QUOTE OF THE DAY
“The recent improvements are minimal, and the situation is still very fragile. This is no time for celebration or complacency.”
Laszlo Andor, European Union employment commissioner, on Europe’s July unemployment report Article,1D
Dumas bean field hits 100-bushel mark
Soybean farmer Nelson Crow of Dumas is the first Arkansas farmer to break the 100-bushel-per-acre mark after his 5.4-acre tract was certified Friday at 100.82 bushels per acre.
“It was really, really close,” Crow said in a release. He said he wasn’t planning to enter his field, but changed his mind after looking at the crop. “I knew we had a shot at it, but didn’t think we would ever do it.”
Last year, the state’s average yield was 43 bushels per acre, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.
The mark carries a potential cash prize: Five years ago, the Arkansas Soybean Promotion Board agreed to fund an incentive program that has become the Race for 100, said Lanny Ashlock, a former extension soybean agronomist who is now a project manager for the Arkansas Soybean Promotion Board. The program offers a $50,000 prize to the producer who reaches the 100-bushels-per-acre mark.
That prize could be shared if multiple producers hit the 100-plus-bushels mark this year.
“It’s been a perfect year for soybeans,” said Crow, who added that the variety he used, Pioneer 93Y92, had produced yields in the 80-bushels-per-acre range in the past.
Crow’s high-yield tract is part of a 207-acre field.
“We are going to finish the field today,” he said Friday.
“I think the whole field is going to yield 85-87 bushels.”
Wal-Mart lends $50 million to factories
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said it is lending $50 million to Bangladesh factory owners, joining global retailers in a push for safer plants in the country after the April collapse of a garment complex killed more than 1,000.
The loan is part of a combined amount of more than $100 million that a group of North American retailers, including Wal-Mart and Target Corp., pledged in a deal announced in July.
Called the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, the group has said it will set safety standards by October and refuse to buy from factories deemed unsafe. The initiatives followed the collapse of the eight-story Rana Plaza factory complex, the worst industrial accident in the nation’s history.
Surging wages and inflation in China have prompted retailers to shift some production to other nations such as Bangladesh. In response, a $19 billion manufacturing industry has sprung up in the South Asian country, marred by factories operated in buildings with poor electrical wiring, an insufficient number of exits and little firefighting equipment.
The 20 retailers in the North American safety pact include Gap Inc., J.C. Penney Co., Costco Wholesale Corp. and Sears Holdings Corp. Li & Fung Ltd., the global outsourcer that supplies to Wal-Mart, will serve in an advisory capacity.
30-year mortgage rate falls to 4.51%
Average U.S. rates for fixed mortgages declined this week but stayed close to their highest levels in two years.
Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said the average rate on the 30-year loan fell to 4.51 percent. That’s down from 4.58 percent last week, the highest since July 2011.
The average on the 15-year fixed mortgage dipped to 3.54 percent from 3.6 percent, also the highest since July 2011.
Rates have risen more than a full percentage point since May when Chairman Ben Bernanke first signaled that the Federal Reserve might reduce its bond purchases later this year. The purchases have helped keep long-term interest rates low.
Mortgage rates remain low by historical standards. But the sudden spike in rates could slow the housing recovery’s momentum.
To calculate average mortgage rates, Freddie Mac, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., surveys lenders across the country on Monday through Wednesday each week.
The average doesn’t 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 a 30-year mortgage declined to 0.7 point from 0.8 point. The fee for a 15-year loan was unchanged at 0.7 point.
Citigroup reportedly to sell Texas units
Citigroup Inc., the third-biggest U.S. bank by assets, is considering the sale of half its Texas branches as Chief Executive Officer Michael Corbat refocuses on the biggest urban areas, three people with direct knowledge of the matter said.
The approximately 50 branches holding $2 billion in customer deposits could fetch as much as $50 million, said two of the people, who asked for anonymity because the sale is confidential. Most of the outlets are in rural western Texas, one person said.
Corbat, 53, is looking to cut costs by $900 million this year and focus on what Citigroup calls the world’s top 150 cities.
He’s shutting branches across the U.S. and selling retail units in countries including Uruguay and Turkey.
“We just want to be focused in certain urban centers and that includes the U.S.,” Chief Financial Officer John Gerspach said in December. “You’re not going to see us opening up branches in Montana or Tennessee or places like that.”
Andrew Brent, a spokesman for New York-based Citigroup, said the company declined to comment.
- Bloomberg News
Judge schedules airline-merger trial
American Airlines and US Airways Group Inc. won a fast track schedule they requested when the judge overseeing the U.S. government’s lawsuit seeking to block the airlines’ merger set a Nov. 25 trial.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, during a hearing Friday in federal court in Washington, said the March date proposed by the government was “too far off” and urged both parties to be a “lean, mean machine” in preparing for trial.
The government and the airlines had hit an “impasse” over the trial date. The Justice Department had sought a March trial, while the airlines had pressed for Nov. 12 to resolve the case that is keeping American parent AMR Corp. stuck in bankruptcy.
“We are confident in our case and eager to get to court,” Todd Lehmacher, a spokesman for US Airways, said in an email. “We are pleased to have a trial date that will enable us to resolve this litigation in a reasonable time frame.”
Peter Carr, a spokesman for the Justice Department said in an email that “we appreciate the court’s careful consideration of the scheduling issues and will be ready to present our case on Nov. 25.”
- Bloomberg News
Business, Pages 30 on 08/31/2013