatt Blue and Labatt Blue Light have less than 1 percent share of the U.S. market, but in upstate New York they go head-to-head with Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc.'s Budweiser and Bud Light, and MillerCoors LLC brands like Coors Light and Miller Lite.

Fidelity to cut 1,700 jobs in 2nd round of layoffs

BOSTON (AP) -- Fidelity Investments will eliminate 1,700 jobs early next year in a second round of cuts at the nation's largest mutual fund company, which has seen its money management fees decline along with the markets.

Combined with 1,300 cuts that Fidelity announced last week, the second round disclosed Friday will eliminate about 7 percent of the company's work force of about 44,400.

By The Associated Press

The Dow fell 337.93, or 3.82 percent, to 8,497.31, at its lows of the day.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 38.00, or 4.17 percent, to 873.29, and the Nasdaq stumbled 79.85, or 5.00 percent, to 1,516.85.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 34.71, or 7.07 percent, to 456.52.

Light, sweet crude for December delivery fell $1.20 to settle at $57.04 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

In other Nymex trading, natural gas for December delivery fell less than a penny to settle at $6.312 per 1,000 cubic feet. Heating oil futures fell 4 cents to $1.8351 a gallon, while gasoline prices dropped 6 cents to $1.24 a gallon.