BUSINESS BRIEFS
Oil, gas and diesel prices all reach record highs
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Energy traders rewrote the record books again yesterday, pushing oil futures past $114 a barrel as gasoline and diesel prices struck new highs of their own at the pump.
Light, sweet crude for May delivery jumped as high as $114.08 a barrel shortly after regular trading ended on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That is nearly $2 above an intraday high set last week.
Concerns about insufficient global supply, stoked by a high-profile report by the International Energy Agency that said Russian oil production dropped this year for the first time in a decade, was largely responsible for the surge. Oil prices rose as high as $113.99 a barrel during the regular session before settling at $113.79, up $2.03 from Monday's record close of $111.76 a barrel.
Prices at the pump also charged ahead. Retail gasoline prices rose to a new average national record of $3.386, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service.
WHOLESALE PRICES SOARED IN MARCH
WASHINGTON — Inflation at the wholesale level soared in March at nearly triple the rate that had been forecast as energy prices kept rising and food costs posted a much bigger jump than anticipated.
The Labor Department reported yesterday that wholesale prices rose by 1.1 percent last month, the largest increase since a 2.6 percent rise last November. The November gain in the Producer Price Index was the biggest one-month jump in 33 years.
Analysts had expected a much more moderate 0.4 percent rise in wholesale prices for the month. However, food costs, which had fallen by 0.5 percent in February, leapt by 1.2 percent last month, propelled upward by big gains in vegetables and beef and the biggest increase in rice prices in more than five years. Those were far higher increases in food prices than expected.
HEALTH PRODUCTS FIRM'S PROFITS UP
TRENTON, N.J. — Health products maker Johnson & Johnson reported a 40 percent jump yesterday in first-quarter profit, mainly due to the weak dollar boosting foreign revenues and a charge that depressed results a year ago.
The New Brunswick, N.J.-based maker of contraceptives, medical devices, baby care items and prescription drugs reported net income of $3.6 billion, or $1.26 per share, for the first three months of the year, up from $2.57 billion, or 88 cents a share, a year ago.
The year-ago quarter included a charge of $807 million for research and development related to the acquisition of Conor Medsystems Inc., a developer of stents.
Revenues rose 7.7 percent to $16.19 billion from $15.04 billion a year earlier, primarily due to higher sales of consumer healthcare products such as baby and skin care products and the Listerine line.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial were expecting $1.20 a share on revenue of $15.83 billion. Despite beating Wall Street estimates, J&J shares slipped 9 cents to close at $65.65 yesterday.
CHARLES SCHWAB'S PROFITS RISE 12%
SAN FRANCISCO — Charles Schwab Corp.'s first-quarter profit rose 12 percent to catapult the discount stock brokerage to the most prosperous start in its history, providing a glimmer of good news amid the gloom hanging over the financial sector.
The San Francisco-based company said yesterday that it earned $305 million, or 26 cents per share during the first three months of the year. That compared with net income of $273 million, or 22 cents per share, in last year's first quarter.
The results topped the first quarter of 2000, when a soaring stock market lifted the firm to a record $284 million profit.
"No one will confuse those market conditions with today's," Joe Martinetto, Schwab's chief financial officer, said during an interview.The results met expectations among analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.
