Rising bond yields hammer U.S. stocks
NEW YORK, March 15 (UPI) -- Rising bond yields and firming crude oil prices Tuesday sucked the life from an early session blue chip rally to leave all U.S. major indexes down.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 59.41 points, or 0.55 percent, to to close at 10,745.10 on a volume of 1.5 billion shares. The Nasdaq composite slipped 16.06 percent, or 0.78 percent, ending at 2,034.98 and the Standard & Poor's 500 declined 9.08 points, or 0.75, percent settling at 1,197.75.
Oil closed over $55 per barrel and the Philadelphia Semiconductor index, which measures the performance of the largest chip and chip gear makers, fell 1.6 percent, CNN said.
The 10-year Treasury note fell a 10/32, or $3.125 for each $1,000 invested, pushing the yield up to 4.547 percent, high enough to begin to compete with stocks.
The dollar declined to 104.49 yen from 104.91 yen, as the euro fell to $1.3313 from $1.3370.
Tokyo's Nikkei 225 slipped 29.16 points, or 0.3 percent, to 11,821.09, and London's FTSE 100 closed at 5,001.60 after rising 0.53 percent, or 26.60 points.
MSN search engine offers real-time scores
WASHINGTON, March 15 (UPI) -- Two Internet sites have joined forces to meet the need for non-stop information during the college basketball season.
FOXSports.com has agreed to supply real-time game scores and other topical information to Microsoft Corp.'s "MSN Search" throughout the "March Madness" tournament.
Users have the option of typing the name of their favorite team into the search engine's "Instant Access" feature to retrieve a score or write "March Madness" for a complete list.
Other options include entering individual players' names for full-season stats and finding answers to historical questions about the tournament. The site will also link to other sites about the teams and the tournament.
The service will be accessible on www.msn.com through the duration of the tournament season.
Northwest Airlines freezing U.S. routes
EAGAN, Minn., March 15 (UPI) -- Minnesota-based Northwest Airlines, which lost $878 million last year, is freezing domestic routes at 2004 levels but will increase foreign routes.
The airline had planned to increase U.S. routes by 2 percent to 3 percent this year but continued to post losses. Northwest said it faces rising fuel costs and fare cuts by competing airlines.
Northwest ranked last among the 11 largest U.S. carriers in the J.D. Power and Associates airline customer satisfaction survey of 3,100 passengers.
Airlines were rated for check-in/boarding/departing, reservations/scheduling, aircraft interior, in-flight amenities and flight crew.
A Northwest spokeswoman said the carrier was third in Fortune magazine's most recent global airline survey, the St. Paul Pioneer Press said. Northwest had the second best on-time performance among major airlines according to U.S. Department of Transportation statistics.
Discount airline JetBlue was No. 1 in the J.D. Power survey with top marks for its aircraft interiors and in-flight amenities. Southwest got high marks for in-flight operations.
Bernie Ebbers' 'Aw Shucks' defense flops
NEW YORK, March 15 (UPI) -- A New York jury Tuesday convicted Bernard Ebbers, former head of WorldCom, of a key role in an $11 billion bankruptcy, the Wall Street Journal said.
The convictions on all nine counts, one of conspiracy, one of securities fraud and seven of filing false statements with securities regulators, came on the eighth day of deliberations.
The bankruptcy of WorldCom, now known as MCI Inc., was the largest insolvency case in the U.S. history and became a symbol of U.S. corporate corruption.
Ebbers, 63, faces as much as 85 years in prison, though sentencing guidelines point to a much shorter sentence. Sentencing is set for June 13.
His conviction is a coup for federal prosecutors.
"This is the mother lode for the government in its campaign against corporate fraud," said Orin Snyder, a former federal prosecutor who is now a partner in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.
Jurors essentially believed the prosecution's star witness, WorldCom's former finance chief, Scott Sullivan, who pleaded guilty and hopes his cooperation will help win a lighter sentence.
Sullivan testified during the six-week trial Ebbers pressured him to do whatever it took to keep WorldCom in Wall Street's good graces.
Ebbers said he was unaware of accounting problems.
