IN BRIEF
NEW YORK
Stocks see strong month;
Dow tacks on 7.1 percent
Stocks had a fitting end to a choppy July as prices seesawed their way to a narrowly mixed finish. The market still had its best month in a year.
Investors had an ambivalent response Friday to the government's gross domestic product report. The Dow Jones industrial average fell almost 120 points in early trading, then ratcheted up and down until the close. The Dow ended down just a point, and the other big indexes had similarly small moves.
The day was much like the rest of July, which saw investors alternately buying on strong earnings reports and selling on weak economic numbers. The Dow rose 7.1 percent for the month, its best showing since it gained 7.8 percent in July 2009.
NEW YORK
Disney selling Miramax
to investors for $660 million
The Walt Disney Co. is selling Miramax Films to a group of investors for $660 million, marking a new phase for a studio that helped launch the career of Quentin Tarantino and push independent movies into the mainstream.
The deal announced Friday ends speculation that founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein -- who lent the names of their parents, Miriam and Max, to the company -- could regain control of the studio they launched more than three decades ago.
With ownership of the studio passes the rights to a long catalog of Oscar winners, including "Shakespeare in Love" (1998), "Chicago" (2002) and "No Country for Old Men" (2007).
DETROIT
Chrysler to add 900 jobs
at suburban Detroit car plant
Chrysler Group LLC said Friday that it will add nearly 900 jobs at a factory in suburban Detroit and spare it from a planned closure. The decision is a show of optimism that consumers will embrace the company's refurbished midsize sedans.
The automaker made the announcement at another Detroit-area plant just before President Barack Obama spoke there about the success of the government-funded auto industry bailout.
The jobs will staff a second shift at Chrysler's assembly plant in Sterling Heights, Mich., just north of Detroit, which makes the slow-selling Dodge Avenger and Chrysler Sebring midsize sedans.
NEW YORK
Chevron's quarterly profit triples on higher energy prices
Chevron's second-quarter earnings tripled on better refining margins and higher prices for oil and natural gas, the company said Friday.
The results easily beat most Wall Street expectations. The San Ramon, Calif., company is the latest oil major to report big gains in the second quarter as demand for oil and gasoline has pushed prices higher. Exxon Mobil Corp. posted income of $7.56 billion in the quarter, its best result since the last three months of 2008. Royal Dutch Shell Group boosted second-quarter earnings 15 percent, and ConocoPhillips said profits nearly tripled in the April-June period.
Delta will pay $38 million fine
to settle criminal accusations
Delta Air Lines will pay $38 million to settle criminal accusations that the cargo unit of Northwest Airlines fixed prices.
The Justice Department announced the guilty plea Friday. A felony charge filed in federal court in Washington says Northwest met with other airlines from 2000 to 2006 to fix cargo prices between the U.S. and Japan.
Delta Air Lines Inc. bought Northwest in 2008, and the two carriers have been combined. The stand-alone cargo unit has been shut down.
The Justice Department says more than a dozen airlines have pleaded guilty and paid more than $1.6 billion in criminal fines. A $5 million fine against American Airlines was announced Wednesday.
