LOS ANGELES — Subprime mortgage lender New Century Financial Corp., its financial footing crumbling, was all but kicked from the New York Stock Exchange today, while federal investigations into accounting errors and trading of its stock intensified.

The NYSE suspended trading in shares of New Century and began taking steps to delist its shares from the exchange, citing the company's worsening financial prospects and allegations it has defaulted on obligations to its lenders.

The exchange had halted trading of New Century shares on Monday, pending an evaluation of the company's financing efforts.

In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing today, New Century said that it received a grand jury subpoena for "certain documents" as part of an ongoing criminal inquiry by federal prosecutors in California.

Last month, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California notified New Century that it was conducting a criminal inquiry into trading in the company's stock and into accounting errors over loan repurchase losses.

$1B LAWSUIT FILED AGAINST YOUTUBE

NEW YORK — Big Media took its first big swing at YouTube today as Viacom Inc., the owner of MTV, VH1, Comedy Central and other cable networks filed a $1 billion copyright lawsuit against the video-sharing site and corporate owner Google Inc.

The lawsuit marks a sharp escalation of long-simmering tensions between Viacom and YouTube and represents the biggest confrontation to date between a major media company and the hugely popular site, which Google bought in November for $1.76 billion.

Last month Viacom demanded that YouTube remove more than 100,000 unauthorized clips from its site, and since that time the company has uncovered more than 50,000 additional unauthorized clips, Viacom spokesman Jeremy Zweig said.

A quick search of YouTube's site today turned up numerous clips from Viacom programs including segments from Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and Nickelodeon's "SpongeBob SquarePants" cartoon.

In the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in New York, Viacom says YouTube "harnessed technology to willfully infringe copyrights on a huge scale" and had "brazen disregard" of intellectual property laws.

RETAIL SALES EDGE UP 0.1%

WASHINGTON — Sales at the nation's retailers barely budged in February as bad winter weather kept already cautious shoppers away from the malls.

The Commerce Department's report, released today, raised fresh concerns that consumers could tighten the belt further, causing economic growth to slow even more than anticipated.

Retail sales edged up only 0.1 percent in February. Sales were flat in January as shoppers took a breather after buying briskly during the holidays.

Shoppers in February cut spending on a wide range of goods, including home furnishings, building and garden supplies, clothing, electronics and appliances, and sporting goods, books and music. They also ate out less.

A bright spot was auto sales, which went up by 0.9 percent in February. That followed a decrease of the same size in the previous month.

MORE MORTGAGES PAID LATE

WASHINGTON — Late mortgage payments shot up to a 3›-year high in the final quarter of last year and new foreclosures surged to a record high as borrowers with tarnished credit histories had trouble keeping up with their monthly payments.

The Mortgage Bankers Association, in its quarterly snapshot of the mortgage market released today, reported that the percentage of payments that were 30 or more days past due for all loans tracked jumped to 4.95 percent in the October-to-December quarter.

That marked a sharp rise from the third-quarter's delinquency rate of 4.67 percent and was the worst showing since the spring of 2003, when the late-payment rate climbed to 4.97 percent.

The association's survey covers 43.5 million loans.

GOLDMAN SACHS SEES JUMP IN PROFIT

NEW YORK — Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the largest Wall Street investment house, today said its first-quarter profit rose 29 percent to a company record on robust trading gains and investment banking fees.

Goldman was the first of the Wall Street investment banks to report first-quarter results, with Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Bear Stearns Cos., and Morgan Stanley Inc. on tap in the coming days.

New York-based Goldman reported earnings applicable to common shareholders rose to $3.15 billion, or $6.67 per share, for the quarter ended Feb. 23, compared to $2.45 billion, or $5.08 per share, in the year-ago period.

Revenue rose 22 percent to $12.73 billion from $10.43 billion in the year-ago period.

Results surpassed Wall Street projections for earnings of $4.97 per share on $10.69 billion in revenue, according to analysts polled by Thomson Financial.

MERCK'S GENERICS UNIT SOUGHT

FRANKFURT, Germany — Indian drugmaker Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. said today it has submitted a bid for the generics unit of Germany's Merck KGaA but did not disclose how much it was offering.

Analysts say Merck's generics unit could be worth as much as 5 billion euros ($6.58 billion). Last year, the unit's sales rose 6.9 percent to 1.8 billion euros ($2.37 billion).

Ranbaxy said the bid had been submitted to the German drug and chemical maker. Chief Executive Dr. Malvinder Singh said his company would not get caught up in a bidding war for the unit.

A Merck spokeswoman had no comment about the bid.