UPI NewsTrack Business

U.S. markets mixed at midday

NEW YORK, July 22 (UPI) -- U.S. stock indexes were mixed Tuesday after credit card giant American Express pulled back from its growth forecast for 2008.

Troubles at American Express could be a sign that consumer spending is in decline, The Wall Street Journal reported.

At midday Tuesday, the Dow Jones industrial average gained 37.21 points to 11,504.55, up 0.32 percent. The Standard and Poor's 500 index rose 0.05 percent to 1,260.63, up 0.63 points. The Nasdaq composite index fell 0.25 percent to 2,273.81, down 5.72 points.

The 10-year U.S. Treasury note fell 9/32 to yield 4.075 percent.

The dollar was mixed. The euro traded at $1.5884 from Monday's $1.5899, while the dollar traded at 106.66 yen from Monday's 106.70 yen.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei index gained 381.26 points to 13,184.96, up 2.98 percent.

Paulson plugs mortgage support bill

NEW YORK, July 22 (UPI) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. is pushing for increased regulation and support of the nation's government sponsored mortgage brokers.

Speaking at the Public Library in New York City Monday, Paulson said, securing support for the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. and the Federal National Mortgage Association is "critical."

"Investors … around the world need to know that we understand how important these institutions are to our capital markets," he said.

Freddie Mac holds $5 trillion in debt and mortgage backed security guarantees with over $3 trillion of these held by domestic institutions and $1.5 trillion held by institutions and central banks overseas, Paulson said.

The Treasury Department is urging Washington lawmakers to approve a bill giving Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae increased lines of credit and giving the federal government the ability to purchase equity in the companies.

While the housing market continues to slide, "now, more than ever, we need Fannie and Freddie out there, financing mortgages," he said.

Paulson said he would "rather not be in the position of asking for extraordinary authorities to support the GSEs."

"But I am playing the hand that I have been dealt," he said.

Oil bill pits airlines against investors

WASHINGTON, July 22 (UPI) -- High fuel-consuming industries are siding with Democrats in the U.S. Senate in a debate over curbing the activities of oil speculators, observers said.

The struggling airline industry, truck drivers and travel agents are lobbying for the Stop Excessive Energy Speculation Act, which would limit the size of trades "non-legitimate" investors can make, The Hill, a Washington political newspaper, reported.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., a sponsor of the bill, said Monday, "it has become abundantly clear that speculators, not the laws of supply and demand, are driving up prices."

Senate Democrats are aligned against the finance industry and some Senate Republicans who want to leverage their opposition to push for a bill that would open restricted areas to oil drilling, The Hill reported.

"The answer to high oil prices lies with supply and demand, not with restricting oil investors," Scott Talbott, senior vice president for the Financial Services Roundtable, said.

U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke also favors the supply and demand argument for explaining why crude oil prices rose to nearly $150 per barrel this year before retreating, the report said.

Women losing ground in U.S. workforce

WASHINGTON, July 22 (UPI) -- Women are dropping out of the work force in the United States due to economic realities, labor analysts said.

Senior economist at the Joint Economic Committee of Congress Heather Boushey said attributing the declining percentage of working women to "the motherhood movement" was inaccurate. "We did not think it was the economy but when we looked into it, we realized it was," Boushey told The New York Times.

Tootie Samson of Baxter, Iowa, lost her job at a Maytag factory that closed and is reluctant to work at jobs that pay half her former $20 an hour rate, the Times reported.

Samson said she knows "a lot of women" in similar straights. "They can't find another job … and they deal with this loss by dropping out," Samson said.

In numbers, the percentage of women between ages 25 to 54 working reached 74.9 percent in 2000. The number fell to 72.7 percent in June.

Had the percentage continued to grow as it had been, 4 million more women in their prime working years would now be working, the Times reported.