In Brief
Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas reserving rooms for opening
The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas is taking room reservations for its Dec. 15 opening, the Strip property announced Wednesday.
The Deutsche Bank-owned hotel-casino is located on 8.5 acres between CityCenter and Bellagio across from Planet Hollywood Resort.
The new 2,995-room resort will include 100,000 square feet of casino space, 60,000 square feet of retail and other amenities.
Opening-night room prices range from $300 for a 460-square-foot room to $510 for a 1,200-square-foot, two-bedroom suite, according to the resort's website.
Regular room prices in January range from $125 per night midweek to as much as $245 for a Saturday.
Rooms can be booked through the hotel-casino's website, www.cosmopolitan lasvegas.com.
NEW YORK
Tesla Motors' second trading day starts hot, ends cooler
Tesla Motors shares spiked Wednesday as investors continued bidding up the stock following the electric carmaker's blowout public offering. The excitement cooled late in the session, with shares paring their gains to end down slightly on the day.
In their second day of trading, Tesla shares, which trade under the symbol TSLA on the Nasdaq National Market, soared 27 percent by midday to peak at $30.42 before investors took profits off the table. The stock finished 6 cents lower at $23.83 -- still 40 percent above its $17 IPO price.
Tesla's two-day run is impressive given the volatile stock market and the lackluster performance of some initial public offerings this year. But analysts said the gains are largely fueled by speculation about the company's potential rather than its current performance. Tesla, based in Palo Alto, Calif., has not had a profitable quarter since it was founded in 2003 and has sold only about 1,000 of its high-end electric cars to date.
DETROIT
Ford Motor says it will reduce its debt by additional $4 billion
Ford Motor Co., the only Detroit automaker to avoid bankruptcy protection, said Wednesday it will reduce its huge debt by $4 billion more as it continues to show signs of financial strength.
The Dearborn, Mich., automaker will pay $3.8 billion in cash to a United Auto Workers trust fund that pays retiree health care bills, and it will pay out $255 million in dividends on preferred securities that had been deferred as the automaker worked its way through financial troubles. The company now will make quarterly payments on the securities, which are a combination of preferred stock and bonds.
Ford CEO Alan Mulally said in a statement that the payments are another sign of confidence that the company's restructuring plan is working.
After the payment, Ford will still owe the UAW trust about $3.6 billion due by 2022, with an option to pay it over three years. The company said it intends to repay the note early but wouldn't say when.
WASHINGTON
Mortgage applications rise with interest rates at 50-year low
Applications for mortgages rose last week as consumers refinanced loans at the lowest rates in more than 50 years.
Applications increased nearly 9 percent from a week earlier, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday. But the growth in borrowing came from applications to refinance home loans and not to make new purchases.
Refinancings were up 13 percent, the highest level since May 2009. But they remain about half the level of early 2009, partly because many people who wanted and were able to refinance have already done so. Refinancing costs can total several thousand dollars.
New mortgages taken out to purchase homes fell 4 percent. They were 36 percent below last year's levels.
The average rate for a 30-year fixed loan sank to 4.69 percent last week, according to Freddie Mac. That was the lowest since the since the mortgage company began tracking rates in 1971.
WASHINGTON
Former top executive says AIG piled on risky investments
A former top executive of American International Group Inc. acknowledged Wednesday that his division more than tripled the amount of risky investments it insured in the three years leading up to the 2008 financial meltdown.
But Joseph Cassano, chief executive for AIG's key Financial Products division, rebuffed accusations from a special panel investigating the crisis that he relaxed standards to issue more credit default swaps.
AIG received a $182 billion taxpayer bailout -- the biggest of the federal rescues -- after it nearly collapsed and helped trigger the financial crisis.
"We never diluted our underwriting standards at any point in time," Cassano told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, a bipartisan panel created by Congress, in his first public comments since the crisis.
CUPERTINO, Calif.
Understand iPhone antennas? Apple may have a job for you
Wanted: Three geniuses to improve iPhone antennas.
According to job postings spotted by a reader of technology blog Slashdot, Apple Inc. is hiring engineers to refine iPhone and iPad antennas.
This wouldn't be notable except that the redesigned iPhone has something of an antenna problem. Holding the phone a certain way can cause the signal to fade or cut out.
Apple isn't saying whether these are new openings or spots that were recently vacated. But while its public answer to the problem felt flip -- buy a protective case, or, in a widely reposted e-mail attributed to CEO Steve Jobs, "Just avoid holding it in that way" -- the hunt for indicates a real fix could be under way.
NEW YORK
Abraxis BioScience bought for $2.9 billion by Celgene
Biotechnology company Celgene said Wednesday it is expanding its array of cancer treatments with a deal to buy Abraxis BioScience Inc. for $2.9 billion in cash and stock.
Celgene Corp. said the transaction could add $1 billion to its annual sales by 2015. The company is hoping it will be able to "re-energize" sales of Abraxis' only approved drug, the breast cancer treatment Abraxane, and win approval for Abraxane as a treatment for skin, lung, and pancreatic cancer. If that happens, the value of the deal could grow to more than $3.55 billion.
Cancer treatments are expensive and they are a major area of growth in the drug industry, which makes them a tempting target for buyers like Celgene.
Abraxane is an injectable drug that is approved as a treatment for breast cancer in patients who have not been helped by other drugs.
NEW YORK
Facebook starts 'permissions' for applications, websites
Facebook is rolling out a new feature that requires outside applications and websites to tell users exactly what parts of their profiles have to be shared for the apps to work.
Applications already had to ask users for permission to access anything in their profiles that wasn't public. But these services didn't have to specify what information they were using. Such information can include your photos, your friends' birthdays or your e-mail address.
Under the new policy, the services will say which aspects of a profile they will mine, but the user still won't be able to pick out which pieces they want to grant access to. They have to either grant permission or disallow the app from working at all.
The world's largest online social network announced the change in April. It's part of Facebook's cooperation with Canada' privacy commissioner, who has been among the sharpest critics of the company's privacy policies.
