Business news in brief

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“There certainly doesn’t appear to be much

improvement in the performance of the economy.”

Sam Bullard,

senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities on Thursday’s economic reports Article, 1D30-year mortgage rate falls to 3.49%

WASHINGTON - The average U.S. rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage touched its record low this week and the rate on 15-year mortgage hit a new record.

The declines followed the Federal Reserve announcement last week that it would buy bonds to try to push mortgage rates lower and stimulate the housing market.

Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average rate on the 30-year loan declined to 3.49 percent from 3.55 percent last week. That matched the lowest rate since long-term mortgages began in the 1950s.

The average on the 15-year fixed mortgage, a popular refinancing option, plunged to 2.77 percent, a new record. That’s down from 2.85 percent last week and the previous record low of 2.80 percent.

To calculate average rates, Freddie Mac, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., surveys lenders across the country on Monday through Wednesday of each week.

The average does not include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.

The average fee for 30-year loans was 0.6 point, unchanged from last week. The fee for 15-year loans also held steady at 0.6 point.

  • The Associated Press

Audi to Chinese dealer: Lose banner Volkswagen AG’s luxury Audi unit asked a Chinese dealer to remove a banner advocating the murder of Japanese people after a photograph of the sign went viral on the Internet amid escalating tensions between the two countries.

The anti-Japan message captured in the photo of the unidentified dealership doesn’t reflect Audi’s views, said Lu Minjie, a spokesman at FAW-Volkswagen Automotive Co., the venture that makes Audi-brand cars in China. Audi, which counts China as its biggest market, asked its dealers to be reasonable in expressing patriotism, she said.

The photo, spread via China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo service, showed 14 people - half of them women - posing in front of an Audi dealership under a red banner that read “Japanese must all be killed even if it means China is covered in graves. Diaoyu must be reclaimed even if China becomes barren land.”

Tension between Asia’s two largest economies escalated in the past week as thousands protested in Chinese cities against the Japanese government’s purchase of the disputed islands, known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan.

  • Bloomberg News

Key Mississippi River lock reopens

GRANITE CITY, Ill. - Shipping resumed Thursday through one of the Mississippi River’s busiest locks, after crews completed emergency repairs that took days and that stranded hundreds of barges.

By the time the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reopened Lock 27 at Granite City, just north of St. Louis, about 3:30 a.m. Thursday, the Coast Guard said the traffic jam had grown to 63 vessels and 455 barges - carrying enough cargo to fill 6,100 railcars or 26,400 large tractor-trailers.

Within a few hours of the lock being back in business, six vessels pushing 80 barges had made it through the lock.

Workers closed the lock on Saturday after discovering that a protection cell - a rock-filled steel cylinder against which barges rub to help align them for proper entry into the lock - had split open, spilling enough of the rock into the river to obstruct passage.

  • The Associated PressRetailer plans spark protests in India

NEW DELHI - Neighborhood shopkeepers across India shut their stores Thursday, and many took to the streets to protest the government’s recent decision to allow in foreign retailers such as Wal-Mart and Britain’s Tesco.

Traders and political activists blocked roads and climbed on trains on as part of a national strike, holding up anti-Wal-Mart posters and demanding that the government “Take it back.” Several politicians, including one whose party supports the coalition government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said welcoming Wal-Mart would destroy the mom-and-pop stores that are the backbone of Indian retailing.

“The government is lying that companies like Wal-Mart will generate millions of jobs in India - what about the 50 million small traders and shopkeepers who will be ruined?” said Murli Manohar Joshi, a senior lawmaker with the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party.

Business, Pages 28 on 09/21/2012

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