Prudential Mortgage Capital Originates $77 Million In Loans
NEWARK, N.J., Jan 13, 2004 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Prudential Mortgage Capital Company announced today that it has recently originated $77 million in loans for its conduit. Prudential Mortgage Capital is the commercial mortgage lending business of Prudential...

Germany's Schroeder To Discuss Euro-dollar Exchange Rate With Greenspan
Berlin - Immediately before his meeting with US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder (Social Democratic Party of Germany [SPD]) announced that the talks would focus on the euro-US dollar exchange rate. There was "no doubt...

Wfg Capital Advisors Lp Announces That Sterling Financial Corporation Reaches Agreement To Purchase Stoudt Advisors
LANCASTER, Pa., Jan 13, 2004 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Sterling Financial Corporation (Nasdaq:SLFI) announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase Stoudt Advisors, a Lancaster, Pennsylvania-based employee benefits consulting and...

Housing Market To Stay Strong, Aiding Custom-install Channel
WASHINGTON-- The decade-long housing boom was expected to peak in 2003 at 1.45 million single-family housing starts, the second highest level on record, before declining by low single-digit percentages in 2004 and 2005, according to forecasts by the National...

San Diego-based Food Irradiation Company To Shut Down
Jan. 13--SureBeam Corp., a money-losing maker of food irradiation systems, said yesterday that it will shut down on Friday and terminate its 77 employees.


Mapinfo Uncovers Spenders Who Are Racking Up Credit Card Debt
TROY, N.Y., Jan 13, 2004 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- From Impulse Shoppers to Big Spenders, MapInfo Demographers List Jacksonville, North Carolina; Anchorage, Alaska and Honolulu, Hawaii as Top 'Credit Card Happy' Cities

Signs Point To Continued Economic Recovery In 2004, Experts Say
Jan. 10--This holiday season, more employers popped open bottles of bubbly with workers and celebrated what they hoped would be the end of a gloomy fog of economic uncertainty.

Retailers See Increase In Sales Thanks To Last-minute Shoppers
Jan. 9--Holiday shoppers waited to the last minute to storm the malls in December, turning around what had been shaping up as a not-so-jolly season and giving retailers their biggest gains for the period since 1999.

2004 Myrtle Beach Area Guide 'stay & Play' Now Available
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C., Jan 6, 2004 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- The 2004 edition of "Stay & Play(R)," the Myrtle Beach area's most comprehensive vacation guide, is now available.

Supermarkets Test Loyalty System
ATM and POS hardware maker NCR Corp. has scored a hat trick this fall, expanding the adoption of its Copient system that uses supermarket reward cards to build consumer sales. Copient combines touch-screen kiosks with software to read the cards and offer...


Consumers Are Hot, Inflation Is Not
WASHINGTON (AFX) -- U.S. economic growth is still not hot enough to create many jobs. Nor is it hot enough to ignite inflationary pressures. And it's definitely not hot enough to bring the Federal Reserve out of its hibernation. The U.S. economy is hot...

Federal Report Finds Spending On Health Care Outpaces U.S. Economy
WASHINGTON, Jan 09, 2004, (A. M. Best via COMTEX) -- Spending on health care accounted for a record 15% of the nation's economy in 2002, outpacing the rate of growth in the overall economy for the fourth year in a row, according to a new report by the...

Schwarzenegger To Slash Funding From City, County Budgets
SACRAMENTO - Three weeks after taking bold action to protect local government from steep budget cuts, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Friday will propose trimming more than $1 billion from city and county budgets when he unveils his first spending plan to...

Last-minute Shopping Gave Boost To December Sales - Update 1
CHICAGO (AFX) -- It turned out to be a merry holiday season after all as consumers finally pulled their wallets out during the latter half of December to help retailers deliver their best seasonal sales performance since 1999. An eye-popping 74 percent...