Real Estate Daily News Buzz is designed to give news snippets to readers that our (yet to be award winning) editors thought you could use to start your day. They come from various business perspectives, real estate, government, the Fed, local news, and the stock markets to save you time. Here you will find the headlines and what the news buzz for the day will be.
Thursday, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 211.86 points, or 1.2%, to 17,884.88. The Standard & Poor's 500 index jumped 21.01 points, or 1%, to 2,062.52. The NASDAQ rose 48.39 points, or 1%, to 4,765.10.
Benchmark U.S. crude rose $2.03 to settle at $50.48 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, a benchmark for international oils, rose $2.50 to $56.66 a barrel in London.
Wholesale gasoline rose 4.3 cents to close at $1.525 a gallon. Heating oil rose 3.9 cents to close at $1.806 a gallon. Natural gas fell 6.2 cents to close at $2.600 per 1,000 cubic feet.
US TRADE DEFICIT JUMPS 17.1% TO $46.6 BILLION
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. trade deficit in December jumped to the highest level in more than two years as exports fell and Americans bought a record amount of imports — a potentially worrisome development that could weigh on overall economic growth. The deficit jumped 17.1% to $46.6 billion in December, resulting in the biggest imbalance since November 2012, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. The widening trade gap reflected a drop in exports, which retreated 0.8% to $194.9 billion. Meanwhile, imports soared 2.2 percent to $241.4 billion. Economists were split on the implications of the bigger-than-expected December trade deficit. The government estimated last week that the overall economy grew at a moderate 2.6 percent rate in the final three months of 2014 after turning in a sizzling 5% growth rate in the July-September period.
HACKERS SEE REWARDING TARGETS IN HEALTH CARE COMPANIES
Health care offers attractive growth opportunities for cyber criminals looking to steal reams of personal information, as the hacking of a database maintained by the second-largest U.S. health insurer proves. The latest breach at health insurer Anthem Inc. follows a year in which more than 10 million people were affected by health care data breaches — including hacking or accidents that exposed personal information, such as lost laptops — according to a government database that tracks incidents affecting at least 500 people. The numbers, compiled by the Department of Health and Human Services, show that last year was the worst for health care hacking since 2011, when more than 11 million people were affected.
AS TRADING PITS CLOSE, TRADERS YEARN FOR ‘ROAR’ OF OLD
NEW YORK (AP) -- When Mark Schwartz heard that many of America's last trading pits were closing down, the veteran commodities trader was hardly surprised. He spent 17 years yelling in the New York pits before moving to a distant office, along with many of his colleagues. Traders are calling it an "end of an era" after news late Wednesday that CME Group, the parent company of the Chicago Board of Trade and other exchanges, is shutting down most trading in its 21 pits in Chicago and New York. Those sites are where people establish prices by flashing hand signals and shouting at each other on a trading floor. Floor trading has shrunk to a fraction of its volume from two decades ago as faster, cheaper, computers take over the process of establishing prices on everything from hogs to cattle to Exxon Mobil's stock. In total, 2.8 billion futures were traded on CME exchanges last year, but nearly all electronically. Only 31 million futures changed hands on trading floors — 1 percent of the total.
AMY PASCAL STEPS DOWN AS CO-CHAIRMAN OF SONY PICTURES
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Amy Pascal will step down as co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment and head of the film studio, nearly three months after a massive hack hit the company and revealed embarrassing emails. Pascal, one of the most powerful women in Hollywood, will launch a major new production venture at the studio focused on movies, television and theater, Sony Pictures said Thursday. Her career with Sony has spanned nearly 20 years. During the hack, Pascal came under fire for racist remarks about President Obama's presumed choice in movies that surfaced in leaked emails. She apologized for "insensitive and inappropriate" comments in her emails that she called "not an accurate reflection of who I am." Pascal also faced criticism for green-lighting the film that may have inspired the hacking to begin with: "The Interview."
PFIZER BUYING HOSPIRA FOR ABOUT $15.23 BILLION
YORK (AP) -- Pfizer is buying Hospira for approximately $15.23 billion, saying it is a good fit with its established global pharmaceutical business. The buyout will also help Pfizer tap into the growing market for biosimilars, which are cheaper versions of biologic drugs that are used to treat conditions such as anemia. Hospira Inc., based in Lake Forest, Illinois, is a provider of injectable drugs and infusion technologies. It also offers biosimilars. Pfizer — which is the world's second-largest drugmaker by revenue — said Thursday that it will use its global network to help expand Hospira's reach to Europe and key emerging markets.
VERIZON GETS $15B FROM WIRELINE SALE, TOWER LEASING DEAL
NEW YORK (AP) -- Verizon Communications will make almost $15 billion from selling part of its wireline business and leasing thousands of wireless towers. The largest U.S. cellphone carrier is selling its California, Florida and Texas wireline businesses, which serve telephone, TV and Internet customers, to Frontier Communications Corp. for $9.9 billion in cash. Frontier is also taking on $600 million in debt. Verizon says it wants to concentrate on the East Coast wireline business and will focus on expanding its FiOS broadband and high-speed Internet business in that region.
CONGRESS SLOW TO AGREE ON INTERNET REGULATION
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Few members of Congress appear willing to move toward a bipartisan update to the 80-year-old, Depression-era law that top U.S. regulators say gives them the authority to regulate the Internet. That means that communications legislation written in 1934 will likely be used to regulate how Internet service providers like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast do business with content providers like Google, Netflix, YouTube and Amazon. Many people say too much regulation and imposing taxes on Internet commerce could chill investment. But consumers also support the idea of an open Internet and "net neutrality," in which service providers don't manipulate or block web traffic.
OUTGOING FDA CHIEF SAW CHANGES TO FOOD SAFETY, TOBACCO RULES
WASHINGTON (AP) -- From food safety to tobacco regulation and politically charged drug approvals, Margaret Hamburg reset the course of the embattled Food and Drug Administration. After nearly six years as FDA commissioner, Hamburg announced her resignation Thursday in an email to staff. She said the agency's chief scientist, Stephen Ostroff, will serve as acting head of FDA. While seen as stabilizing the FDA after a series of short-term leaders, Hamburg also leaves the agency amid unfinished projects and potential changes. Her successor will have to complete food safety and labeling reforms and contend with a Republican Congress focused on streamlining drug reviews.
TWITTER SHARES SPIKE AS 4Q RESULTS FLY ABOVE EXPECTATIONS
NEW YORK (AP) -- Twitter shares spiked as the messaging service shrank losses and nearly doubled quarterly revenue by drawing more users and expanding its advertising offerings. Twitter's user growth continued to lag other popular social networks. The company had 288 million monthly users at the end of the quarter, up 20 percent from a year earlier. But the pace of growth slowed in the fourth quarter, something Twitter attributed to changes in the way third-party apps integrate Twitter. CEO Dick Costolo said Twitter expects to add a similar number of net users in the first quarter as it did in the first three quarters of 2014.