Briefcase
Consumer confidence higher, still not healthy
Americans’ confidence in the economy rose to a five-month high in November, showing increased optimism for the first half of next year.
• WEAK LINK: The latest report on housing showed that home prices weakened in September, falling 0.7 percent from August, according to data released Tuesday.
• WHAT IT MEANS: The 54.1 reading for the Consumer Confidence Index was an increase from 49.9 in October. But that’s still weak. It takes a reading of 90 to signal a healthy economy.
Associated Press
Google reportedly in talks to buy Groupon
NEW YORK – Google Inc. may be close to buying online discount service Groupon in a deal worth as much as $6 billion in what would be the search company’s largest acquisition ever, according to published reports.
The talks were reported by the technology blog All Things D and by the New York Times, which cited unnamed sources with knowledge of the matter.
Google and Groupon had no comment Tuesday.
The size of the deal would put it well above Google’s largest acquisition to date, its 2008 purchase of DoubleClick for $3.2 billon.
Groupon, a 2-year-old startup based in Chicago, offers daily local bargains ranging from yoga classes to discounts from national retailers such as Gap and Nordstrom Rack.
Associated Press
GM, Chrysler adding employees
HAMTRAMCK, Mich. – General Motors and Chrysler, two companies that nearly died last year before getting government bailouts, showed further signs of recovery Tuesday as each announced plans to hire 1,000 engineers and researchers.
GM’s hiring will begin immediately and run through the next two years as it adds staff to work on the next generation of electric vehicles. Chrysler said it will hire during the next four months.
Associated Press
Motorola breakup becomes final Jan. 4
NEW YORK – Motorola says its plan to split into two companies will be effective on Jan. 4, finalizing the breakup of one of the founders of the U.S. electronics industry.
Schaumburg, Ill.-based Motorola Inc. is splitting its consumer-oriented side, which makes cell phones and cable set-top boxes, from the side that sells police radios and barcode scanners to government and corporate customers.
Shareholders of record on Dec. 21 will receive shares in both the consumer business, Motorola Mobility, and the professional side, Motorola Solutions.
Associated Press
WikiLeaks speculation drops bank stock
Bank of America Corp. stock fell Tuesday afternoon on speculation that it might be the target of a WikiLeaks document release early next year.
The bank’s stock was down 36 cents, or 3.2 percent to $10.95.
In an interview published in the latest issue of Forbes magazine, the founder of the whistle-blower organization, Julian Assange, said he plans to release tons of internal documents from a major U.S. bank early next year. “It will give a true and representative insight into how banks behave at the executive level in a way that will stimulate investigations and reforms, I presume,” he told Forbes. “For this, there’s only one similar example. It’s like the Enron e-mails.”
While Assange wouldn’t identify the bank to Forbes, he had said last year that he had several gigabytes of data from a Bank of America executive’s hard drive.
Associated Press