Inquirer Business
Business news from the Inquirer.

• New headache: Big rise in CPI
  WASHINGTON - Among the many things to be thankful for this holiday season is that you are not Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke.
• Buying 'Crazy Stripes' - at full price
  Gap Inc. is defying the skeptics. By refusing to join competitors making holiday markdowns, the biggest U.S. clothing retailer may post a fourth-quarter profit increase - compared with a 35 percent drop a year ago.
• Toy retailer reflects on sales, safety
  NEW YORK - Concerns about toy safety since the summer's recalls plus worries about the economy have made shoppers more cautious this holiday season, resulting in generally sluggish toy sales.
• An analyst who warned firm of subprime mess
  NEW YORK - Throughout 2006, T. Rowe Price analyst Susan Troll watched in horror as one risky mortgage deal after another came to market. She became alarmed by a widening trend: mortgage lenders issuing home loans of poor quality - that is, subprime - that were then packaged and sold by Wall Street investment banks to investors worldwide.
• Can do, unions say of hiring minorities
  The leader of Philadelphia's construction unions signaled yesterday that they would accept City Council's strict goals for including minorities and women in building the $700 million Convention Center expansion.
• Tropicana sale could happen within weeks
  ATLANTIC CITY - At least a half-dozen potential buyers have contacted state casino regulators about buying the Tropicana Casino & Resort, and a sale could take place within weeks, the head of the state Casino Control Commission said yesterday.
• Business news in brief
  
• Dow off 178 on jump in consumer inflation
  NEW YORK - Stocks finished a bruising week on the downside yesterday after a jump in consumer inflation raised concerns about how much freedom the Federal Reserve has to continue cutting interest rates. The Dow Jones industrial average gave up more than 178 points.
• Pa., N.J. plaintiffs receiving funds
  About $23 million from a class-action settlement of predatory-lending claims against Ameriquest Mortgage Co. is being distributed among 21,500 residents of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
• Senate votes to make FHA refinancing easier
  WASHINGTON - The Senate moved against the worsening mortgage crisis yesterday, voting to make it easier for thousands of homeowners with ballooning interest rates to refinance into federally insured loans.
• Greenspan: The risk of recession is rising
  Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said that the risk of a U.S. recession was increasing and that economic growth was "getting close to stall speed."
• Panel: Keep Mevacor off shelves
  A panel of advisers to the Food and Drug Administration yesterday rejected a request by Merck & Co. Inc. to sell its cholesterol-lowering statin drug without a prescription.
• Tropicana's bankruptcy card
  ATLANTIC CITY - The Tropicana Casino & Resort's parent said yesterday that it might file for bankruptcy protection to prevent defaulting on its loan after the casino was denied a new license Wednesday.
• Fish kill to cost Merck more than $20 million
  A chemical spill and fish kill 18 months ago that canceled recreation along the Wissahickon Creek and closed drinking-water intakes on the Schuylkill will cost Merck & Co. Inc. more than $20 million in fines, plant improvements and environmental projects that the pharmaceutical giant has agreed to undertake.
• Retail sales, consumer prices both rise
  WASHINGTON - Retail sales exceeded forecasts in November, but wholesale prices jumped the most in 34 years, the government said yesterday.
• Federal monitor to quit UMDNJ
  The federal monitor who spent two years exposing fraud and corruption at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey - and whose investigation led to the indictment of State Sen. Wayne R. Bryant - will wrap up his work at the end of the month.
• Shire promotes Emmens, Russell
  Shire P.L.C. chief executive officer Matthew Emmens will become nonexecutive chairman of Britain's third-largest drugmaker in June, after five years at the helm.
• Dow Jones shareholders back sale to Murdoch
  NEW YORK - Rupert Murdoch's $5-billion-plus takeover of Dow Jones & Co. Inc., publisher of the Wall Street Journal, cleared its final hurdle yesterday as shareholders of the financial-publishing company gave their approval. The deal closed last night.
• Earnings continue to fall, says Lehman Bros. Holdings
  NEW YORK - Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc. reported its third straight quarter of falling earnings yesterday, because of turmoil in global credit markets. But the company managed to offset most of its problems and easily beat Wall Street expectations.
• Senate: Hike gas mileage standard
  WASHINGTON - The Senate passed a trimmed-back energy bill yesterday that would bring higher-gas-mileage cars and SUVs into showrooms in the next decade and fill their tanks with ethanol.