News in brief

Georgia dealership is Car-Mart's 144th

America's Car-Mart has opened its 144th dealership, the company said Friday.

The Bentonville-based buy-here, pay-here, used-car dealer's newest location is in Brunswick, Ga. It is the company's eighth dealership in the state and the third to open there in fiscal 2016.

Car-Mart also has dealerships in Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas.

In August, Car-Mart reported first-quarter profit for fiscal 2016 of $4.6 million, or 52 cents per share, compared with $7.3 million, or 79 cents per share for the first quarter of 2015, missing a consensus profit estimate of six analysts by more than 30 cents per share. Revenue for the quarter was $143 million compared with $127 million for the year-ago period, beating a consensus estimate of three analysts by $700,000.

Car-Mart shares closed at $33.64, up 58 cents or nearly 2 percent in trading Friday on the Nasdaq exchange.

-- John Magsam

S&P upgrades ratings for agencies' bonds

All bonds guaranteed by two state agencies have been upgraded by Standard & Poor's Rating Services.

Ratings for the bonds, which are guaranteed by either the Arkansas Development Finance Authority or the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, were raised from an A to an A+. Standard & Poor's top four rating categories are AAA, AA, A and BBB.

Standard & Poor's also assigned an A+ rating and a stable outlook on the finance authority's taxable $13.7 million economic development revenue bonds, series 2015. The revenue bonds are scheduled to be marketed Tuesday by a group led by Stephens Inc. and includes Crews and Associates and Raymond James Inc.

The projects to be financed with proceeds from the bonds are an expansion at Southwest Steel Processing in Newport and a renovation at Global Food Group Inc. in Clinton.

-- David Smith

Murphy Oil's bounce leads stocks higher

The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies in the state, climbed 3.37 to 316.40 on Friday.

Fourteen stocks advanced and four declined.

Murphy Oil jumped 9.6 percent on double its typical volume.

Deltic Timber, Dillard's and J.B. Hunt Transport hit 52-week lows.

For the week, 10 stocks declined and eight advanced.

Murphy Oil had the best week, gaining 4.7 percent.

Total volume of the index was 23.5 million shares. The average daily volume for the week was 22.7 million shares.

The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.

Business on 10/03/2015

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