Business Highlights from Around the Country

Thursday, February 3rd 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Federal Reserve, still seeking to slow the supercharged U.S. economy to a more moderate pace of growth, raised borrowing costs for millions of Americans for a fourth time since June by pushing a key interest rate up a quarter point to 5.75 per cent Wednesday. The Fed action to boost its federal funds rate, the interest that banks charge each other, was quickly followed by announcements from major banks around the country that they were raising their prime lending rate a similar quarter point to 8.75 per cent, the highest level for this benchmark consumer and business rate since late 1995.

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NEW YORK (AP) -- A key forecasting gauge rose to a new high in December, signaling that the U.S. economy's record expansion should continue well into the year. The Conference Board said Wednesday that its Index of Leading Economic Indicators increased 0.4 per cent in December to a record 108.7 after rising 0.3 per cent to 108.3 the month before. That was in line with analysts' expectations.

The index of leading indicators is a barometer of economic activity in the next three to six months. The latest reading signaled that the nation's economic expansion, currently 107 month sold and the longest in U.S. history, will continue, economists said. Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein expects the economy to expand at a 4 per cent annual rate in the January-March quarter, but to slow somewhat in the spring.

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Federal Trade Commission moved Wednesday to block BP Amoco's takeover of Atlantic Richfield Co., setting the stage for the biggest oil antitrust court fight since the break up of Standard Oil nearly a century ago. The commission voted 3-2 to direct its staff to seek an injunction that would scuttle the $30 billion merger, concluding the new company would dominate Alaska oil production and West Coast markets. "This particular merger is anti competitive," Richard Parker, director of the FTC's Bureau of Competition, said at a news conference after the vote. "We're going after this merger and we're going to try to stop it."

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Americans, feeling confident and with money to spend, pushed sales of new homes to a record 904,000 in 1999 despite the fact that mortgage rates were on the upswing. That was a 2 per cent increase over the previous all-time high of 886,000 new homes sold in 1998, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. For December, new-home sales rose a bigger-than-expected 4.5 per cent, helped out of by better-than-normal weather, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 900,000. In November, new-home sales fell 6.3 per cent.

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DETROIT (AP) -- After seven years behind the wheel of the world's largest business, General Motors Corp. chairman Jack Smith is handing over control and the title of chief executive officer to his trusted lieutenant, G. Richard Wagoner. The move announced Wednesday, which takes effect June 1, portends no major shifts in GM strategies;

Wagoner, Smith and vice chairman Harry Pearce will remain the ruling powers of the company. But it does mark the end of Smith's tenure, which saw GM return to healthy profits but struggle to stay competitive. Smith, who turns 62 in April, said he will become a liaison between the company's management and its dealers and international partners. Harry Pearce will stay on as vice chairman of the world's No. 1 auto maker.

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DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) -- Ford Motor Co. said Wednesday it will work with a subsidiary of United Parcel Service to nearly cut in half the time it takes vehicles to move from the assembly line to the dealership. Eventually, the partnership with UPS Logistics Group will let car buyers use a Web site to track a new vehicle through the delivery process the way they now can track packages. When it is implemented in March, the system should reduce the time the average new vehicle is in transit from 14 or 15 days to about eight or nine, said Frank Taylor, Ford's vice president of material, planning and logistics.

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Teeing up for an election-year fight, the Senate approved a Republican bill Wednesday that would boost the minimum wage by $1 an hour over three years, a period of time President Clinton and Democrats say is too long to wait. With many Republicans -- especially in the House -- eager to avoid repeated campaign-season attacks on the widely popular issue, some increase in the current $5.15 hourly minimum seems likely to become law before Election Day. But with the White House and Democrats also objecting to the measure's $18 billion in tax cuts over five years -- mostly for small business owners -- it is unclear what the final version will look like.

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate overwhelmingly passed legislation Wednesday making it harder for people to sweep away credit card and other debts through bankruptcy. The House last year passed a similar bill, also with a veto-proof margin. The bill applies a new standard for determining whether people filing for bankruptcy should be forced to repay their debts under a court-approved reorganization plan rather than having them abrogated.

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SEATTLE (AP) -- Amazon.com Inc.'s losses in the fourth quarter were eight times wider than they were a year ago, despite the fact that the giant Internet retailer's sales more than doubled from the same period in 1998. The results announced Wednesday were below Wall Street analysts' estimates, but its stock rose sharply in after-hours trading. Seattle-based Amazon lost $185 million, or 55 cents a share, for the quarter ended Dec. 31, compared with a loss of $21.99 million, or 7 cents a share, in the last quarter of 1998. Sales for the quarter totaled $676 million, up from $253 million a year ago.

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Stocks struggled to a mixed finish Wednesday after the Federal Reserve's widely expected interest rate increase did little to calm turbulent U.S. financial markets. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 37.85 to close at 11,003.20. Platinum futures stormed to a nearly 10-year high and palladium hit its most expensive price ever Wednesday on the New York Mercantile Exchange as the clamor continues for metals kept in tight supply by Russia. In other commodity markets, crude oil and heating oil fell sharply and pork bellies barreled more than 2 per cent higher.