U.S. stocks close in on record high
NEW YORK, Oct. 12 (UPI) -- Falling oil prices helped lift U.S. stocks Thursday, with a key blue chip indicator closing in on another record.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 60.99 or 0.51 percent to 11,913.12 in late morning trading. The Nasdaq composite was up 16.37 or 0.71 percent to 2,324.64, and the Standard & Poor's 500 gained 6.63 or 0.49 percent to 1,356.58.
Despite the world oil cartel's attempt to raise prices, crude stayed below $59 per barrel. Retailers, meanwhile, posted strong third quarter results.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury note added 6/32, cutting its yield to 4.756 percent.
The dollar fell, hitting 119.44 yen from 119.72 as the euro climbed to $1.2538 from $1.2524.
Tokyo's Nikkei 225 closed at 16,368.81 after sliding 31.76 or 0.19 percent.
China books another huge trade surplus
BEIJING, Oct. 12 (UPI) -- China's trade surplus last month slipped to $15.3 billion from the record of $18.8 billion set in August.
For the first nine months of this year, the nation's balance-of-trade surplus, the amount by which its exports exceed its imports, climbed to a record $109.85 billion, Xinhua said Thursday.
By comparison, China's total 2005 trade surplus was $101.88 billion.
Exports in September rose 30.6 percent over the same month of last year to $91.64 billion, while imports rose 22 percent to $76.34 billion.
Puma aims to triple global retail presence
FRANKFURT, Germany, Oct. 12 (UPI) -- German sports shoe maker Puma aims to triple the number of its retail outlets worldwide and in the United States in four years.
The newly announced goal means a push against Nike, which dominates the U.S. market for athletic footwear, the Financial Times said Thursday. Puma, the world's third-largest sporting goods group, has 40 U.S. stores and expects to add five more by year-end.
"Retail is important for giving us the figures we need to know from the industry, such as sell-through, which you don't know in wholesale. And to limit our risk," Michael Specht, Puma's global head of retail, said.
"We have some key accounts in the U.S. and the rest of the world but to really limit the risk for our brand we have to have our own stores, which we can control. We can control which direction we go in."
Word of the expanded marketing thrust follows the August announcement that Puma was raising its mid-term sales target by $5 billion.
R.J. Reynolds to pull flavored smokes
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C., Oct. 12 (UPI) -- U.S. cigarette maker R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. will stop using candy, fruit and alcohol names for flavored cigarettes, which are seen as appealing to youth.
Under terms of an agreement with at least 39 states, the nation's No. 2 cigarette maker also accepted a domestic ban on Camel, Kool and Salem flavored cigarettes sold under such names as "Twista Lime" and "Winter MochaMint," the Chicago Tribune reported Thursday.
However, Reynolds may still produce future brands of flavored cigarettes but it cannot use candy, fruit or alcoholic beverages in the name or market them in a way that appeals to youths, said Lisa Madigan, Illinois attorney general.
"In marketing their flavored cigarettes, what Reynolds did was really to lure our youth into smoking by enticing them with candy and candy flavors," Madigan told the Tribune.
Most of Reynolds' specialty "flavored" cigarettes were marketed as part of the Camel Exotic Blend family of styles, which were introduced in 1999 as a super-premium priced product, the company said in a news release, adding that "these styles represented less than 1/10th of 1 percent of the company's annual cigarette volume."
