UPI NewsTrack Business

Wall Street winners, losers a wash

NEW YORK, June 11 (UPI) -- Stocks ended Monday in nearly a dead heat between winners and losers.

Wall Street started the day lower, but by midday indexes began moving toward positive numbers. A rash of late-afternoon selling ate into the gains, however, causing the indexes to close with little change.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.57, or zero percent, to 13,424.96. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index added 1.45 to 1,509.12, a 0.10 percent gain.

The NASDAQ Composite Index was down 0.05 percent, or 1.39, to 2,572.15

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note was at 5.139 percent, up slightly from 5.11 percent Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported.

New York Stock Exchange Monday saw 1,669 stocks gained and 1,645 declined, on volume of 2.5 billion shares traded on the exchange.

The euro traded at $1.3353 Monday, compared to $1.3369 late Friday, while the dollar was at 121.71 yen, compared to 121.73 yen Friday.

Undergrads rank Google No.1 employer

PHILADELPHIA, June 11 (UPI) -- The Walt Disney Co. was edged out by the popular Google search engine as the top place U.S. undergraduates would like to work, a new survey shows.

Google also ranks in the Top 10 of nearly all industry-specific rankings, including business, consumer goods and engineering in Universum USA's 2007 Ideal Employer Survey, the branding firm said in a news release Monday. More than 44,000 undergraduate students from 184 schools participated in the survey.

Nonprofits The Peace Corps and Teach for America, at No. 5 and No. 10 respectively, debuted on the 2007 list.

Other employers in the Top 10 were Apple Inc., No. 3; U.S. Department of State, No. 4; Central Intelligence Agency, No. 6; PricewaterhouseCoopers, No. 7; Microsoft, No. 8; and Federal Bureau of Investigation, No. 9.

"The new rankings reflect a shift in undergraduates' mindsets when it comes to their careers," said Universum USA Chief Executive Officer Claudia Tattanelli. "The millennial generation's outlook on career is quite complex, making this a very interesting time for both the students and the companies trying to recruit them."

NBC, Microsoft thought about Dow Jones bid

NEW YORK, June 11 (UPI) -- NBC and Microsoft once explored making a joint bid for New York-based Dow Jones but abandoned it, leaving Rupert Murdoch's $5 billion bid unchallenged.

NBC and Microsoft representatives met with advisers to the Bancroft family, which controls Dow Jones. But after the preliminary discussions and a more detailed analysis by NBC and Microsoft executives, the corporations decided not to pursue a bid because of economics, the New York Times reported.

NBC initiated discussions after the Bancroft family announced May 31 it would meet with Murdoch and opened the door to counteroffers, a person familiar with the situation told the Times.

Both the Bancrofts and Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, hired investment bankers to pursue potential bidders since Murdoch's News Corp. offered to buy Dow Jones for $60 a share in early May. NBC then contacted its MSNBC cable network partner Microsoft about a joint move.

After a review, Microsoft rejected the idea going further and NBC agreed, the unidentified source said.

Two-week vacation going by wayside

BELLEVUE, Wash., June 11 (UPI) -- The two-week vacation is becoming a memory as U.S. employees spread their vacation days for long weekends or short breaks from the office, research showed.

The travel shift is attributable in part to rising gasoline prices and pressures for employees to be available for clients 24/7, USA Today reported Monday. Another reason for the change is the difficulty for dual-income couples to coordinate two vacation and work schedules.

Only 14 percent of Americans plan to take a two-week vacation in 2007, down from 16 percent in 2006, reported a study by Harris Interactive for Expedia.com, an online travel site based in Bellevue, Wash. One-third of workers do not always use all their available vacation days, the survey said.

The cost of travel was the No. 1 reason behind the shift, a survey by WNBC/Marist College reported. Nearly 55 percent of respondents said they planned to take shorter weekend getaways instead of one long vacation.

Work demands also take a toll on summer vacations, especially for entrepreneurs. Research indicates 23 percent of small-business owners haven't planned a vacation lasting longer than a week in more than four years.