After years of sputtering, sales of big pickups kicked into overdrive last month.
Demand for full-size pickups jumped 16 percent, helping make August the strongest month for U.S. auto sales in three years. Overall auto sales increased 20 percent from a year earlier to nearly 1.3 million, according to Autodata Corp.
The rising demand shows that businesses need to replace aging trucks and feel more confident about the recovery in U.S. housing – a market where pickups are essential for hauling equipment and crews. Facebook shares scraped a new low Tuesday. The new drag on the already leaden stock: Analysts from two of Facebook’s largest underwriters on its botched initial public stock offering cut their price targets.
The Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase analysts also reduced their revenue projections.
Shares closed down nearly 2 percent, or 33 cents, to $17.73 as some on Wall Street, floored that Facebook has shed $50 billion in market value in just three months, said they feared the company’s stock is nowhere near bottom. McDonald’s Corp., the fast food chain that brought the hamburger to the world, is opening what may be its first vegetarian-only restaurants.
The hamburger chain said Tuesday that the locations in India will serve only vegetarian food because of customer preferences in the region. The company could not immediately say when the restaurants would open or how many there would be. Already, McDonald’s restaurants in India do not sell beef or pork, and its kitchens are separated for cooking vegetarian and nonvegetarian food. Volkswagen AG has unveiled the latest version of its mainstay Golf hatchback at a Berlin museum, ahead of its premiere later this month at the Paris Auto Show.
The 7th edition of the model introduced in 1974 doesn’t look that different from the outside, though there is one key change: the front headlights are rectangular instead of circular.
But the body, powertrain and interior were completely redesigned, the company said Tuesday.
The new Golf is 220 pounds lighter, helping it get 23 percent better gas mileage. Economic threats mean the outlook for banks remains negative in the next 12 to 18 months, Moody’s Investors Service said Tuesday.
“Our negative outlook ... reflects a challenging domestic operating environment, with prolonged low interest rates, high unemployment, weak economic growth and fiscal policy uncertainties,” said Sean Jones, Moody’s senior vice president. “The threat of contagion ... from the European sovereign debt crisis undermines economic recovery in the U.S. and exposes banks to a heightened risk of shocks,” he said.
Facebook stock hits another low McDonald’s goes vegeterian in India VW Golf hatchback gets redesigned Moody’s downbeat about banks’ outlook News Tribune news services
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