BUSINESS BRIEFS
Another tumble sends oil to lowest prices since June
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Oil prices fell more than $2 a barrel yesterday, finishing at their lowest level in seven weeks as a rising dollar and beliefs that record prices are eroding the world's thirst for energy sparked another dramatic sell-off.
The drop — which surpassed $4 a barrel at one point during the day — was a throwback to oil's nosedive over the past two weeks and outweighed supply concerns touched off by a militant attack Monday on two Nigerian crude pipelines. It was oil's seventh decline in the past 10 sessions.
Light, sweet crude for September delivery fell $2.54 to settle at $122.19 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
It was the lowest settlement price for a front-month contract since June 10. Earlier, prices fell to $120.42, also the lowest level since June 10. Oil has now fallen more than $25 from its trading high of $147.27 on July 11.
'PAINFUL FAILURE' IN GLOBAL TRADE TALKS
GENEVA — After coming tantalizingly close to a historic trade deal, World Trade Organization talks collapsed yesterday in a dismaying blow to seven years of efforts to open up the global economy.
Once promised as a recipe for lifting millions of people out of poverty, the end to nine days of high-level talks left no new trade openings for farmers and manufacturers, no global economic boost and no grand deal for Third World development.
While the talks have struggled before, this failure was perhaps the most devastating.
Faced with global unrest from rising food prices, credit problems from shaky financial markets and the threat of economic downturn, negotiators hoped that a deal this week to open farm and industrial markets would go some way to alleviating these problems.
"This is a very painful failure and a real setback for the global economy when we really needed some good news," said Peter Mandelson, the European Union's trade commissioner.
WHOLE FOODS DEAL FACES NEW HURDLE
WASHINGTON — Whole Foods' long-running effort to acquire its rival organic supermarket chain Wild Oats isn't completely out of the legal woods yet.
A three-judge federal appeals court panel yesterday overturned a lower court ruling from last year that allowed Whole Foods Market Inc. to acquire Boulder, Colo.-based Wild Oats Markets Inc.
The 2-1 ruling sends the case back to the lower court for further consideration, but doesn't halt Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods' integration of the Wild Oats chain or require that the deal be undone.
However, if the district court ultimately rules in favor of the Federal Trade Commission, which sought last year to block the deal, it could disrupt Whole Foods' efforts to combine the companies.
A Whole Foods spokeswoman said the company is disappointed with the decision and is "evaluating its legal options," which include asking all 10 judges on the appeals court to review the case.
Jeffrey Schmidt, director of the FTC's Bureau of Competition, said the agency was pleased by the ruling.
STARBUCKS CUTTING 1,000 OFFICE JOBS
NEW YORK — Starbucks Corp., which already plans to shut 600 stores, said yesterday it is also cutting almost 1,000 office jobs as part of its bid to re-energize the brand and boost its profit.
Of the new cuts, 550 of the positions are layoffs and the rest are unfilled jobs. The announcement came a day before Starbucks was set to report its third-quarter financial results, which analysts expect to show a substantial decline in profit because of slower traffic and a drop in sales at established stores.
For the company's investors, the store closures and layoffs offer some hope that the chain's declining traffic, profit and stock price may all rise again. But optimism is absent among many of the company's employees, who say Starbucks is hurting its workers and customers to save its stock price. The shares have sunk 47 percent in the past year.
