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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

CVB awarded $1.5 million from county

Compiled from staff and wire reports The Spokesman-Review

Spokane County Commissioners voted this week to award $1.5 million in tourism promotion dollars to the Spokane Regional Convention & Visitors Bureau and the Spokane Regional Sports Commission.

The money comes from a small assessment paid by tourists who stay at hotels and motels in Spokane County. Travelers pay the assessment in addition to the state lodging tax and sales tax. Money raised from the assessment is earmarked for tourism promotion and marketing.

The CVB and the Sports Commission submitted a marketing plan to the commissioners, outlining how the money would be spent. The CVB will receive $1.2 million in funding, and the Sports Commission will get $300,000 for promotions.

The goal is to increase the number of nights booked at local hotels, and increase the amount of money that visitors and convention goers spend in the community, officials said.

Tourism accounts for 9,420 jobs in Spokane County, according to the CVB.

NYSE seat sells for record $4 million

New York A New York Stock Exchange membership, or “seat,” was sold Thursday for $4 million, an all-time high.

The latest transaction marks a jump of $500,000 from the previous seat sale on Nov. 22, which itself had been a record. NYSE seats have rebounded strongly since falling to $975,000 in January, the lowest level in recent years.

Much of the gains have come after the NYSE announced in April that it was acquiring Archipelago Holdings Inc. and going public. Shares of Archipelago, the Chicago operator of an electronic marketplace, also have rallied following the merger announcement.

At the NYSE, seats confer trading rights, but the seats’ recent bull market comes as their run on Wall Street is about to end. In the Archipelago deal, NYSE members will swap their seats for cash and stock. The exchange then will issue licenses to trade on the floor.

There are 1,366 seats at the 213-year-old NYSE.

Bank of America cuts online stock trade fees

Charlotte, N.C. Bank of America Corp. launched a new pricing structure Thursday for online stock trades that will cut fees from almost $20 to as little as $5 per transaction for some wealthy customers.

Still, officials of the nation’s second-largest bank declined to describe the move as the start of a price war with online brokerage firms such as E-Trade and Ameritrade, which also offer heavily discounted fees.

Under the new pricing plan that goes into effect immediately, Bank of America’s checking account customers can trade shares online for either $7 or $10 per transaction, depending on the type of bank account they have.

Online stock trades will be reduced to $5 for private bank and premier bank customers, who are some of the bank’s wealthiest clients. For customers of Banc of America Investment Services, the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank’s retail brokerage, the fee for online equity trades was reduced to $14. All trades previously cost $19.95 each.