News Briefs - June 10
The Latest Headlines:
- Swift Says SEC Reviewing Trades by Moyes
- Import Prices Rise 1.6% in May
- Japanese Police Arrest Ex-Mitsubishi Motors President
- FedEx, UPS Rank High With Consumers
- Jobless Claims Rise By 12,000 in Latest Week
- Former Trucker Ruled Incompetent to Stand Trial for Shooting
- Blue Chip Economists Expect Rise in Interest Rates This Month
- Import Prices Rise 1.6% in May
Swift Says SEC Reviewing Trades by Moyes
Truckload carrier Swift Transportation Co. said Thursday the Securities and Exchange Commission is informally reviewing recent stock trades made by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jerry Moyes.
arlier this month, Swift said Moyes bought 187,000 Swift shares for his own account between May 20, when the board authorized an expanded stock buyback program, and May 24, when the company formally announced the program and also raised its second-quarter profit forecast, Reuters reported. Shares rose 20% on May 25.
Swift is ranked No. 13 on the Transport Topics 100 list of the largest U.S. and Canadian trucking companies. Transport Topics
Import Prices Rise 1.6% in May
The price of goods imported into the United States rose 1.6% in May as oil costs posted the largest increase since February 2003, the Labor Department said Thursday.Import prices have increased eight straight months, including a revised 0.2% in April. Labor said the cost of petroleum product imports surged 10.3%. Excluding petroleum, import prices rose 0.4% in May.
Over the past 12 months, the price index for petroleum imports was up 43.9%, while overall import prices rose a more modest 7%.
Labor also said export prices rose 0.3% in May compared with an upwardly revised 0.7% the month before. Transport Topics
Japanese Police Arrest Ex-Mitsubishi Motors President
Japanese police arrested former Mitsubishi Motors Corp. President Katsuhiko Kawasoe over a fatal accident involving one of the company's trucks in October 2002, Bloomberg reported.Kawasoe was being held on a charge of professional negligence, Bloomberg said. He had resigned as president in September 2000 to take responsibility for hiding customer complaints about Mitsubishi Motors models for more than two decades.
Mitsubishi Fuso Truck & Bus Corp., formerly Mitsubishi Motors' truck making unit, said last month it had known as early as May 1996 that a faulty metal cover on its clutch may cause accidents, after technical reviews and internal investigations. Transport Topics
FedEx, UPS Rank High With Consumers
A quarterly customer satisfaction survey by the University of Michigan Business School found parcel-delivery services such as UPS and FedEx gave consumers the most satisfaction among the types of products they buy or use.David VanAmburg, managing director of the survey, told Transport Topics that package-delivery companies consistently met customers’ expectations, putting them ahead of other industries, such as cable television, hospitals and telecommunications providers.
“They say they’re going to deliver a package and they deliver it,” he said.
FedEx Corp. ranked the highest among consumers, with a score of 83 out of 100, while UPS Inc. ranked second and the U.S. Postal Service was third.
VanAmburg said FedEx has ranked No. 1 among package-delivery services since the survey began in 1994. Transport Topics
This story appeared in June 7 print edition of Transport Topics
Jobless Claims Rise By 12,000 in Latest Week
The Labor Department said Thursday the number of Americans filing initial claims for jobless benefits rose by 12,000 to 352,000 for the week ended June 5.The four-week moving average of filings, which smoothes weekly fluctuations, rose 4,750 to 346,000, the highest level since the week of April 24.
Labor also said continued claims, which counts the number of employees on the benefit rolls after claiming an initial week of aid, plummeted by 106,000 to 2.881 million, the lowest level since May 2001.
A Labor Department economist said government statisticians had taken the shortened work week due to the Memorial Day holiday into consideration in the report, Reuters reported. Transport Topics
Former Trucker Ruled Incompetent to Stand Trial for Shooting
A judge ruled Tuesday that a former truck driver accused of shooting two men to death and wounding three others in November at an office of former employer Watkins Motor Lines Inc. is incompetent to stand trial, the Associated Press reported.Judge Keith Spaeth ordered Tom West to be committed for treatment in the hopes doctors would be able to restore West to competency so the trial can be rescheduled, AP said.
West, who pleaded innocent by reason of insanity to aggravated murder and attempted aggravated murder, was arrested shortly after the Nov. 6 shooting at the West Chester office of Watkins, about 20 miles north of Cincinnati. Transport Topics
Blue Chip Economists Expect Rise in Interest Rates This Month
In its latest survey, the Blue Chip Economic Indicators said that expectations for faster growth and rising price pressures made a June hike in interest rates by the Federal Reserve a near certainty, Reuters reported.The survey of more than 50 professional economic forecasters also said that U.S. gross domestic product would rise 4.7% this year, which would be the best performance since 1984. It is up from a 4.6% forecast a month ago.
However, the forecast for 2005 growth dipped to 3.7%, down 0.1% from the month-ago projection.
Panelists said they believed the Fed would "almost certainly" raise overnight borrowing costs by a quarter of a percentage point at the close of its June 29-30 meeting, and expect rates to be a total of 75 to 100 basis points higher by early 2005, Reuters said. Transport Topics
