Business in brief: Confidence up; sales stronger
NEW YORK – A partial rebound in consumer confidence and an expected strong March from retailers suggest Americans are cautiously perking up.
The Conference Board said Tuesday its Consumer Confidence Index rose to 52.5 in March, recovering about half of the nearly 11 points it lost in February. Analysts expected a reading of 50 for March, but the index is still far below the 90 reading that’s considered healthy.
Home prices rise in California
LOS ANGELES – A surprisingly strong rebound in California’s real estate market helped lift a key home price index for the eighth month in a row.
That’s good news for people who plan to sell their homes this spring. Prices are now up almost 4 percent from the bottom in May 2009, but still almost 30 percent below the May 2006 peak.
Prices rose 0.3 percent from December to January on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index released Tuesday. Prices increased in 12 cities in the index.
iPhone report lifts Apple stock
SEATTLE – Apple Inc. shares reached an all-time high Tuesday after a newspaper report said the iPhone could find a new U.S. sales outlet through Verizon Wireless.
Since its 2007 launch, the iPhone has been available in the U.S. only to subscribers of AT&T Inc., which uses a cellular network technology called GSM.
The Wall Street Journal reported late Monday that Apple plans to release an iPhone this year that would work on CDMA networks – a technology used by Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Inc. in the U.S., as well as some carriers overseas.
Apple and Verizon declined to comment on the matter.
Facebook users can ‘like’ brands
NEW YORK – Facebook is about to change the way it asks its users to connect to brands on the site. Instead of asking people to “become a fan” of companies such as Starbucks, Facebook will let them click on a button that indicates they “like” the brand.
Facebook already lets people show that they like comments or pictures posted on the site, and it says users click that term almost twice as much as they click “become a fan.” Facebook says changing the button will make them more comfortable with linking up with a brand.
Businesses use Facebook pages, which are free to create, to connect with customers and promote their brands. Facebook makes money from the advertisements these companies often use to draw users to their pages. The average user becomes a fan of four pages each month, according to Facebook.