News in brief

Two at Car-Mart sell shares for $1M-plus

America's Car-Mart Inc's chief executive officer and one of the company's directors recently sold stock with a combined value of more than $1 million, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Hank Henderson, the CEO of the Bentonville-based used-car dealer, acquired 12,986 shares at $11.90 each and sold an equal amount of shares for $44 or $41.75 each. After the moves were complete, he held 76,984 shares of the company and had made $399,976.

Company Director Eddie Height acquired 20,000 shares for $11.90 each and sold the same amount of shares for a weighted average price of $42.58. After the transactions were complete, he held 40,970 shares of the company and had made $613,600. Height held several positions with the company and served at its chief operating officer from 2002 to 2013 before retiring and joining the board.

On Nov. 18 the company reported a quarterly profit of $5 million, compared with a loss of $495,000 for the same quarter a year ago. Revenue was up nearly 13 percent at $150.2 million.

Car-Mart shares have traded as low as $19.49 and as high as $44 over the past year.

-- John Magsam

Truck tonnage index off 0.3% in October

Increases in retail sales, housing and factory output helped improve October tonnage index numbers, according to the American Trucking Associations.

The October For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index had a 0.3 percent decrease this month, compared with a 0.9 percent decrease from October of last year.

Bob Costello, the organization's chief economist, said "the bottom of the current tonnage cycle should be near." He pointed to some recent trends indicating that truck freight "should improve, albeit gradually, soon."

Costello said a correction of excess of inventory in the supply chain also indicates that "the negative drag on tonnage shouldn't be as large going forward."

-- Emma N. Hurt

State index up 2.82 as market stays hot

The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, rose 2.82 to 361.00 Wednesday.

"U.S. stocks ended mostly higher as the S&P 500 and Dow Jones both set a record close in quiet pre-Thanksgiving trading on Wednesday," said John Blackwell, senior vice president and managing director of equity trading at Stephens Inc. in Little Rock.

Total volume for the index was 22.9 million shares.

The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.

Business on 11/24/2016

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