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Stock cling to some gains

NEW YORK, Feb. 21 (UPI) -- U.S. markets closed mixed Tuesday after flirting with 13,000 on an initial jump prompted by a European agreement to provide Greece with a $172 billion bailout.

The deal has been largely priced into the market already. Having kept investors off balance for months, closure on the deal became clearer Friday before the Presidents' Day holiday in the United States.

By close of trading, the Dow Jones industrial average remained shy of the 13,000-point mark, which it had not seen since May 2008.

The index traded on both sides of breaking even and closed 15.82 points or 0.12 percent ahead at 12,965.69. The Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 0.98 points or 0.07 percent to 1,362.21, just short of a four-year high. The Nasdaq composite index lost 3.21 or 0.11 percent to 2.948.57.

On the New York Stock Exchange, 1,514 stocks advanced and 1,527 declined on a volume of 3.5 billion shares traded.

The benchmark 10-year treasury note fell 16/32 to yield 2.063 percent.

The euro fell to $1.3233 from Monday's $1.3242. Against the yen, the dollar rose to 79.68 yen from 79.63 yen.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index shed 0.23 percent, 22.07 points, to 9,463.02.

In London, the FTSE 100 index shed 0.29 percent, 17.05, to 5,928.20.

Officials close down fake debt collectors

WASHINGTON, Feb. 21 (UPI) -- U.S. officials say they closed down two companies that allegedly coerced consumers into paying fictitious debts with threats of arrest and public exposure.

A federal judge in Illinois has frozen the assets of American Credit Crunchers and an affiliated company named Ebeeze, said the Federal Trade Commission, which also is suing the companies' owner.

The companies used a combination of personal information and threats to extort money from consumers, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday.

"This is a brazen operation based on pure fraud. Consumers should not be pressured into paying debt they don't remember owing," said David Vladeck, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection.

Authorities said the phony firms were operated by Varang Thaker of Villa Park, Calif. The companies allegedly took in $5 million in the past two years in part by playing the odds, having made 8 million phone calls from phones in India in one eight-month period.

The companies frequently knew enough about a consumer's personal finances to sound vaguely legitimate, the FTC said. A typical target would be someone who had just paid off a loan or had just applied for one, the newspaper said.

The callers often posed as federal agents, occasionally claiming they were from the Department of Crime and Prevention.

"It was intimidating enough that I didn't want to go through that. I said I'll pay you whatever it takes," said JanLaree DeJulius of Las Vegas, who said two collection charges were made against her credit card before she heard a news report about fraudulent debt collectors and put a stop to the charges.

Her credit card company reimbursed her for $163 of the $283 she paid to the fraudulent companies, the newspaper said.

For a rainy day, many have little saved

NEW YORK, Feb. 21 (UPI) -- A finance research firm said only a slim majority of U.S. adults could face a financial emergency without having to borrow to do so.

Bankrate.com said Tuesday that 54 percent of respondents to a survey indicated they had more money saved for emergencies than they carry as credit card debt.

The figures indicate that 46 percent of the respondents, if faced with an emergency, would have to borrow at high interest rates, the firm said.

"Emergency savings remains a problem area for many Americans, which leaves them only one unplanned expense away from having high-cost debt," said Greg McBride, Bankrate.com's senior financial analyst.

"Long-term unemployment, stagnant wage growth and rising household expenses are all contributing to this trend," he said, recommending "Americans ... find ways to sock away more cash for a rainy day."

The survey, conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International, also found respondents with household incomes of $75,000 or more per year, college graduates and retirees are "most likely" to indicate they have more in emergency savings than they have in credit card debt.

Parents, however, "are the most likely to have more credit card debt than emergency savings," the firm said.

PlayBook OS 2.0 can do e-mails solo

TORONTO, Feb. 21 (UPI) -- Canadian electronics firm Research In Motion has launched its new tablet device called PlayBook OS 2.0 that corrects a previous oversight, media reports say.

The e-mail function in the previous PlayBook could only operate if the owner's BlackBerry phone was in the vicinity, as the device relied on the phone to relay e-mails to it.

That meant if the owner of a PlayBook happened to leave the phone at home while traveling with the PlayBook, the device could not download e-mails.

Owners of the tablet who did not own a BlackBerry phone were out of luck. Their tablets could not receive e-mails at all.

While the PlayBook OS 2.0 corrects the oversight, the Times said the tablet's operating system remains incomplete as it does not allow for sending free text messages using the firm's system called BBM, which stands for BlackBerry Messenger.

RIM has said updates to allow the tablet to run BBM will be made available.