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U.S. stocks fall on weak U.S. home sales

NEW YORK, Sept. 5 (UPI) -- U.S. stock indexes fell Wednesday morning after a realty report said U.S. pending-home sales were their weakest since 2001.

The Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 168.43 points, or 1.25 percent, to 13,280.43 in mid-morning trading. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 Index lost 18.30 points, or 1.23 percent, to 1,471.12.

The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index shed 20.74 points, or 0.79 percent, to 2,609.50.

Japan's Nikkei 225 index finished the day down 262.02 points, or 1.6 percent, at 16,158.45.

The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note rose 18/32, yielding 4.482 percent, while the 30-year bond was up 27/32, yielding 4.783 percent.

The U.S. dollar fell to 115.22 yen from 116.24 yen in New York late Tuesday. The euro fell to $1.3653 from $1.3609.

MGIC, Radian call off merger

MILWAUKEE, Sept. 5 (UPI) -- U.S. mortgage insurers MGIC Investment Corp. and Radian Group Inc. said Wednesday they had abandoned plans to merge due to mortgage-industry troubles.

"Both MGIC and Radian believe it is in their best interests to remain independent companies at this time," the companies said in a statement.

"All outstanding litigation between the companies will be withdrawn. Neither party made a payment to the other in connection with the termination," the statement said.

The litigation followed an August announcement by Milwaukee's MGIC, the nation's largest home-loan insurer, that it wasn't obligated to complete the Radin merger announced in February because the value of the companies' Credit-Based Asset Servicing & Securitization LLC joint venture -- which creates mortgage-backed securities from mortgages of people with weak credit -- had plummeted with the U.S. subprime-mortgage crisis.

Days earlier, Radian, a Philadelphia a credit risk manager, said "unprecedented" disruptions in the market for risky mortgages might have wiped out both companies' stakes in C-BASS, valued at more than $1 billion two months earlier.

The companies' stocks, and the $4.9 billion value of their stock merger, plummeted after the announcements.

The original deal valued Radian shares at $60.78. Its shares closed at $18.11 Tuesday. MGIC shares, valued at $70.09 the day the deal was announced, closed at $30.34 Tuesday.

U.S. job cuts jump 85 percent

CHICAGO, Sept. 5 (UPI) -- U.S. job cuts jumped 85 percent to nearly 80,000 in August, with almost half the cuts coming from the financial sector, an outplacement firm said Wednesday.

Financial firms announced 35,752 of August's 79,459 U.S. job cuts, Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. said. The one-month total was the highest for the industry since the firm began its monthly tracking in 1993.

Of the financial cuts, 30,892, or 86 percent, were in the mortgage and subprime lending sectors, Challenger Gray said.

The financial sector has announced 102,758 job cuts this year, Challenger Gray said.

"Unfortunately, these cuts are likely to be just the beginning," Chief Executive Officer John Challenger said, adding it was too early to predict if the cuts would end soon or continue for several more months.

If the contraction continues at its current pace, the number of financial job cuts will surpass the 2001 recession-year record of 116,515, the firm said.

Overall, August job cuts were 22 percent higher than in August 2006, when 65,278 cuts were announced.

For the year, employers overall have announced 515,855 job cuts, compared with 538,914 in 2006's first eight months, the firm said.

U.S. flight arrivals grow later

WASHINGTON, Sept. 5 (UPI) -- The on-time arrival rate for airlines fell in July from a year earlier but improved from June's poor showing, the U.S. Department of Transportation said.

The department's Bureau of Transportation Statistics said it also received 1,717 complaints from consumers about airline service, more than double the 831 complaints it received a year earlier and 56.9 percent more than June's 1,094.

U.S. carriers' domestic flights arrived on time, or within 15 minutes of the scheduled arrival, 69.8 percent of the time, down from July 2006's record 73.7 percent but up from June's 68.1 percent rate.

The June arrival rate was the ninth-worst month for on-time arrivals since 1995.

Weather was responsible for 43.16 percent of July's late flights, the bureau said.

July flight cancellations also rose to 2.1 percent from a year earlier's 1.7 percent but dropped from June's 2.7 percent rate.

Hawaiian Airlines Inc. had the highest on-time rate, at 94.7 percent. Sky West Inc. subsidiary Atlantic Southeast Airlines, flying as Delta Air Lines Inc. regional carrier Delta Connection, had the lowest, at 54.2 percent.

Utah's Salt Lake City International Airport had the best on-time performance of any U.S. airport and New York's Kennedy International Airport had the worst.