Business news in brief

Online purchases jump in first quarter

Although frigid weather kept many Americans away from malls and stores last quarter, it didn't stop them from shopping on their laptops and smartphones.

Sales on e-commerce websites increased 3.5 percent in the first three months of the year from the previous quarter, reaching a record $80 billion worth of purchases, according to seasonally adjusted figures released by the Commerce Department on May 15. Meanwhile, total retail sales declined 1.5 percent, the first quarterly drop in almost three years.

On a year-over-year basis, online purchases soared a whopping 14.5 percent, compared with a 1.6 percent increase for total sales.

The share of e-commerce as a percent of total retail sales rose to 7 percent from 0.6 percent in 1999. Within certain categories, such as apparel, the shift to the Internet has been faster, according to Poonam Goyal, an analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence.

"Companies that generate the largest portion of their sales from online are apparel stores," Goyal said. "Their online sales are often more than 15 percent of their total sales, so the potential there is enormous."

-- Bloomberg News

Value of Pickens' energy holdings drops

Billionaire oil investor T. Boone Pickens' energy holdings fell by about a third in the first quarter after selling stakes in several refining companies.

The value of energy stocks in Pickens' Dallas-based TBP Investments Managements fund dropped by $15.1 million to $33.9 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The fund exited eight companies, including HollyFrontier Corp., Marathon Petroleum Corp. and Phillips 66, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.

Refining companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index climbed 17 percent in the first three months of the year, compared with a 2.9 percent drop by producers in the index during the same period. Refiners generally benefit when oil prices decline, since that reduces their costs.

Oil prices have gained 37 percent since reaching a six-year low in March, a climb that some say may help producers and oil-field services companies. TBP Investments bought shares in companies with a focus on onshore U.S. drilling, adding positions in Range Resources Corp., Parsley Energy Inc. and Helmerich & Payne Inc. It also bought new stakes in real estate investment trust HCP Inc. and homebuilder PulteGroup Inc.

Almost 90 percent of the fund's investments is in energy stocks. Financial companies account for the second-largest allocation with 6 percent.

-- Bloomberg News

PayPal to trade under old symbol: PYPL

PayPal, the payments division that's separating from eBay Inc., will trade on the Nasdaq stock market as PYPL, its original ticker symbol before being acquired by the online marketplace in 2002.

"I'm honored and thrilled that PayPal is returning to its roots as an independent company," said PayPal President Dan Schulman, who will be the company's chief executive officer when the split is completed in the third quarter. "This is a meaningful symbol for the company because it represents our unbroken commitment to the spirit of the original vision that sparked the launch of PayPal 17 years ago."

EBay announced the split last year after activist investor Carl Icahn said PayPal was being held back by its parent company's slower-growing Web marketplace business.

Schulman joined PayPal, which has 165 million customers in 200 countries, from American Express Co.

-- Bloomberg News

SundayMonday Business on 05/18/2015

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