Napster considers a possible sale

By Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES, Aug 29 (Reuters) - Napster Inc (NAPS.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said on Friday the online music service's board was willing to consider a sale of the company and had hired UBS Investment Bank to consider options.

UBS has been "actively advising the company with respect to possible strategic alternatives," the board directors said in a letter to shareholders.

The board also urged shareholders to reject three dissident board candidates in favor of reelecting three existing directors.

They said the dissident group implied the company's board is "not willing to consider a sale of the company."

"This is not true," the directors said in the letter.

Napster considers a possible sale....

Electric fault spurs big GM recall

DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Corp is recalling 857,735 vehicles equipped with a heated windshield wiper fluid system for a potential short-circuit problem, according to federal safety regulators.

A short-circuit in the system may cause other electrical features to malfunction, create an odor or cause smoke, increasing the risk of a fire, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on its website.

The recall involves the 2007-2008 model year Chevrolet Silverado, Tahoe, Avalanche and Suburban, Cadillac Escalade, Escalade ESV and Escalade EXT, GMC Acadia, Sierra, Yukon, Yukon XL and Saturn Outlook; 2006-2008 Hummer H2, Cadillac DTS and Buick Lucerne; and the 2008 Buick Enclave.

GM plans to install a wire harness with an in-line fuse free of charge to fix the problem, NHTSA said.

Electric fault spurs big GM recall....

Microsoft to Buy Greenfield, Adding Shopping Sites

By Phil Serafino and Dina Bass

Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp., seeking to catch Google Inc. in the Internet-search market, agreed to buy Greenfield Online Inc. for $486 million to add Web sites that help consumers find product reviews and compare prices.

Greenfield shareholders will get $17.50 a share in cash, Microsoft said today in a statement. Greenfield, which runs the Ciao shopping sites in Europe, ended a takeover agreement with Quadrangle Group LLC for $15.50 a share this week to pursue a higher offer.

Microsoft, which handles about 9 percent of Web searches in the U.S., has an even lower share abroad. The company is adding more services that help consumers find products on the Internet, an area where it says its software is more effective than Google's. Munich-based Ciao provides consumer reviews and ratings along with prices from online merchants.

``Almost all of the revenue from search advertising comes from transactional searches,'' said Charles Di Bona, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York. Improving the results for those queries is Microsoft's best chance to make more money, he said.

Microsoft to Buy Greenfield, Adding Shopping Sites....

Integrity Bank Becomes 10th U.S. Failure This Year

By Alison Vekshin and Ari Levy

Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Integrity Bank of Alpharetta, Georgia, was closed by U.S. regulators today, the 10th bank to collapse this year amid a surge in soured real-estate loans stemming from the worst housing slump since the Great Depression.

Integrity Bank, with $1.1 billion in assets and $974 million in deposits, was shuttered by the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Regions Financial Corp., Alabama's biggest bank, will assume all deposits from Integrity, which was run by Integrity Bancshares Inc. The failed bank's five offices will open on Sept. 2 as branches of Regions, the FDIC said.

``Depositors will continue to be insured with Regions Bank so there is no need for customers to change their banking relationship to retain their deposit insurance,'' the FDIC said.

Integrity Bank Becomes 10th U.S. Failure This Year....

Oil prices rise as Hurricane Gustav nears Gulf

By MADLEN READ

NEW YORK (AP) — Oil prices swung higher Tuesday as Hurricane Gustav struck Haiti, raising concerns that the storm could slam into major oil operations in the Gulf of Mexico.

However, the price rise was tempered by a stronger dollar and a report from the Energy Department showing even slower fuel demand than many traders thought.

After dropping as low as $112.36 per barrel in overnight trading, light, sweet crude for October delivery ended the day up $1.16 to settle at $116.27 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

If Gustav continues along a path toward the Gulf, it could mean an uptick in gas station prices ahead of Labor Day weekend.

James Cordier, president of Tampa, Fla.-based trading firms Liberty Trading Group and OptionSellers.com, said he expects pump prices to edge up about 10 cents between now and Labor Day as refiners add a hurricane premium to wholesale prices.

"Everything about this looks like a strong storm that would evacuate platforms," Cordier said.

The average U.S. retail price for gasoline on Tuesday was $3.672, according to auto club AAA, Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express. That is down about a penny from Monday, and down nearly 11 percent from the record $4.114 reached July 17 — just a few days after crude hit an all-time high above $147 a barrel.

Oil prices rise as Hurricane Gustav nears Gulf....

Home Resales Rose More Than Forecast

By Shobhana Chandra

Aug. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Sales of previously owned homes in the U.S. rose 3.1 percent in July, a gain that masked further housing weakness as inventories of unsold properties increased.

Resales advanced more than forecast to an annual rate of 5 million, with at least one-third of the purchases coming from foreclosed properties, the National Association of Realtors said today in Washington. At the same time, the median price dropped 7.1 percent from July 2007, and the number of homes for sale jumped to a record.

Sales averaged a pace of 4.95 million the past three months, the same rate as the previous period, indicating that purchases may have touched a bottom. At the same time, the glut of houses for sale means property values will probably keep dropping, putting pressure on household wealth and consumer spending.

Home Resales Rose More Than Forecast....

At the Fed, a Debate Over Countering Inflation Grows Louder

By LOUIS UCHITELLE

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — With the decline in oil prices, inflationary pressures are easing for the moment. The Federal Reserve’s policy makers all acknowledge as much. But that has not halted their debate over whether to raise interest rates now to avoid higher inflation in the future.

The issue moved to a broader forum over the weekend: the Fed’s annual gathering in this mountain resort. The event drew central bankers and economists from abroad, the latter sometimes quite critical of what America’s central bank has done.

“The Fed overreacted to the slowdown in economic activity,” Willem H. Buiter, a professor of European political economy at the London School of Economics and Political Science, declared in his presentation, offering harsh criticism of his hosts. The Fed, he added, “cut the official policy rate too fast and too far and risked its reputation for being serious about inflation.”

Ben S. Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, rejects that thinking, as do a majority of the Fed’s policy makers. They argue — and several of them repeated their arguments in interviews here that were mostly off the record — that they had no choice but to cut the key lending rate that the Fed controls to 2 percent from 5.25 percent in just eight months. Otherwise, they said, the housing and credit crises would have resulted in much more damage to the economy.

At the Fed, a Debate Over Countering Inflation Grows Louder....

Fannie, Freddie: Plunge then rebound

By Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Shares of mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac plunged and then came back on Thursday after new reports that the federal government may have to take over the troubled firms.

Fannie fell as much as 87 cents or 20%, to $3.53, but then rebounded to a 10.2% gain by the end of the session. Freddie shares tumbled as much as 99 cents, or 30%, to a record low before rebounding to a 2.8% loss. The lows of the day represented a 20-year low for Fannie (FNM, Fortune 500) when adjusted for splits, and a record low on that basis for Freddie (FRE, Fortune 500), which started trading in 1989.

Fannie, Freddie: Plunge then rebound....

EBay Makes Fee Changes Aimed At Boosting Fixed-Price Sales

SAN FRANCISCO -(Dow Jones)- In a dramatic shift away from its online auction business, eBay Inc. (EBAY) on Wednesday said it was cutting fixed-price listing fees by more than 70%, a move aimed at making the e-commerce giant more competitive with retail rivals such as Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN)

The changes are the latest in a series of recent moves that the struggling online auctioneer has taken to revamp its business, which has slowed as shoppers have gravitated to fixed-price retailers.

"Buyers are voting with their wallets," said spokesman Usher Lieberman. "They want more fixed-price offerings."

Lieberman quickly added that eBay was not walking away from its online auction business, which made the company one of the Internet's most popular destinations for much of the past decade.

Fixed-price sales accounted for 43% of the total value of good's sold on eBay in the last quarter and are growing at 60% a year, making fixed-price the fastest growing part of the company's business. The listing fee changes announced on Wednesday were expected to accelerate the shift toward eBay's fixed-price business.

Amazon generates revenue from sales commissions, rather than relying on the listing fees that typically made up the bulk of eBay's revenue.

EBay Makes Fee Changes Aimed At Boosting Fixed-Price Sales....

Oil prices decline after jump in crude inventories

By MADLEN READ – 2 hours ago

NEW YORK (AP) — The price of oil dipped back to the $113-a-barrel level Wednesday after the government reported a massive increase in the nation's crude supplies amid a slowdown in fuel demand.

The Energy Information Administration, an arm of the U.S. Energy Department, said crude inventories rose by a hefty 9.4 million barrels in the week ended Aug. 15, after a big gain in imports. The figure came in much higher than the average analyst forecast for a 1.7 million-barrel increase, according to energy information provider Platts.

U.S. fuel supplies are not abundant across the board — gasoline inventories shrank by a larger-than-expected 6.2 million barrels to below-average levels, the EIA said. However, the decrease was not a major concern on Wednesday to traders, who have been focusing on weakening demand in the United States. Gasoline demand averaged about 9.5 million barrels per day over the last four weeks, or 1.6 percent lower than the same period last year, the EIA said.

Light, sweet crude for September delivery fell $1.43 to $113.10 a barrel in midday trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after rising above $116 a barrel in earlier trading. The September contract expires on Wednesday.

The dollar rose against most currencies on Wednesday, giving traders an extra reason to exit commodities.

Few market watchers, however, were discounting the possibility of nervousness returning to the oil markets and bumping prices up again.

Oil prices decline after jump in crude inventories....

Yahoo faces down shareholders at annual meeting

By John Letzing & Benjamin Pimentel, MarketWatch

SAN JOSE (MarketWatch) -- Yahoo Inc.'s incumbent directors were re-elected by shareholders on Friday, although a sizeable number of votes were withheld for CEO Jerry Yang and Chairman Roy Bostock in a sign of investor discontent with the Web portal's board.

All of Yahoo's (YHOO)nine director-nominees got the needed votes to serve another term during the company's annual meeting in San Jose on Friday.
However, Bostock received a 20.5% withhold vote, while Yang received a 14.6% withhold vote. Director Arthur Kern had 22.1% of votes withheld while Ron Burkle had 18.8% and Gary Wilson had 18.2%. Kern, Bostock and Burkle are members of the board's compensation committee and had been the target of a 'Vote No' campaign by a group that criticized the group's decisions.

Yahoo faces down shareholders at annual meeting....

Ford, Toyota July Sales Fell as Buyers Shun Trucks

By Mike Ramsey

Aug. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Ford Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp.'s July U.S. sales declined as record gasoline prices damped demand for trucks and a slowing economy kept consumers away from dealer lots.

Ford reported a 15 percent drop from a year earlier, including a 22 percent slide for domestic-brand pickup trucks, sport-utility vehicles and vans. Toyota's sales fell 12 percent, with light trucks tumbling 27 percent. Nissan Motor Co. posted an 8.5 percent increase.

Ford, General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC, more dependent on trucks than Asia-based competitors such as Honda Motor Co., have led the industry's eight-month sales slide. Automakers haven't been able to meet demand for smaller, fuel-efficient cars as $4-a-gallon gasoline and a 1.9 percent second-quarter economic growth rate pinched consumers.

``The very difficult environment for auto sales continues to take a much heavier toll on the Big Three, which are being hit disproportionately by the consumer's dramatic shift away from traditional trucks towards more fuel-efficient vehicles,'' Brian Johnson, a Lehman Brothers analyst in Chicago, said in a note to investors yesterday.

Ford, Toyota July Sales Fell as Buyers Shun Trucks....

GM posts $15.5 billion loss as sales sputter

By Kevin Krolicki and David Bailey

DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Corp (nyse: GM - news - people ) reported a $15.5 billion quarterly loss Friday as North American sales dropped by 20 percent and resale prices for SUVs coming off lease plunged.

GM shares fell as much as 10.6 percent in reaction to the automaker's announcement of the much bigger-than-expected quarterly loss, the third-largest in its history.

The No. 1 U.S. automaker also burned through $3.6 billion in cash as it cut factory output 27 percent and ran down inventory of slow-selling vehicles in its home market.

GM ended the second quarter with $21 billion in cash and $5 billion in undrawn credit. It has since drawn down a secured revolving loan facility by $1 billion.

GM posts $15.5 billion loss as sales sputter....