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U.S. markets fall sharply Tuesday

NEW YORK, July 7 (UPI) -- U.S. markets headed lower Tuesday on the day before corporate reporting season begins on Wall Street.

Markets often stall before major announcements. Corporate reports amount to six weeks of detailed announcements on the health of public corporations.

By close Tuesday, the Dow Jones industrial average lost 161.27 points or 1.94 percent. The Standard & Poor's 500 lost 17.69 or 1.97 percent to 881.03. The Nasdaq composite index shed 41.23 or 2.31 percent to 1,746.17.

On the New York Stock Exchange, 660 stocks advanced and 2,351 declined on a volume of 4.8 billion shares traded.

The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury rose 14/32 to yield 3.45 percent.

The euro fell to $1.3926, compared to Monday's $1.3979. Against the Japanese yen, the dollar fell to 94.795 yen, compared to Monday's 95.34 yen.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei average lost 33.08 points to 9,647.79, off 0.34 percent.

In London, the FTSE 100 index lost 7.91, 0.19 percent, to 4,187.00.

Webcasters, music business, strike deal

NEW YORK, July 7 (UPI) -- U.S. radio stations that stream music through the Internet said they reached a royalty agreement with the music business Tuesday.

The deal may keep Internet-based radio stations alive, The New York Times reported.

The previous 0.19 cent per song deal was so high it would have forced many Webcasters out of business, the Times said.

The new deal allows stations with revenue under $1.25 million a year to pay SoundExchange, a non-profit broker for royalty collection, about 13 percent of revenues to play music online. Stations with higher revenue agreed to pay 0.08 cent per song or 25 percent of revenue -- whichever is larger.

The fee for larger stations rises to 0.14 cent per song in 2015.

John Simson, executive director of SoundExchange, said the agreement allows "webcasters the opportunity to flesh out various business models and creators of music to share in the success their recordings generate."

"This is definitely the agreement that we've been waiting for," said webcaster Tim Westergren, who founded Pandora, one of the larger Internet radio stations.

On the other hand, "I don't think anyone's going to look at this and say, 'I'm really happy, I got everything I want,'" he said.

Job cuts not over at Ikea

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, July 7 (UPI) -- The founder of Swedish retail giant Ikea said sales at the company were running 7 percent below corporate targets and that more jobs would have to be cut.

"We need to decrease the number of staff further, particularly within manufacturing and logistic," Ingvar Kamprad told Dagens Industri, a Swedish newspaper.

A company spokeswoman confirmed the report, but said Ikea, which has already cut 5,000 positions, is maintaining its goal of opening 20 stores in 2009.

As it intends to open new stores, the retailer will also be hiring, the spokeswoman said.

Expansion plans in Russia have stalled, however, as the company pulled back from investments in the country citing "unpredictability of administrative processes," The Guardian reported.

Banks slash new credit card issuances

WASHINGTON, July 7 (UPI) -- U.S. banks are pulling back dramatically on issuing new credit cards, and even low-risk borrowers are feeling the pinch, statistics indicate.

Equifax credit bureau data showed in the first four months 2009, banks issued 9.8 million new credit cards, representing a 38 percent plunge from the same period in 2008, while those who still can get credit are seeing limits that are 3 percent lower, USA Today reported Tuesday.

The numbers come in spite of massive efforts by the U.S. government to loosen the credit market, observers said.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com, told USA Today while it's not a shock to see banks reining in credit during a recession, "what's remarkable is the very sharp decline in lending."

But, if the cutbacks mean banks are "doing better underwriting, that could be a positive thing," added Lauren Zeichner Bowne of Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports. She added, however, that her group has concerns that card issuers are rolling back limits for responsible users, the newspaper said.