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Show PAGE 6 SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, BUSINESS EDITOR A Local Industry News & Notes V Dow Jones Nasdaq sap 500 Final Final 13,625.58 5.69 2706.16 --2.87 Final 1504.66 -- 2.68 , V Gold Per I Grace Leong ounce -- $6.80 THE DOLLAR j Euro Is.i:-- ' Pound 3 Canadian dollar Mexican peso Per ounce $14,325 -- $0,115 ,$794.40 0 gleonghefaldextra.com 344-29- 1 EXCHANGING ' ' Yen Silver 2007 f . Friday Thursday 111.69 $1.4655 $2.0315 $1.0045 10.8199 111.40 $1.4633 $2.0290 $1.0097 10.8237 Retail CompUSA sold to restructuring firm Orem Harmons opens new Sinclair fuel stop Harmons, Your Neighborhood Grocer, is opening a fuel stop at its Qrem grocery store at 870 E. 800 North. The Sinclair gas station, which is Harmons's eighth fuel stop, celebrate a grand opening starting Monday. Customers can save up to 30 cents per gallon of gas at the pump depending upon their total grocery purchase amount. ' "The fuel discount on the grocery receipt is good for up to 20 gallons of gas. And, if you don't use the full 20 gallons, a new fuel receipt will automatically print at the pump showing the remaining balance, which is valid for 30 days at any of Harmons's eight fuel stops," said Bob Harmon, vice president of marketing for Harmons. The privately owned local grocery chain, which has 12 stores statewide, has fuel stops at stores in West Valley, Midvale, South Jordan, Draper, The District and Kearns. The Orem fuel stop will be open from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. for check and cash customers, and each pump has a debitcredit card processor that will be open 24 hours, seven days a ' p eight-pum- Fate of 103 stores including three Utah stores not known THE ASSOCIATED by Mexican financier Carlos Slim Helu's Grupo Carso SA, said discussions were under way to sell certain stores in key markets. Those that are purchased will remain open under new ownership. Stores that can't be sold will be closed by the first week of January. The company plans to g sales during run the holidays. PRESS DALLAS Consumer electronics retailer CompUSA said Friday it will close an unspecified number of its stores after the holidays following a sale of the company to an affiliate of Gordon Brothers Group LLC, a restructuring firm. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Alex Stanton, the company's CompUSA operates 103 stores nationwide including spokesman, declined to specify whether the Utah stores are up three Utah stores in Orem, Murray and Salt Lake. Private- for sale and how many stores nationwide are being sold. He ly held CompUSA, controlled week.- store-closin- Awards Three Utah County startups win UVSC business contest Three Utah County startup businesses were honored for their business plans and ideas in UVSC's Opportunity Quest contest. The teams were assisted in developing their business proposals with workshops, forums and mentors provided by the Entrepreneurship Institute in the School of Business. e The winner was Nunemaker Construction & Consulting, whose team members Joe Nunemaker and Andy Welch, received a $2,000 cash award. They plan to open in Pleasant Grove. Quickline Transcriptions took second place. Its team members, Mark Shinoda and Matthew Mendel, received $600. They plan to open its corporate headquarters in Virginia. In third place is Intern to Executive, and its team members, Bancroft Bernard, Shawn Lucas, Lindsay Tanner and Frank Carter, also received $600. The company will open in Provo next year. include: Hillary Sweet by Hillary Kirk-maThe and Build it Connect by Joshua Solomon and Joshua Davis. Each received between $100 and $300, with other awards including office space, telephone lines, Internet, copy and fax access in the UVSC Student Incubator. first-plac- semi-finalis- ts also declined to specify the number of workers in the Utah small-busines- stores. Gordon Brothers will also try to sell the company's technical services business, CompUSA TechPro, and online business, CompUSA.com. Dallas-baseCompUSA has struggled for nearly a decade with falling prices on personal computers, its most important product, and cxirnpetition from retailers such as Best big-bo- owners. s CompUSA closed more than half its stores this spring and got a cash infusion of $440 million to restructure. During the wind-dowWeinstein and Stephen Gray, managing partner at CRG Partners, will run the company. The chain's current chief executive, Roman Ross, will serve in an advisory role, CompUSA said. DJM Realty, a Gordon Brothers Group affiliate, will review leases of CompUSA's store locations. x : ... Buy Co, Helu took the company- private in2000. The chain went through several CEOs and tried different turnaround strategies, such as a move this year to focus oft core customers such as gadget users and . Daily Herald reporter Grace Leong contributed to this report. Bush promotes subprime freeze Martin Crutsinger hi THE Q &A PRESS WASHINGTON Jerry has devoted a lot of time and energy to remodeling his lakefront home in Mississippi He says he is not looking for a government bailout, just a temporary break on his mortgage. "I'm not asking them to give me anything, just some time out," n, I UVSC Wasatch student awarded $500 scholarship The Mountain Valley Chapter of the Sons of Utah Pioneers awarded Kirt Forakis, a business management major at the UVSC Wasatch Campus, a $500 scholarship. The scholarship will be used at Wasatch Campus for books, tuition or other student needs. Forakis of Heber City kept his GPA above 3.0 throughout high school He also held part-tim- e jobs and was a state champion in Skills USA for physics his senior year. IDS mission and currently coaches He served a two-yea-r e and attends classes at Wasatch basketball, works ASSOCIATED ft Mortgage freeze: What see B5 it means for you, country into a recessioa "The holidays are fast approaching and this will be a time of anxiety for Americans worried about their mortgages and their he says. Alberson, 48, is hoping he will homes," Bush said. The admin- be one of thousands of homeown- istration's efforts, he said, are ers who will be able to qualify for "a sensible response to a serious a program announced Thursday challenge." ' by President Bush that will freeze The initiative would hold down rates for certain subprime mortrates on certain subprime mortr gages, which are loans offered gages for five years. to borrowers with spotty credit His mortgage is scheduled to histories. These loans offer initial reset next August, pushing his "teaser" rates for the first two monthly payment up to around $1,600 a month, about $300 more to three years before rates climb than he is paying now. That sharply, potentially increasing freeze will definitely help," he monthly payments by as much as 30 percent. says. "It will help everyone reBush released his plan on a day cover." the Mortgage Bankers AssociaThe acUninistration's plan is tion reported that the number of the biggest move yet to show it is dealing aggressively with the mortgages entering the foreclosure process in the mortgage crisis. The escalatjng problem is becoming a political See SUBPRIME, B5 issue and threatening to push the full-tim- Campus. , NATIONAL BRIEFING Unemployment rate holding steady July-Septe- WASHINGTON Employers hired at a moderate pace in November and the unemployment rate held steady at a relatively low 4.7 percent, reassuring signs for an economy that is fighting to avoid a recessioa The Labor Department's report Friday showed that companies are still adding to their ranks albeit at a slower pace even as deepening troubles in the housing and credit markets are weighing heavily on national economic activity. Employers added a net 94,000 new jobs to their payrolls last month. That was down from a surprisingly strong gain of 170,000 jobs in October, but was still sufficient to prevent the unemployment rate from rising. The jobless rate has held steady at 4.7 percent for three months in a row. ' "The economy has been hit by some large juggernauts, but the labor market is holding together reasonably well," said Lynn Reaser, chief economist at Bank of America's Investment Strategies Group. "Today's report would suggest there is no need to panic about the economy." High delinquency rate for subprimes More than 15 percent of subprime adjustable-rat- e mortgages were 90 days or more delinquent or in the process of foreclosure during the third quarter of 2007. ' Seriously delinquent, 90 days late, quarterly 15 percent 12 9 ,. . 6 CHARLES President Bush makes Stocks of local interest STM COMPANY AA ALCOA INC ABSY AB$OUJTESKYINCNEVaO ABX BARRKXGOtDCP AEP AMR! AKj AMD STM COMPANY 1.05 MYGN Myriad 0.006 NATR. NATURES 0.47 NETM 403 NOW NetManagckx Ncvetlnc AMERINUGKOUPWC61.45 0.10 NUS NU SKIN ENT INC A0V 002 105 059 NWN NORTHWEST OMTR Omnlturt. Inc PCS P64ECP 0.63 PFE PHZHINC 2440 023 0)3 Q C0MMWTLWC 7.06 0.06 LAST CHANGE 36.91 39.79 ELECTRIC PCW CO 49.1 9.0S MICRO DEVICES 52.10 AMGN AmgenbK. Of 7 BK BAM BROOKHEID BLL BALK? C CITIGROUP 45J7 CP AMERICA BAC ASSET MGT 37.29 4557 INC QWEST . K 3431-00- 5078 SUNSHINE 9.80 0.05 3.65 O02 7.05 0.03 HAT GAS V RASERtKWJOLOdKS 1&22 000 SCOX COST CostaVoteCoip 71 Si 1.00 SHU) CVX CHEVRON 90.96 DELTA U70 042 032 58 DAL SKYW SkyWesthc 08 WALT 32.79 O07 SNT0 SEKT0C0RP 85.77 085 016 STR QUESTARCP fftJC LM CORP NEW C Corporation Ericsson Tphom O01 55.56, 015 2&4S 0.02 ' 54.16-0.4- 22.45 MOJO UNH UNTTEDHEALTH GROUP 56.65 0.67 USB L6 32,86 L28 USfG 694 007 010 CO H0LDIN 4752 3.08 UTMD 4.69 U5. Energy Corp. VSArttrtaiThSdmaB 4025 UtthMrtuI Product! 3005 006 064 032 VZ VTJffiDN COMMON 45J0 08S WB WACHOVIA CP 4X18 0.89 WEN WENDYSMTINC 28J7 O08 086 WFC WELLS FARGO 31.71 08) WMT WAl WM SQWNUTWTWn. 15.12 009 000 014 49.02 X UNITED 3453 O01 ) XCH 9.03 023 2J0N BmixatpmSan hut Corporation WJ' Kf MBk JWN NORDSTROM LEE LEE ENTERPRISES ILV SOmWEST MCK MCKESSON BUSINESS Oil 7.56 O07 3723 - 61.0S MAOM0&86 KTO MtR 075 018 UDRINC INTl Always Corp JC 1. 27J9 015 WC AIRLINES CORP MLC0CMNSTK RHU. LYNCH MER J ME MMSI Merit MSFT MbnoftCaponton MU MICRON MtoUSysm TECHNOLOGY 27.73 3852 1454 1428 66J7 61.42 21 JO TGT , .TARGET CP 1 47, 55.5V, V, 035 .06 ' USNA CO O10 5.41 025 005 STIR 103 64 3.04 23.42 011 077 MART STORES STATES ' ENERGY WC 5SJ5 LOS ANGELES AP PadficCorp scraps plans for coal plants in Utah THE ASSOCIATED they resent on principle the rush to help a segment of society that might not have acted so responsibly. But they also fear that any effort to prevent foreclosures could keep home prices from falling to an affordable leveL . "I try to do the right thing, which is to have a down payment and a job and to be fiscally responsible, and it basically looks like it's not going to pan out if this subprime bailout goes through," said Johnson, a biologist at the Salk Institute, who nonetheless described'' himself as in favor of helping people in! . 1 over-leverag- e d need. plan, Proponents of the under which interest rates would be frozen for five years for some adjustable- rate borrowers in danger of losing their homes, say the relief effort would help unsophisticated home buyers who were Bush-backe- d See IRATE, ; B5 ) PacifiCorp has that it is scrapping , Jred power plants in t,v risltthaf Congress Utah)? iaust-thmight 4t art regulating carbon emissions and raise the cost tot coal geneVatka.s; Porttend, Ore Aased PacifiCorp told utility muiussibhs fci Utah and Oregon t conthat ifwas removing struction from its strategic plans for the next 10 years. PacifiCorp operates as Rocicyountain Power in Utah, Jdiiho coal-plan- t. '' : PRESS SA$fcMlKJTY notifW plansC . TIMES ;' When Casey Johnson and his wife moved to San Diego three years ago, they couldn't find a home in their price . range. So they did what they thought was the sensible thing. themselves Rather than with a risky mortgage, the couple rented an apartment in La Jolla, Calif., and waited for the bousing market to drift back to earth, hoping they hadnt missed their chance to become homeowners. ' But now the government-brokereplan unveiled Thursday by President Bush to ease terms on some subprime mortgages feels tike a "slap in the face," ' Johnson said. Many other people who prudently sat out the housing bubble or resisted the urge to cash out their home equity share that visceral reaction. In part, ". BANCORP Walter Hamilton' ' - THE TRAVELERS CO HmySchHahL PENNEY 66.93 ' ' C 115.07 S "' Prudent buyers irate at mortgage bailout 140Sf 085 018780178 y NC; 0.18 UDR 122.46 ..20.02 BLOCK WC BM ' SYBASE - t 2&06 47.10 TRV CP CENEIECTWCCO ' NSC Sean HoUny Corp .SMITH INTl C 041 091 053 001 046 065 084 025 031 FRANKLIN COVEY CO HR STJGrauB,hL(Thr4 16.93 4839 AMNNC ENTERGY fc.'l ' 5Y- SOURCE: Mortgage Bankers Association 0.37 t'.'i tTVi W!f 24.93 06 02 LAST CHANGE Inc. Gereta, CMOK Comcast Corporation AftUNES Press DHARAPAK Associated a statement about subprime mortgages, Thursday, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington Yesterday's performance of selected publidy traded companies PnmeFfl Prime ARM 3 " "I h decision means beaddUngiewcc-fiiunitSi8i'we- the iitu iviJJ hot 6 Utah power statiotis. Some of the powfer would have been exported to other ? j states in the West. :';y',-Padf iCorp did not plan to build any plants in Oregon, but Rocky Mountain Power spokesman Dave Es- - t coal-fire- d See COAL, B5 |