Stocks up despite Hurricane Rita
NEW YORK, Sept. 23 (UPI) -- U.S. stocks were mostly up Friday despite the impending approach of Hurricane Rita.
The Dow Jones industrial average was off 0.95, or 0.01 percent, to 10,421.10 on a volume of 1.1 billion. The Nasdaq composite rose 6.06, or 0.29 percent, to 2,116.84, and the Standard & Poor's 500 gained 0.83, or 0.07 percent, to 1,215.45.
Alcoa, the world's largest aluminum producer, sharply cut its third-quarter profit forecast, and Linens 'n Things projected third-quarter earnings well below estimates.
Meanwhile, Hurricane Rita appeared set to make landfall at eastern Texas early Saturday.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury fell 15/32, or $4.69 per $1,000 invested, to yield 4.246 percent.
The dollar rose to 111.89 yen from 111.73, and the euro fell to $1.2072 from $1.2151.
Tokyo's Nikkei 225 closed at 13,159.36 after falling 37.21 or 0.28 percent, and London's FTSE settled at 5,408.50 after rising 22.80 or 0.42 percent.
PGE plant being built in Taiwan
TAINAN, Taiwan, Sept. 23 (UPI) -- Houston's Lyondell Chemical Co. and a partner are building a 50,000-metric-ton-per-year propylene glycol ether plant in Taiwan.
Shiny Chemical Industrial Co. Ltd. will build the plant using Lyondell technology and produce the PGE, while Lyondell will market the production to the region's electronics sector.
Shiny Chemical is a major solvent manufacturer in Taiwan and the largest propylene glycol monomethyl ether acetate producer in Asia.
Brazil takes U.S. to WTO in cotton fight
BRASILIA, Brazil, Sept. 23 (UPI) -- Brazil will ask the World Trade Organization for permission to impose sanctions on the United States for its cotton subsidies.
Six months ago the WTO ruled U.S. subsidies to cotton farmers distorted markets and hurt competition by lowering prices.
The WTO has 30 days to consider Brazil's request, the BBC reported Friday.
Brazil says between 1999 and 2002, support program payments to U.S. cotton growers totaled $12.5 billion, while the total value of the U.S. cotton crop during the same period was $13.9 billion. In other words, almost 90 percent of the value of the cotton grown in the U.S. at that time was in the form of government subsidies.
'America, land of the free ride' - BA head
LONDON, Sept. 23 (UPI) -- The outgoing chief of British Airways is blasting U.S. airline policy for promoting inefficiency and protecting unprofitability.
Rod Eddington, who is being replaced Oct. 1 at BA by Willie Walsh, said Washington had lost sight of capitalism, the BBC reported Friday.
"America, land of the free, is turning itself into the land of the free ride," Eddington said Thursday. "In the last four years, the airlines have soaked up $15 billion to $20 billion of public subsidy and loan guarantees.
"America would do itself a favor by going back to long lost principles of real and honest competition. The lessons America has been imposing on Third World markets with an almost pitiless ferocity apply to America just as much."
