General Motors Corp. said Tuesday its sales were flat compared with last September. The company got a boost from its new lineup of pickups as well as the new Cadillac CTS, which posted a 73 percent sales increase.

Honda Motor Co.'s U.S. sales rose more than 9 percent, while Nissan Motor Co.'s sales gained 7 percent on strength of record Altima sedan sales.

But Chrysler LLC said its U.S. sales fell 5 percent, although retail sales were up and fleet sales were down compared with the same month last year.

Ford Motor Co.'s car sales dropped 39 percent compared with last September, while its truck sales were down 5 percent. Sales of Ford's F-150 pickup, long the best-selling vehicle in the United States, fell 21 percent as newer pickups from GM and Toyota Motor Corp. stole its thunder.

———

MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. — Canada's second largest bank is bidding to bulk up its south-of-the-border presence by buying New Jersey-based Commerce Bancorp for $8.5 billion in cash and stock.

The deal, announced Tuesday, would nearly double TD Bank Financial Group's United States presence, adding Commerce's roughly 460 branches on the East Coast.

TD Bank, with a market capitalization of $52.2 billion, is Canada's second-largest bank. Forbes' Canada 40 list from 2005 named it the nation's fourth largest company overall. It already owns TD Banknorth, with about 600 branches in the United States, most of them in New England but some as far south as the Philadelphia area.

TD Bank President and CEO Ed Clark said the acquisition would make the company a major player in United States banking, ranking seventh largest in terms of number of branches.

It would also become the second-largest bank in both Philadelphia and New Jersey, expand its business in New York and get a beachhead in Washington and Florida.

———

WASHINGTON — After a group of investors reduced its cash offer for Sallie Mae by 17 percent on Tuesday, the nation's largest student lender insisted that the buyers honor their original $25 billion deal.

The investor group, which is led by private equity firm J.C. Flowers & Co. and includes Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, said the student-loan legislation signed into law by President Bush, and weaker economic conditions, made the $60-a-share price negotiated in April unacceptable.

The group sent its revised offer to the board of the company, formally called SLM Corp., saying that $50 a share now "appropriately and fairly reflects the new economic and legislative environment that faces the company."

Under the new offer, which is worth about $21 billion in cash, Sallie Mae has the potential to receive an additional payment of more than $7 a share if the company performs on track with its own projections. It could receive an extra $10 a share if the company exceeds those expectations.

———

NEW YORK — Morgan Stanley said Tuesday it is cutting about 600 jobs and slimming down its mortgage business, after a credit crisis upended the home loan industry this summer and forced other investment banks into similar moves.

Two weeks after the Wall Street investment bank missed analysts' expectations for the fiscal third quarter and took a writedown of $940 million for corporate loans stuck on its books, Morgan Stanley said it will eliminate about 1 percent of its work force.

As part of a plan to fuse its three mortgage businesses into one subsidiary based in Irving, Texas, Morgan Stanley will close certain offices and cut 500 jobs in the U.S. and 100 in Europe.

Morgan Stanley said reshuffling these businesses will make the company more efficient and provide the opportunity to profit once the industry recovers.

———

NEW YORK — Wall Street ended mixed Tuesday, selling off large companies' stocks but buying up those of smaller companies, as investors cashed in gains from Monday's big rally and poked around for new bargains.

It was an unusual day of trading — normally, the major stock indexes closely track one another. But given the market's quick, sharp rebound from August's credit market squeeze and stock selloff, it's understandable investors would pause to reposition as the fourth quarter gets under way.

Wall Street was only slightly fazed by the National Association of Realtors' report Tuesday that its seasonally adjusted index of pending sales for existing homes fell 6.5 percent in August from July and 21.5 percent from a year ago. The data suggest sales of existing homes will probably keep declining in the coming months — bad news for the economy, but good news for those hoping for another interest rate cut.

———

HARRISBURG, Pa. — The Hershey Co. board said Tuesday that another former Nabisco executive will follow in the footsteps of Richard H. Lenny at the helm of the nation's largest candymaker.

David J. West, Hershey's chief operating officer, was named president and chief executive on Tuesday, the board said in a statement. The move came a day after Lenny announced he was stepping down following six tumultuous years at Hershey.

Hershey's stock fell $1.63, or 3.4 percent, to $45.78 in trading Tuesday.

Lenny, who was the first CEO hired from outside Hershey, will remain as chairman through the end of the year, when director Robert H. Campbell will take over, the company also said Tuesday. Campbell is the former chairman and chief executive of Philadelphia-based petroleum refiner Sunoco Inc. and has been a Hershey director since 1995.

———

STOCKHOLM, Sweden — A Qatar investment group sought regulatory approval to raise its stake in Nordic stock exchange operator OMX AB on Tuesday, a potential challenge to an ongoing takeover bid by Nasdaq and Borse Dubai.

The state-owned Qatar Holding LLC applied for an ownership assessment by the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority, which means it wants to acquire more than 10 percent of OMX. Last month, Qatar Holding said it had acquired a 9.98 percent stake.

In a copy of the application obtained by The Associated Press, Qatar Holding asked for permission to purchase shares beyond the 10 percent ownership threshold, which could mean "total stock ownership may reach 100 percent of the shares in OMX."

It was the first statement from the Qatar group indicating it may be pursuing a takeover.

———

BOSTON — The Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. said Tuesday it would buy the Boston Stock Exchange for about $61 million, putting the Boston exchange under outside ownership after 173 years of independence.

Nasdaq's acquisition of the Boston exchange, the third oldest in the United States, comes amid a global wave of consolidation among stock exchanges.

Included in Tuesday's deal are the Boston exchange's holding company, BSE Group, as well as the Boston Equities Exchange, the Boston Stock Exchange Clearing Corp. and BSE's regulatory authority over the Boston Options Exchange.

BSE's minority interest in the Boston Options Exchange is not included in the transaction, because the company is talking to the Montreal Exchange about selling the stake and related companies.

———

DALLAS — Dean Foods Co., the nation's largest dairy producer, scaled back its profit forecast for the year, saying record-high milk prices are hurting sales and causing consumers to switch from name brands to cheaper private-labels products.

The company also said Tuesday it plans to cut 600 to 700 jobs, more than 2 percent of its work force.

Dean lowered its profit expectations for the third quarter and all of 2007. The company expects to take a restructuring charge in the quarter for the job cuts, but it didn't provide a dollar figure.