UPI NewsTrack Business

U.S. markets near holding pattern Tuesday

NEW YORK, April 29 (UPI) -- U.S. stock indexes stayed close to neutral Tuesday morning as the U.S. Federal Reserve Open Market Committee headed into a two-day session.

Investors said they anticipate an small interest rate adjustment after the meeting ends Wednesday.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 8.96 points Tuesday in midmorning trading to 12,880.71, up 0.07 percent. The Standard and Poor's 500 index slide 0.56 points to 1,395.13, off 0.09 percent. The Nasdaq composite index dropped 3.57 points to 2,420.83, down 0.15 percent.

The 10-year U.S. Treasury note gained 7/32 to yield 3.804 percent.

The dollar was mixed. The euro traded at $1.5575 from Monday's $1.564, while the dollar traded at 103.87 yen from Monday's 104.19 yen.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei index gained 30.90 points to 13,894.37, up 0.22 percent.

Canadian manufacturing flat in 2007

OTTAWA, April 29 (UPI) -- Canadian manufacturers posted a 0.4 percent increase in sales to $613.4 billion in 2007, Statistics Canada reported Tuesday.

The food industry remained Canada's largest manufacturing industry last year in terms of sales, with factory sales up 2.9 percent to $74.2 billion, while the petroleum and coal products industry surpassed motor vehicles for the first time to become the second largest.

There was a curious twist last year in that employment fell by an estimated 55,300 jobs and total hours worked declined 2.9 percent while labor productivity increased 1.9 percent last year, StatsCan said.

Had it not been for soaring sales of petroleum and coal products, up 65 percent from 2003 to 2007, total manufacturing sales would have declined 1.1 percent in 2007, after a 1.4 percent drop in 2006, the report said.

The biggest decline among all manufacturing industries was in sales of wood products, which plunged 15.6 percent to $24.9 billion, the lowest level since 1996, StatsCan said.

Truckers protest fuel prices in capital

WASHINGTON, April 29 (UPI) -- A truck drivers' Washington protest of fuel costs largely fizzled in the rain Monday but their horn-blowing was not unheard, various politicians said.

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., said the drivers were "fighting back to maintain their livelihoods," The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

"We must pay attention to their concerns about the escalating cost of fuel," he said.

Drew Hammill, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said "Americans are feeling pain at the pump" and said allowing oil company tax breaks was getting harder to justify.

Truckers are paying on average $4.24 per gallon for diesel fuel but analysts said the price of crude oil, setting records nearly every week this year, would probably not abate soon.

President of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Chakib Khelil said recently oil prices, now at nearly $120 a barrel, could reach $200 a barrel.

Rain and rising crude oil prices aside, "I may be all wet, but I haven't given up yet," trucker William Herr told the Post.

Tips tight as economy slumps

LOS ANGELES, April 29 (UPI) -- As the economy slumps, service workers report that a largely untracked portion of the economy -- the custom of tipping -- has declined significantly.

"The testimony is that tips go down in bad times," Cornell School of Hotel Administration Professor Michael Lynn told the Los Angeles Times in a report Tuesday.

Lynn estimated tips in the United States amount to $30 billion annually.

Restaurant consultant Mac Brand said tips account for 30 percent to 60 percent of a wait staffs' wages -- a rate that goes up at fancier restaurants.

Wait staff, hair stylists, pet grooming workers and many others rely on tips, the report said.

At Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. in Universal City, Calif, server Brian Best said his tips have declined from $200 to $120 on weekend nights.

"People just don't have the money. They will go out to eat but won't tip as much," Best told the Times.