IN BRIEF

Oil hits $80, then falls for first time in a week

Oil futures closed lower for the first time in more than a week on Tuesday, but only after passing $80 per barrel and pulling retail gasoline prices higher.

The impact of the U.S. currency became abundantly clear midmorning when crude prices fell by 1 percent as soon as the dollar went into positive territory against the euro.

Benchmark crude fell 84 cents to settle at $79.12 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Earlier in the day, a barrel ran as high as $80.05 as the euro came close to trading for $1.50.

Caterpillar earnings decline 53 percent

Caterpillar is counting on Asian customers to buy more of its mining and construction equipment next year, helping the company move beyond a recession that slammed its third-quarter earnings.

Caterpillar earned $404 million, or 64 cents per share, in the third quarter, compared with $868 million, or $1.39 per share, a year earlier.

Revenue fell 44 percent to $7.29 billion.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the Peoria, Ill.-based company to report a profit of 6 cents a share on sales of $7.47 billion.

SAN FRANCISCO

Sun Microsystems to cut up to 3,000 jobs

Sun Microsystems Inc. plans to eliminate up to 3,000 jobs as it awaits a takeover by Oracle Corp., a deal that is being held up by antitrust regulators in Europe.

The layoffs Sun outlined Tuesday in a regulatory filing amount to about 10 percent of the company's 29,000 workers and will happen over the next year.

They are the latest rounds of cuts at the struggling server and software maker, which reached the $7.4 billion deal with Oracle in April after nearly a decade of wobbly financial performance.

NEW YORK

Barnes & Noble unveils new electronic reader

Barnes & Noble Inc. unveiled a new electronic-book reader Tuesday that will compete with Amazon.com's Kindle in a still-small arena where some see book-selling's future.

Closer to a printed book than its precursors in some respects, the "nook" allows users to lend their copies of electronic books to any friend who has installed Barnes & Noble's e-reader application on a mobile device or personal computer.

But the wireless nook, which runs on Google Inc.'s Android platform and comes with 2 gigabytes of memory built in, also can store and play MP3 audio files and photos.

The reader is available on Barnes & Noble's Web site for $259 -- same as the recently reduced Kindle -- and is to start shipping in November.

LEXINGTON, Ky.

Kentucky official seeks gambling amendment

Kentucky Senate President David Williams is proposing a state constitutional amendment that would limit any expanded gambling without amending the constitution.

Senate Republicans met Tuesday with Kentucky horse industry leaders to discuss the future of gambling in the state.

Georgetown Republican Sen. Damon Thayer says he's also offering a constitutional amendment that would allow video gambling machines in the seven counties that already have horse racing tracks.

United Airlines sees signs of recovery

United Airlines said on Tuesday that it's seeing early signs of a recovery in business travel as it reported a smaller-than-expected quarterly loss.

The recession has hurt business travel at all the big airlines, and United and other carriers have used discounts to fill seats. So while airlines would welcome the return of the business traveler, what they really want is the return of that traveler's willingness to pay top dollar to fly around the world.

Even though United third-quarter traffic fell only 2.9 percent during the quarter, revenue dropped by 20.3 percent to $4.43 billion.

United parent UAL Corp. said it lost $57 million during the quarter, or 39 cents per share. Not counting fuel hedges and accounting issues, UAL said the loss would have been 43 cents per share. That was far better than the loss of 94 cents per share expected by analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.

The third-quarter loss also was much smaller than the $792 million loss during the same period last year that was driven by accounting for fuel hedges.

UAL shares rose 64 cents, or 8.8 percent, to close at $7.90.

NEW YORK

Few returning GM vehicles, officials say

So far just 15 General Motors vehicles out of tens of thousands sold have been returned for a refund under the automaker's heavily advertised money-back guarantee program, a spokesman said Tuesday.

"The way we see that is it's a pretty strong vote of confidence in our products," Tom Henderson said.

GM launched the money-back guarantee program on Sept. 14 with an advertising blitz, including TV spots with GM Chairman Ed Whitacre, in a bid to get on-the-fence vehicle-buyers to consider GM products despite the company's stint in bankruptcy court this summer.

Customers can also waive the return policy in exchange for a $500 rebate toward the purchase of their vehicle. Henderson said only about 400 vehicle buyers -- or "less than 1 percent" of all vehicles sold since the program launched -- have chosen the return policy over the $500 rebate.

The program runs through Nov. 30 and allows customers to return any new 2009 and 2010 Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC or Buick vehicle for a refund of the purchase price and sales tax if they are unsatisfied with their vehicle.

SACRAMENTO, Calif.

California sues bank, says fraud committed

California sued State Street Bank and Trust on Tuesday, accusing it of committing "unconscionable fraud" against the state's two largest public pension funds. The state seeks about $200 million in overcharges and penalties.

Attorney General Jerry Brown contends that the Boston investment bank overcharged the California Public Employees Retirement System and the California State Teachers Retirement System by about $56 million for the costs of carrying out foreign currency trades since 2001.

"Over a period of eight years, State Street bankers committed unconscionable fraud by misappropriating millions of dollars that rightfully belonged to California's public pension funds," Brown said in a statement. "This is just the latest example of how clever financial traders violate laws and rip off the public trust."

A lawsuit, unsealed Tuesday in Sacramento County Superior Court, originally was filed under seal by a whistle-blower who alleged that State Street secretly marked up the price of interbank foreign-currency trades. The charges were submitted under the California False Claims Act and subsequently filed in court by Brown's lawyers.

Mutual fund sticking with General Electric

Dodge & Cox, which lost almost half of its assets last year by sticking with financial stocks, made General Electric Co. a Top 10 holding at three of its stock mutual funds in the third quarter.

GE, based in Fairfield, Conn., became the fifth- largest holding at the $39.9 billion Dodge & Cox Stock Fund after managers bought 14.5 million shares, according to documents filed Tuesday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund, Dodge & Cox's largest, held 77.7 million GE shares as of Sept. 30, representing 3.2 percent of its assets, filings show.

The San Francisco-based money management firm, which started raising its holdings in GE last year, is betting Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Immelt's plan to build up energy, transportation and health care and shrink the finance unit will help reverse five quarters of declining profit. GE shares jumped 40 percent last quarter and Immelt said Oct. 16 that plans to shrink the finance arm were ahead of schedule.