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The Hearst Corp. is asking a puny number of journalists at its Seattle Post-Intelligencer to work for a possible online-only successor if the print P-I shuts down as expected this month, the paper reported on its Web station Thursday.

But the offers are provisional for the shift to the Web apparently still fustiness be approved by Hearst senior management, the lie in continuance Seattlepi.com said.

A Hearst spokesman in New York declined to comment.

Hearst announced Jan. 9 that it would stop publishing the money-losing P-I unless it could find a buyer in 60 days, an extreme longshot. It also related it might keep the paper alive online, with a much smaller staff.

The 60-day window for finding a buyer closes next week. Hearst has not said when it plans to bring to view the series it will detect.

The P-I newsroom fell into two camps Thursday: those who would talk and reported they had not been asked to subsist part of each online successor to the P-I; and those who declined to comment, prompting speculation they had been approached.

“I have power to’t so much as agitate it in our newsroom,” one annotator said.

The second camp included several breaking-news reporters and editors, online producers and reporters with popular blogs.

The P-I Web site said one staffer indicated an online-only P-I would have a staff of about 20. The newspaper’s word staff is about 150.

“We knew it was going to be a small team,” said reporter Jon Naito, who said he was not among those approached by Hearst. “It looks like the site’s going to be blog-heavy and link-heavy, by a couple breaking-news reporters.”

Sports columnist Art Thiel said he had not been approached. Metro columnist Joel Connelly declined to remark.

Seattlepi.com reported that one reporter who rebuffed Hearst’s tentative offer reported the new job would gain paid less and offered fewer benefits.

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Banking huge. Citigroup once commanded a stock price of $55. But at one point Thursday, as markets hurtled to their lowest close in 12 years, the shares were worth less than an particular at the Dollar Store.

After months of headlong declines, this is what Wall Street has come to: Blue-chip companies, once considered safe investments and cornerstones of the plan, are the new penny stocks.

The bear market is tightening its seize hold of, despite government efforts to support the economy and more of its biggest companies. Fears about the depth and openness of the recession drove the Dow Jones industrial average down 4 percent more Thursday, bringing its losses since January to 25 percent — just shy of the 33 percent wane recorded for wholly of 2008.

Investors were stimulating for more bad advice today, when the latest U.S. employment report is expected to show the elimination of 650,000 more jobs.

“It borders on unbelievable,” said Glenn Tyranski, senior vice president of financial compliance at NYSE Regulation. “You’re seeing companies that are fit really pain across the board.”

The reckon of companies trading at $10 or less upon the body the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index has increased tenfold since the market reached a crest in October 2007. And with in no degree expiration in exhibition to the downward spiral, the New York Stock Exchange has temporarily pendulous its $1 least quantity share-price requirements to preclude a wave of delistings.

One share of General Motors stock, which fell below $2 Thursday as the company warned of possible bankruptcy, is not calm plenty to buy a gallon of gasoline for your Chevy. A share of General Electric, battered this week to little additional than $6, would not buy two of the company’s compact fluorescent light bulbs. And at its course price of 73 cents, brace shares of Office Depot stock would be needed to buy a box of paper clips.

The Dow closed at 6,594.44, down 281.40 points, or 4.09 percent — its lowest close since April 15, 1997. The broader S&P 500 fell 30.32 points, or 4.25 percent, to 682.55, its lowest close since September 1996. The Nasdaq composite fore-finger fell 4 percent, or 54.15 points, to 1,299.59.

Chinese fueled dip

The rout highlighted the apathy and pessimism that has seeped into all corners of the place of traffic for the reason that the global economic downturn deepens.

Investors had bid up shares Wednesday, in opposition to example, on hopes that China would increase spending to shore up its unraveling economy, but sold off after the Chinese government swatted away those rumors. With so much uncertainty, investors are parachuting in a puzzle of companies ranging from banks to retailers to utilities, and abandoning stock markets everywhere from Asia to Europe to Wall Street.

Many are concerned the recession may gain force control it ebbs, especially as work at jobs losses increase, a worry that is pleasing to drive public funds into a downward trend over the next few months. Economists expect the unemployment rate for February to arise to 7.9 percent from 7.6 percent in January. The Labor Department is scheduled to dispensation February’s unemployment numbers at 5:30 a.m. PST today.

“It’s just a continuing self-destructive market where on the same level the slightest good news is considered negative,” said Peter Cardillo, chief emporium economist at Avalon Partners. “No one is agitation a back-seat approach. Everyone is just selling.”

Financial stocks continue to be among the conquer hit, despite the trillions that governments around the world are spending to restore the system to working order. Citigroup, fending distant from fears of outright nationalization, broke the buck Thursday, falling as low as 97 cents before closing at $1.02. Bank of America, also the recipient of two government lifelines, slid to $3.17.

“We’re collapsing in on ourselves,” said Eric Ross, instructor of research at the brokerage Canaccord Adams. “Nobody wants to be invested, that’s the problem. I don’t believe we’re at the bottom yet.”

Another failure feared

The soak drop in stocks such similar to General Electric, which has fallen 60 percent since the start of the year, also suggests that investors are worried about another great failure in the pecuniary rule of the same stock to the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the American International Group (AIG) in September, said Russell Napier, a consultant at Credit Lyonnais.

“Ninety-nine percent of the people I talk to are pessimistic,” said Napier, who wrote the book “Anatomy of the Bear: Lessons from Wall Street’session Four Great Bottoms.” “Everyone is session back and waiting for the same more big implosion.”

Investors have grown increasingly worried that GM could be another company due for a fall. The automaker, which has borrowed $13.4 billion from the federal regulation and is seeking billions again, acknowledged in its yearly publication report Thursday that its survival was in “substantial doubt.”

Auto stocks sank across the diet, while GM shares tumbled 15 percent to $1.86.

“You really do wonder how they’re going to keep going through such pathetic sales and massive fields of unsold cars, and what’sitting going to happen,” said Rob Carnell, chief international economist at ING Financial Markets.

A enlarged slowdown in consumer spending also was evident as retailers began to release February sales results Thursday morning.

But the numbers were not as bad as January, and Wal-Mart, the world’session largest retailer, topped expectations by reporting that its sales rose 5.1 percent. Shares of Wal-Mart closed 2.6 percent higher at $49.75.

New York Times reporter Vikas Bajaj contributed to this repercussion.

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During the economic boom, selling $250 jeans was no problem towards a Sammamish company with six upscale clothing stores in succession the West Coast. But now, persuading women to spend hundreds of dollars for a new trim or wash is hardly a gimme.

So Karen Bonomo, an Eastside mom who co-founded Mercer & Co. six years agone, said she’s carrying fewer $200 jeans and more pairs in the low- to mid-$100s to endear cost-conscious consumers.

“It’sitting not as easy as it was two years ago, that’s for sure,” Bonomo said. “There was very small price-resistance. If people liked it, they bought it.”

To sustain the recession, Bonomo also has stepped up Mercer’s offerings of perfumes, candles and scarves under $50, and she recently introduced a new discount program called Mercer Platinum VIP, which gives customers 15 percent off regularly priced goods in interchange for $25 and their contact information.

Sales at stores open at least a year declined in the single digits in 2008, a unforeseen deviation of events because a society that until soon afterward enjoyed consistent sales produce.

“If you told me last summer that we would perform the year into disgrace single-digits, I would have been, ‘No way, you’re kidding!’ But behind September and October,” Bonomo reported, referring to the collapse on Wall Street, “I was like ‘OK, we can horsemanship through this.’ “

At roughly 2,000 true feet, each Mercer store has a so-called denim wall with stacks of jeans by the likes of 7 For All Mankind and Citizens on the side of Humanity, and a minimalist design so that the wearing apparel stand out.

Mercer’s University Village store, which is part of a row that includes J.Crew, Apple, Talbots and Victoria’s Secret, showcases baggy “boyfriend” jeans and slouchy sweaters in the forehead windows.

A sleek table not far from the means supports white Hudson skinny jeans for $165 and Michael Stars T-shirts for $59. Sexy tops ranging in price from $98 to $228 hang on stainless-steel racks.

Named in imitation of a cobblestone street in New York’s SoHo neighborhood, Mercer targets women in their 20s, 30s and 40s who want “cute, current” clothes, but don’t want to navigate a large department store, Bonomo said.

The stores generate average annual sales per square foot of $1,000 and remain profitable, she said.

Bellevue retail consultant Patty Edwards said she thinks Mercer will do OK, despite the rough economic environment, for the cause that jeans and tees — even allowing that pricey — are a sought-after look. “Conspicuous consumption is out, but denim is denim,” Edwards said. “It’s not furs and jewelry.”

Maria Bartiromo talks to Mudd about dealing with the crisis of confidence, and whether housing pleasure ever recover

By Maria Bartiromo

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Katherine Lambert

Last September, when the guidance took from one to another Fannie Mae (FNM), CEO Dan Mudd was dismissed. He had logged an impressive rush in business, rising to most eminent executive of GE Capital Japan (GE) face to face with becoming vice-chairman and chief operating officer of Fannie under Franklin Raines in 2000. When Raines stepped down amid a scandal in 2004, Mudd took charge. But after the Federal Housing Finance Agency placed Fannie and Freddie Mac (FRE) in a conservatorship, Mudd and his table were ousted. Since then, Mudd has been on the sidelines, on the contrary he has strong views on how the bailout is being handled. We talked on Mar. 3, the day after the Dow swooned to in the regions of the dead 6,800 and David M. Moffett, whom regulators had appointed CEO of Freddie, surrendered later than six months. On Mar. 4, President Obama announced new minor circumstances of a plan to bolster at-risk homeowners and the covering market.

The bailouts continue, with AIG (AIG) getting more money yesterday. Where are we right now in this economic dish, and how do you view the government response?

We’re in a crisis of assurance, and in order to reestablish confidence, the Administration has got to lay down some principles. I think it has to enunciate that we want a private financial system underpinning the economy that is strongly regulated. It’s a new Administration, there are fresh faces in town. And it seems to me that the opportunity here is to say: “O.K., let’s hazard the reset button. Let’session mould it clear, here are our principles, here are our policies, in the present state are our programs.” Right now, it’s out of the question to tell what the [basic] principles are. I have no pattern recognition whereas I look at Fannie and Freddie and Bear and AIG and Citi (C)and Bank of America (BAC) and the rest. I would give all the financial institutions three months to clean up their balance sheets, sell their toxic assets—with the government in that place as the backstop—and make it clear that at the end of three months there are no breaks, not any bailouts, no TARP, that it’s the end of the story. And that would compulsion these [toxic] assets to find a clearing price. It would define the limits of the government role, which I think everybody is looking for, and it would finally, I think, start to create more certainty.

Yesterday sort of felt like September all over afresh.It feels extremely uncertain—like we’re swimming upstream in a overcast river at night. Everybody wants to know at what time is it over, the manner of inning are we in, and which time is the emporium going to turn and all that. And I think that the best answer is actually going to be when we stop asking that question, that’s when it’s going to happen, because it will design that people will have adjusted to a new reality, that they’re not expectation for some mystical, magical use in the market to help them out. They need to allege: “Here’s what I’ve got. I’m going to deal through it.” And therefore we will kind of find ourselves back on bedrock, and we can start touching foster again. It’s this wait and object of trust that’session killing us.

In the early days of this turning point, you were in all the meetings. When did it become cloudless that the government was going to take the extraordinary step of conservatorship?Well, we had a sequence of cooperative discussions around clarifying what role the government power play. Then suddenly in early September we kind of were presented with a fait accompli that the board had a 24-hour deadline to accept or else. That was a significant vary of tone and bring near.

In ZIP codes across the unpolished, as once-inflated property prices bottom out housing sales are increasing dramatically

By Prashant Gopal

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Earlier this year Herson and Liz Enerio put in a $400,000 bid on a four-bedroom house onward a private street in Fairfield, Calif., with three pine trees and a backyard that opens onto a hiking trail.

One would think that the 30-year-old police officer and his better half, who works as a nurse, were well positioned to negotiate, especially in a market likely Fairfield, a town about 40 miles from the couple San Francisco and Sacramento to what more than 80% of homes concerning sale are owned by banks or by homeowners facing foreclosure. For some thing, the people selling the home are under water on their mortgage and are trying for a so-called short sale, to which place the lender agrees to take less than which’s owed to prevent a foreclosure. But the Enerios decided to play it safe, bidding $1,000 above the asking price and offering to cover some of the closing costs, because Fairfield—like many of the most battered areas of California, Florida, Nevada, and Arizona—is suddenly hot again.

Prices have dropped so low that cash-ready investors and first-time buyers are structure multiple offers on distressed properties. Fairfield sales jumped 226% in the fourth quarter of ultimate year compared to the same proper position in 2007 and home prices for the time of that period fell 19% to $179,500, according to mortgage and trappings data analytics company First American CoreLogic.

The Enerios bid on another building in November moreover lost out to a buyer who agreed to pay $5,000 more. They’re hoping that their current put forward is accepted, on the contrary they aren’confidentially necessarily in a rush to buy. Homes in this Bay Area market are once anew affordable toward people in their income bracket.

"I tried looking for a home when I was living in Orange County four years ago, on the other hand homes there were ridiculously expensive," said Herson Enerio, a first-time buyer. "The only thing I was able to handle downward in that place was a three-bedroom condo… Now we’re looking at a house for sure."

The Fairfield ZIP code had the biggest annual increase in sales in the fourth quarter of last year, according to a ranking of the 25 U.S. ZIP codes by the most improved sales compiled for BusinessWeek.com by Santa Ana (Calif.)-based First American CoreLogic. California, Florida, Arizona, and Nevada ZIPs dominated the list, as we expected, but Howell, Mich., near Detroit; Woodbury, Minn.; Rio Rancho, N.M.; Humble, Tex., outside Houston; Duluth, Ga., in the Atlanta metro area; and the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines, Ill., also showed strong or at least stable sales at the end of last year. We limited the ranking to ZIPs by at least 10,000 households and selected merely one ZIP for any given metro surface. (If we hadn’privately done this, California would have taken toward all of the topmost 25 slots).

Of course, verily although sales are strong in these places, the gait is increasing from anemic levels. In many markets, foreclosure sales are driving down prices, which are only structure things worse. At the similar time, the accelerating sales pace appears to have being finally cutting into inventories of unsold homes.

In Fairfield, for example, about 1,900 homes were listed for sale in January compared to 3,000 listings in January 2008, according to Christine Wiley, a Fairfield-based agent who works with her Realtor origin Katherine Wiley. But Christine Wiley, who has studied the pre-foreclosure data, said she expects another wave of foreclosures in Fairfield. Many of the homes built in Fairfield during the boom be obliged been taken back by the banks, but even additional are likely to be foreclosed on, she declared.

Across the country in Prince William County, Va., exterior Washington D.C., buyers are out in force. The market, where subprime loans and boom-time construction were rampant, was badly damaged in the downturn. Making matters worse, a controversial law in Prince William County that allowed police officers to enforce immigration laws helped hurl away many of the Central American immigrants who came in to drudge on building the new homes during the boom. Many of those immigrants who moved to neighboring Fairfax County allowed their Prince William County homes to go into foreclosure, uttered John McClain, senior fellow at George Mason University’sitting Center for Regional Analysis.

The lively recent accounts at once is that inventories of unsold homes are shrinking for the cause that of the accelerating sales, though homeowners who could confer to have too likely taken their properties off the market, McClain said. In January, 3,346 homes were on the market compared to 5,355 in January, 2007, McClain said. In January, 647 homes sold in Prince William County compared to 312 a year earlier. Home prices, however, fell 34%.

One element of a product that could help Prince William County toward recovery is its vicinage to Washington D.C., one of the few topical economies through relatively good prospects thanks to its federal government and defense contractor jobs. Woodbridge, Va., in Prince William County, came in at No. 14 in our ranking. Woodbridge sales jumped 32% in the fourth quarter while median dwelling prices dropped 18% to $215,500, according to First American CoreLogic.

The drop in inventory and the rise in sales are "good signs" for Prince William County, McClain said.

"We are at that point with that trend [in Prince William County] where the economics have to kick in," McClain said. "Prices have to stabilize and then start up again."

Erick Blackwelder, connect broker with Exit Realty in Woodbridge, said buyers have flocked to the market and have already bought multitude of the foreclosed homes that were in good shape. The remaining foreclosures are largely "junk," he said.

"It started in April 2008," Blackwelder said. "It was like all of a sudden, somebody flicked without ceasing a light switch and there were buyers galore."

Click here to see the ZIP codes in the U.S. with the most improved housing sales.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is gearing up to rally coal-state politicians to shift the President’s plan to curb carbon emissions

By John Carey

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As a candidate, Barack Obama said he’d tackle climate change by imposing caps on emissions of greenhouse gases. Now, as President, he’s doing exactly that. He proposes reducing U.S. emissions 14% below 2005 levels by means of 2020 and 83% below by 2050. And he’ruins raise $646 billion from 2012 to 2019 by auctioning the rights to put into circulation of that kind gases—in effect putting a price on carbon emissions. With Congress also great about the meteorological character, business knows the battle has been joined for real and is trying to shape a compromise score likely to emerge this year. “We are now playing with wide-awake bullets,” says the Environmental Defense Fund’s Mark Brownstein, who works with a group of companies that supports the plan.

The bullets are already flying—end mainly over details of the plan, not the ecumenical idea. While there are notwithstanding fierce opponents of emissions limits, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, much of business is supportive. The Obama Administration “is very close to right on the meteorological character plan,” says John W. Rowe, chief executive of Exelon (EXC), a Chicago-based utility.

In theory, a workable cap-and-trade market for carbon emissions would give business executives more certainty about events to come energy costs, helping them make better investment decisions. A market price on carbon would boost energy efficiency and renewable energy efforts, before that time beneficiaries in Obama’s spur package. Nuclear power plants, such being of the class who Exelon’s, would become more valuable. “I have countless object of trust for the ‘green’ stimulus, if it be not that it won’t fulfill its potential unless in that place is a price on carbon,” says James E. Rogers, chief executive of Duke Energy (DUK). Also, there’s little chance of acquisition China and India to agree to binding limits, that American companies insist is needed to keep the international playing field level, if not the U.S. takes action at home.

The real fight, therefore, is not whether to impose carbon limits but by what mode to do so and at which cost to business. Obama proposes that companies corrupt an allowance, or permit, for cropped land ton of carbon emitted, at an estimated cost, to start, of $13 to $20 per ton. (Those permits could also be bought and sold.) Even at the take down range of $13 per vogue, energy companies and utilities would likely pass along the added cost to consumers. It’s estimated the price of gasoline would go up by 12 cents a gallon and the mean proportion electricity bill by dint of. with respect to 7% nationally—and remoter higher in states more pendent put on coal. Unfair, say great number executives. “It is a clear transfer of the middle part of the abiding habitation’s wealth to the two coasts,” says Michael G. Morris, CEO of American Electric Power (AEP), a coal-heavy power generator based in Columbus, Ohio, that supplies electricity in 11 states.

Morris intends to target the 50 U.S. senators in the 25 coal-centric states “to understand if we can bring more rationality to the program,” he says. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, meanwhile, plans to hold “climate dialogues” in as many while 16 cities, hammering home a similar message in coal-rich states with Democratic senators. The Obama process “is now a self-same expensive tax used to transfer wealth. It has nothing to be enough with climate change,” charges William L. Kovacs, a Chamber vice-president.

The Obama team points out that its cap-and-trade plan returns a great quantity of the standard of value raised by permit sales to consumers nationwide in the form of lower taxes, so many canaille come at a loss ahead. And the Environmental Defense Fund has created a map of 1,200 alternative spiritedness or energy-efficiency companies in key manufacturing states that stand to good from the climate plan. While the Midwest direct bear a higher require to be paid from reducing carbon emissions, the region will also benefit from the principally new jobs, the EDF argues.

Lots of other details remain to fight over. Dow Chemical (DOW) and others want credit for emission cuts they have already made, for example. So prepare for months of negotiations. But a deal is likely. Says Dow lobbyist Peter A. Molinaro: “Somewhere out there is a rational policy that could actually induce the votes.”

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TACOMA — Kelsey Patrick had extra motivation to immerse the clinching free throws by 10.1 seconds to go.

“I don’face to face want to turn out to school tomorrow,” the Kamiak senior said in the pattern of the Knights held off Mount Tahoma 55-51 in a loser-out game Thursday at the Tacoma Dome.

The Knights from Mukilteo (17-8) have at least one more game despite trailing 22-8 at the end of the first proper position.

“We didn’t panic,” related Patrick, who finished with 12 points and 17 rebounds (10 rude). “We knew we could fight back.”

A 13-3 streak in the second quarter got the Knights outer part in it and they led by five in the fourth before Mount Tahoma (21-8) rallied.

Georgia McClaskey had 15 rebounds as Kamiak hauled down 56. Mount Tahoma got 16 points from Charly Williams, while Carrie Ojeda put together 15 points, 10 rebounds and six blocks.

Other games

Eastlake 43, South Kitsap 36

Jenna Boyle scored from just interior the three-point line and added a clinching layup off a feed from Ellie Martinez in the final 2:40 despite Eastlake. Martinez scored 13 points and Alyssa Charlston grabbed 13 rebounds for Eastlake.

Bellarmine Prep 51, Newport 47

Bellarmine Prep overcame any eight-point shortage. with five minutes to play, going on an 11-0 jet. Betsy Kingma scored 21 for the Knights, who were 1 of 16 from three-point range.

Lewis & Clark 62, Jackson 31

Jeneva Anderson scored 17 points as the Tigers overwhelmed the Timberwolves. “To say they dominated on the boards is an understatement,” said coach Jeannie Thompson of Jackson, whose team was outrebounded 66-36. Erin Feeney scored 13 for Jackson.

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Olympics

USOC chief offers unexpected resignation: Jim Scherr resigned in the same manner with the chief executive officer of the U.S. Olympic Committee on Thursday, an awkwardly timed put in motion that comes with the federation attempting to mount out of a financial hole while precept to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago.

Scherr be inclined be replaced on an interim basis through Stephanie Streeter, a subordinate part of the USOC council of directors. Streeter described the move as a way to bring a different “set of skills” to the top of the USOC’sitting salaried mace.

During a 25-minute teleconference, neither she nor USOC chairman Larry Probst did anything to debunk the notion that Scherr was eased out hinder additional than six years on the job.

The power shift started to issue at the USOC board meeting Tuesday, the same day Scherr announced the USOC must trim up to 15 percent of its staff to cope with bad economic general condition of affairs.

Michaels to serve as throng for NBC from Vancouver: Al Michaels will serve as a armed force for NBC’s coverage of next year’s Winter Olympics, the 30th anniversary of his call of the “Miracle on Ice.”

College football

Alabama admits to NCAA violations: Alabama has told the NCAA that athletes improperly got free textbooks for other students and that the school failed to adequately monitor distribution.

The university said the opportunity to be heard before the Committee on Infractions was held adhering Feb. 20. The university reported the violations after uncovering them during the 2007 season, when five players were suspended.

Coker to coach Texas-San Antonio: Former Miami coach Larry Coker has been hired to lead the strange Texas-San Antonio program, his first coaching piece of work since the Hurricanes fired him in 2006.

NBA

Gooden joins Spurs for playoff run: Drew Gooden is the new big man who the San Antonio Spurs hope self-reliance fortify their latest playoff run. Gooden joined the Spurs after buying out his contract earlier this week in Sacramento.

Amid the global recession, the planemaker receives honorable four new orders in February, but it still has a huge order backlog

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A Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 leaves the hanger at Heathrow Airport London. Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images

By Joseph Weber

The global slump in travel and sharp fall-off in financing for purchases of everything from homes to companies is hitting Boeing’s (BA) order book for new jets with a vengeance. The planemaker on Mar. 5 reported that it clocked just four new orders for planes in February, a big decline from 125 in the same month last year. Even more dramatically, the company reported that it has lost 32 office of the christian ministry for its still-to-be-delivered 787 Dreamliner.

Analysts say Boeing, that until last fall was soaring on ever-rising orders, appears to the be the latest victim of a credit crunch that shows no signs of abating soon. "The nature has changed," says Jefferies (JEF) analyst Howard A. Rubel. "The earth is short of capital, and this is a capital good." Boeing shares spread 3% on Mar. 5, to 29.39, amid a broad stock market sell-off.

But analysts say the decline in orders should not hit Boeing’s financial doing for the rest of this year, at minutest. Such orders are generally for planes to be delivered years from very lately, and Boeing is after what is stated working down a record backlog of more 3,700 office of the christian ministry—although the company will likely shuffle deliveries to account for cancellations and deferrals. "It’s going to have existence a very difficult year in terms of orders," says Broadpoint AmTech algebraist Peter Arment. "We believe deferrals and cancellations force of will probably exceed new orders."

Boeing delivered 36 jets in February, down just three from the year in the sight of. The company, whose lengthening tally for last year was divide by some 100 planes by a nearly two-month-long machinists strike, has plenty of work to carry it from one side the rest of 2009 and for some fit season beyond, analysts say. The global slowdown is also hitting Boeing’session chief contend with, Airbus (EAD.PA), what one. reported orders beneficial to just four planes in January, compared by 238 planes a year earlier.

So far, much of Wall Street is sticking by means of estimates for Boeing’sitting financial performance for the next couple of years, for all that some analysts say they are smaller quantity confident with regard to 2010 than this year. Indeed, Boeing Chief Executive W. James McNerney Jr. has declined to make any predictions about results next year. Jefferies’ Rubel forecasts that pure income this year will rise to $3.8 billion, up from $2.7 billion in 2008, while revenues power of determination climb to $69.4 billion, up from $60.9 billion last year.

The Seattle-based planemaker, in a weekly posting of orders on its Web site, reported a net decline of 10 orders for the year so far. New the sacred profession, primarily for 737 and 777 standard planes, were offset by a loss of 32 orders for the much-delayed Dreamliner. But conducive to now Boeing still has plenty of Dreamliner holy orders on its books, 878 in all for the new jet, which is due to interpret wing by June. Most of the cancellations for the even, nearly two years late, are from a Russian carrier and a Middle Eastern leasing house.

Anticipating tougher times, the company in January disclosed plans to cut more 10,000 jobs. About 4,500 of the cuts are slated for the commercial plane unit, and are planned for back-office support functions in lieu of production-line posts. "We do have some the sacred profession, and that’s something to celebrate," says spokeswoman Liz Verdier. "We are working hard with the customers to help them breed what they need. It’s really important it being so that to keep acting with them."

Major indexes fell to their lowest levels in over a decade Thursday after tidings of GM’s dire financial straits. Citi shares traded below $1 for the period of the session

By Will Andrews and Ben Steverman

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U.S. stocks resumed their sell-off Thursday, finishing sharply and broadly fall on weakness in financial stocks and General Motors (GM). The Standard & Poor’sitting 500-stock index closed at its lowest level since September, 1996, and the Dow Jones pertaining average well-informed its lowest close since April, 1997.

The sell-off followed a stock-market ridicule Wednesday — the first winning session since Feb. 24 — and preceded Friday’s let go of the employment recital for February, that will that may be liked expound no signs of a letup in the labor market’s uncontracted avoid.

On Thursday, the 30-stock Dow Jones industrial average proficient lower by 281.40 points, or 4.09%, at 6,594.44. The broad S&P 500 index was down 30.32 points, or 4.25%, at 682.55. The tech-heavy Nasdaq complex index hut 54.15 points, or 4.00%, to 1,299.59. On the New York Stock Exchange, 29 public securities were lower for every two that advanced. Nasdaq breadth was 23-4 negative.

By breaking unworthy of 700, the S&P 500 breached a state of equality that some technical traders had hoped would hold. “It’s a total breakdown in the technical aspect of the emporium that is continuing to feed steady itself,” says Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Avalon Partners.

Bonds and gold rose on safe-haven buying. The dollar index rose posterior two European central banks cut interest rates. Crude oil futures prostrate.

The market remained jittery Thursday about the auto and financial sectors. Market tenderness was slammed by the latest update upon the body GM’s dire financial case, including the contingency of bankruptcy for the troubled giant. Financial stocks were hit with steep declines, including a drop in Citigroup’s (C) dullard price to under $1 for the time of the session. The shares finished the session down 9.7% at $1.02.

What’s weighing on the market is uncertainty, says Michael Yoshikami, president and chief investment strategist at YCMNET Advisors — uncertainty about government policy, Friday’s jobs report and the possibility of more economic stimulus from the Chinese government.

“The market is pricing in the overpower of what could happen in the economy,” Yoshikami says. “People are just unbelievably concerned.”

Investors were disappointed Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao did not advertise a new economic stimulus plan; Wen said China would grow imports, and predicted 8% GDP growth.

Federal Reserve Governor Donald Kohn reported it would be too risky to let American International Group (AIG) fail. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner defended President Obama’s economic plans in front of the House Budget Committee.

Thursday brought a mixed batch of U.S. economic data: January factory Orders fell a less than expected 1.9%; hebdomadal initial jobless claims hew down 31,000 to 639,000; and fourth-quarter productivity barbarous to 0.4% from 3.9%.

In a Form 10-K filing, GM said its independent common accounting firm states that GM’s recurring losses from operations, stockholders’ deficit, and inability to generate sufficient cash flow to meet its obligations and hold operations raise substantial doubt ready its ability to continue as a going concern.

GM shares closed lower by means of 15% at $1.86.

Wells Fargo (WFC) shares tumbled after Moody’sitting placed the company’s long-term ratings of (senior debt at Aa3) for that which is less than review for possible downgrade, based on the impact that future credit costs could have on the company’s capital ratios; and the rating implications of possible systemic support, and how that support could affect uncertain obligations ranging from deposits to non- cumulative preferred stock.

Moody’s likewise changed its rating outlook on JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and subsidiaries to negative from stable, that reflects Moody’s expectations that JPMorgan’s results will continue to be saddled by sustained high provisions and credit costs as being the coming four-to-six quarters, directly to increasing financial strains for U.S. consumers and the global recession.

Also, Moody’s placed long-term ratings of Bank of America (BAC) (senior sin at A1) under review for possible downgrade.