Investment News Briefs

With our investment news briefs, Money Morning provides investors with a quick overview of the most important investing news stories from all around the world.

Markets Fall On Profit-Taking; Southwest Ups Bid For Frontier; GM to Sell Cars on eBay; Dish Subscribers Grow, Profit Falls; U.S. Consumer Bankruptcies on the Rise; Nobel Nod; McDonald's Same-Store Sales Up 4.3% in July; BofA Pays $55 Million in Countrywide Employee Settlement

  • Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) offered more than $170 million for bankrupt Fontier Airlines Holdings (OTC: FRNTQ). That's up more than 50% from its first offer of $113.6 million. The move is intended to head off a bidding war with rival Republic Airways Holdings (Nasdaq: RJET). The winning bidder will get a stronger foothold in the Rocky Mountain region.
  • Shares of Dish Network Corp. (Nasdaq: DISH) rose more than 4% yesterday (Monday) to close at $19.30, as the satellite television provider reported its first increase in subscribers in more than a year, adding 26,000 new customers. Still, high expenses from increased marketing and patent dispute litigation with TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq: TIVO) caused Dish's profit to fall to $63.4 million, or 14 cents a share, in the quarter ended June 30. That compares to a net income of $335.9 million, or 73 cents a share, a year ago. Revenue was flat at $2.9 billion.
  • U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke deserves another term based on his success in battling the financial crisis, Nobel Prize winner and Princeton University economist Paul Krugman told Bloomberg News in an interview. "He turned the Fed into the financial intermediary of last resort," Krugman said. "When the banking system failed to deliver capital where it was needed, he put the Fed into the markets." In 2000, Krugman was recruited by Bernanke to join Princeton. Bernanke's term ends on January 31 2010.