Here is a look at more of Tuesday's top business stories:
Regulators fine 5 Wall Street brokerage firms
WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- Securities regulators have fined five Wall Street brokerages a total of $8.25 million for not properly preserving e-mail communications.
While not admitting or denying wrongdoing, the five firms -- Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., Goldman, Sachs & Co., Morgan Stanley & Co. Inc., Salomon Smith Barney Inc. and U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray Inc. agreed to pay $1.65 million each and will review procedures for keeping e-mails.
The respondents' failure to preserve e-mail communications andor to maintain them in an accessible place was discovered during investigations conducted jointly and separately by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the New York Stock Exchange and NASD.
"Each firm had inadequate procedures and systems to retain and make accessible e-mail communications," the SEC, NYSE and NASD said.
"While some firms relied on employees to preserve copies of the e-mail communications on the hard drives of their individual personal computers, there were no systems or procedures to ensure that employees did so," they said.
Backup tapes or other formats to keep the e-mail were discarded or recycled "often a year or less after back-up occurred," they said.
In addition to the fines, the firms also agreed to report to the securities regulators on their procedures to comply with the rules for preserving e-mail.
Near record homes sales seen for 2003
WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- The National Association of Realtors said that after setting records in 2001 and 2002, home sales are projected to slip but remain historically strong next year.
David Lereah, NAR's chief economist, said that even with the bulk of home sales taking place during the first half of this year, the forecast for total annual housing activity has been trending upward.
"The market has continued to perform better than expected, largely in response to the low level of mortgage interest rates which have predominated this year," he said.
"We now expect existing-home sales to total 5.52 million units in 2002, up 4.2 percent from last year's record of 5.30 million," Lereah said.
"In 2003, sales should ease off to 5.29 million, but that would be just shy of the 2001 record -- and it'll be the fifth year that existing-home sales exceed the 5 million benchmark," he said.
For the year, the NAR said new-home sales are expected to rise 5.6 percent to a record of 960,000 units in 2002, but ease in 2003 to 924,000 units, which would be the second highest on record.
The NAR said housing starts are expected to rise 4.8 percent to 1.68 million units this year, but then slip to 1.66 million in 2003.
Lereah said he expects the 30-year fixed mortgage interest rate to rise gradually to 6.8 percent by this time next year and the national median existing-home price this year to rise 6.8 percent to $157,800 from 2001. With more balanced conditions expected most of next year, the median price should rise 4.3 percent in 2003.
The median new-home price is projected to be $182,500 for 2002, an increase of 4.2 percent from last year. It's seen to rise 5.4 percent in 2003.
DuPont sees research spending at $1.2 billion
WILMINGTON, Del., Dec. 3 (UPI) -- DuPont Co., the nation's largest chemical company, said it expects spending on research and development to remain at about $1.2 billion next year.
The company, which posted revenue of about $25 billion last year, also expects its research pipeline to generate about $4 billion of the company's total revenue in a couple years out.
Thomas Connelly, DuPont's technology chief, told a chemical conference in New York, "We might see some minor increases, but they'll be essential close to the current year budget for research and development."
