IN BRIEF
NEW YORK
Stocks, dollar fall after weak jobs report in U.S. disappoints
A disappointing jobs report sent investors out of stocks and the dollar Friday and into assets perceived as being safer. Foreign currencies and gold rose, as did bond prices, which sent interest rates lower. The yield on the two-year Treasury note hit a record low.
Stocks sank for most of the day but pared their losses in late afternoon trading.
The Dow Jones industrials ended down 21 points after being down as much as 160 earlier in the day.
WASHINGTON
Consumers cut back on use
of credit cards again in June
Consumer borrowing fell in June for a fifth straight month as households keep cutting back on credit card use.
Borrowing dropped at an annual rate of $1.3 billion in June, the Federal Reserve reported Friday. That was the 16th drop in overall credit in the past 17 months.
Americans backed away from swiping their credit cards for the 21st straight month. That offset a rise in the number of auto loans.
NEW YORK
AIG posts second-quarter loss
on costs of restructuring
Insurance giant AIG on Friday reported a $538 million loss in the second quarter due to charges related to selling assets to repay the federal government bailout it received during the financial meltdown.
AIG's adjusted results excluding the charges beat Wall Street expectations as its insurance business improved. Its CEO also said discussions are under way regarding a government exit from its huge stake in the company.
American International Group Inc. said its net loss attributable to common shareholders amounted to $3.96 per share. It had a profit of $311 million, or $2.30 per share, a year ago.
SAN FRANCISCO
HP CEO Hurd resigns after sexual-harassment inquiry
Hewlett-Packard Co. said CEO Mark Hurd is stepping down following a sexual-harassment inquiry that found other violations of company standards.
HP said Friday that Hurd, 53, decided to leave after the investigation into a sexual-harassment claim made against him and the company by a former HP contractor. The inquiry concludes that the company's sexual-harassment policy was not violated, but that its standards of business conduct were.
HP's shares closed Friday on the New York Stock Exchange at $46.30 but tumbled after hours to $41.85 as investors reacted to the news.
OMAHA, Neb.
Net income falls 40 percent
at Warren Buffett's company
Warren Buffett's company reported a 40 percent drop in second-quarter profit because largely unrealized derivative losses of $1.4 billion outweighed improvements at Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s operating companies.
Berkshire reported $1.97 billion net income Friday, or $1,195 per Class A share. That's down from $3.3 billion, or $2,123 per share, a year ago. It's revenue grew 7 percent to $31.7 billion.
Results fell short of the $1,360.44 profit per share analysts expected.
DETROIT
In sign of good times, Ford
will pay Bill Ford again
After a five-year wage freeze, Ford Motor Co. Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr. is getting paid again.
It's another sign that the automaker founded by his great-grandfather Henry Ford is healthy enough to award its top executives generous pay packages. The company recently said it earned $2.6 billion in the second quarter, its fifth straight quarterly profit.
Bill Ford will be paid $4.2 million in salary and in stock options worth $11.6 million.
The total represents pay he has earned over the past two years. He was to be paid Friday.
DALLAS
Boeing Co., Airbus report
canceled orders for airplanes
An aircraft-leasing company in the United Arab Emirates has canceled orders for dozens of planes from Boeing Co. and Airbus.
Dubai Aerospace Enterprise canceled 25 orders in the past month at Boeing, including 15 for the company's new 787 jet.
And Europe's Airbus disclosed on its website Friday that Dubai Aerospace cut 25 planes from its orders at the European company, including 18 orders for the medium-range A320 and seven for the long-range A350.
Dubai Aerospace, the government-backed aviation financing company, still has 91 planes on order at Boeing and 75 at Airbus.
NEW YORK
Washington Post shares off; Kaplan unit faces scrutiny
Proposed federal rules that could hurt The Washington Post Co.'s biggest revenue and profit driver, the Kaplan education business, overshadowed a nearly eight-fold surge in the company's quarterly earnings reported Friday. Shares fell $31.05, or 7.6 percent, to close at $377.56 Friday.
The Post Co. said that proposed changes in federal education policy may have a "material effect" on Kaplan's future results.
Lawmakers have been raising concerns that for-profit colleges of the kind run by Kaplan are loading students up with debt and not preparing them to find jobs.
Weekend gasoline prices
show increases of a few cents
Motorists heading out for back-to-school shopping trips or a late-summer vacation will pay a few cents more for a gallon of gas this weekend.
Pump prices rose this week because of a rally in oil, yet they aren't expected to spike in the weeks ahead because of typical light trading in the oil market in August, still-ample supplies and fairly weak demand.
The national average for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline was $2.779 Friday, about 3.8 cents higher than a week ago, according to AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. It's also 16.9 cents more than motorists paid a year ago.
