Interest rates on short-term Treasury bills rose in the government's auction with the six-month bill climbing above 5 percent to the highest level since January 2001.
The Treasury Department auctioned $15 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 4.830 percent, up from 4.800 percent last week. An additional $14 billion in six-month bills was auctioned at a discount rate of 5.055 percent, up from 4.925 percent last week.
The three-month rate was the highest since these bills averaged 4.905 percent on Feb. 20, 2001. The six-month rate was the highest since it averaged 5.360 percent on Jan. 2, 2001.
Separately, the Federal Reserve said that the average yield for one-year Treasury bills, a popular index for making changes in adjustable rate mortgages, rose to 5.13 percent last week from 5.04 percent the previous week.
Associated Press
Intel complaint stops review
A standards-setting organization has halted its evaluation of a high-speed wireless technology backed by San Diego-based Qualcomm after a complaint about the review.
The action came after three Intel engineers complained to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers that the working group reviewing Qualcomm's favored technology had voted improperly and violated the institute's review procedures.
Intel, the Santa Clara computer chip company, is supporting the development of a competing technology that could provide high-speed Internet access to laptop computers and other mobile devices.
The IEEE working groups develop standards for technology products. In the groups, each participant gets a vote. An Intel engineer complained that consultants appeared to be improperly voting as a block.
Qualcomm spokesman Jeremy James said that the company does not believe that anything improper took place during the review. The “process to date has been handled appropriately and within IEEE guidelines,” he said.
In any case, Qualcomm's technology also is under review as part of the standards for future cell phones, James said.
Man sentenced in insurance fraud
Robert H. Rodriguez of El Cajon, owner of RH General and JBD Staffing, has paid $599,817 restitution to the State Compensation Insurance Fund as part of a sentence for insurance fraud.
Rodriguez also was put on three years probation, has to perform 125 hours of public service and has made restitution of $132,531 to the state Employment Development Department.
He was found guilty of falsifying employee wages to qualify for lower insurance premiums from 2001 to 2003. He also failed to report nearly $500,000 in wages, bonuses and payments to unlicensed contractors.
His wife, Sandra Rodriguez, and office manager Christa Hellgren each pleaded guilty to one count of insurance fraud and tax evasion. They were put on three years unsupervised probation.
FDA delays Neurodex decision
Avanir Pharmaceuticals of San Diego said federal regulators will delay a decision on whether to approve its experimental drug, Neurodex, by 90 days. The biotechnology company said the Food and Drug Administration needs additional time to review safety data on the drug, designed to treat uncontrolled emotional outbursts.
The FDA's new deadline for deciding on the application is Oct. 30, according to Avanir.
Shares of Avanir fell 33 cents to close at $5.88.
Problems with Airbus 380 mulled
Top executives at the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. held an emergency meeting to discuss their stumbling Airbus subsidiary, as an investigation about a stock sale by one of them continued.
Although controversy has recently surrounded Noel Forgeard, the French co-chief executive of EADS, the meeting was said to have focused on technical and management problems that had led to delays in the flagship Airbus 380, a double-decker superjumbo jet.
Shares of EADS plunged a week ago after the company said the A380 would be delivered to clients six months late, reducing projected earnings by 2 billion euros over the next four years.
Regulators are investigating whether Forgeard, who was chief of Airbus from 1998 until 2005 and is closely associated with the A380 project, sold company shares based on inside information.
New York Times News Service
3 admit gas-price manipulation
Three former natural gas energy traders pleaded guilty to charges of price manipulation yesterday, bringing to at least six the number of traders convicted of illegally using energy trade publications to inflate prices, authorities said.
Christopher Joseph McDonald, 38, Paul Atha, 39, and Michael Whalen, 36, entered their pleas in San Francisco federal court.
They acknowledged conspiring to report fictitious trades to an industry newsletter, Inside FERC, during in an attempt in 2000 to skew the published index prices of natural gas.
McDonald, of Atlanta, was a supervisor on the natural gas trading floor for Atlanta-based Mirant Corp; Atha, of Houston, was a trader for Mirant; and Whalen, of Houston, was a natural gas trader for Cincinnati-based Cinergy Corp. and had previously worked for Mirant, authorities said.
All the traders face a maximum five-year term when sentenced later this year.
Associated Press
