Pickups, SUVs drive surge in auto sales
DETROIT -- U.S. auto sales grew 6.3 percent in March on rising sales of SUVs and pickups.
Automakers sold more than 1.6 million vehicles for the month as buyers came out of hibernation after a cold, snowy winter in much of the country.
Truck and SUV sales rose 16.3 percent while car sales plunged 9.2 percent, according to Autodata Corp. Nearly two-thirds of all vehicles sold were trucks or SUVs.
Jeff Schuster, a senior vice president at the forecasting firm LMC Automotive, said the strong month was a good recovery from a lackluster start to the year, but much uncertainty remains over politics, potential trade wars and a volatile stock market.
"All in all, it looks like consumers are starting to get used to the noise," said Schuster, who added that the strong March won't cause him to change his full-year sales prediction of just under 17 million, down 1.4 percent from last year.
-- The Associated Press
Ford hails GM shift to quarterly updates
DETROIT -- Ford Motor Co., in a rare tip of the hat to its crosstown rival, is praising General Motors for halting monthly vehicle sales reports and shifting to quarterly releases.
Ford is even considering following GM's lead, a move that would be likely to roil government monitors and analysts that view monthly auto sales as a leading U.S. economic indicator.
"We think it's interesting and a pretty significant development for the industry," Mark LaNeve, Ford's U.S. sales chief, said of GM's plans on a conference call with analysts. "Their comment that there's a lot of volatility in month-to-month sales, I believe there is some validity to that. So we're going to assess it and take a look."
GM contends that the practice of monthly sales reporting, a standard in the industry since the 1990s, provides too narrow a view of the market, which distorts interpretations of trends. Tesla already reports its global deliveries on a quarterly basis but doesn't break out U.S.-specific results like other automakers.
-- Bloomberg News
Missourian pushes power-line proposal
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri's former governor, now arguing as a private attorney, urged the state's highest court on Tuesday to overturn a decision blocking a proposed 780-mile power line that would carry wind energy across the Midwest.
Former Gov. Jay Nixon, who backed the project before his term ended in January 2017, led a team of lawyers arguing before the Missouri Supreme Court on behalf of Clean Line Energy Partners. The Houston-based renewable-energy company wants to build a $2.3 billion transmission line from western Kansas across Missouri and Illinois to an Indiana power grid serving eastern states.
The transmission line was rejected last year by Missouri utility commissioners whom Nixon appointed. The state Public Service Commission cited a state appeals court ruling in a separate case that determined a utility first must get approval from local governments to string power lines across roads before the state regulatory commission can grant permission.
-- The Associated Press
Jurors hear suit over N.C. hog factory
RALEIGH, N.C. -- A low-cost, high-volume livestock-rearing method pioneered in North Carolina came under fire Tuesday as jurors began hearing a lawsuit from neighbors who say the world's largest pork corporation is endangering their health and making their lives miserable.
The legal action is the first in a string of federal lawsuits against the hog-production division of Virginia-based Smithfield Foods. Its outcome could alter production methods and profits for the company, which controls everything from the feed the animals eat to when they are trucked to slaughter and how the meat lands on consumers' plates. Smithfield was bought in 2013 by a division of China-based WH Group, the world's largest pork producer.
In dozens of lawsuits, more than 500 neighbors say that for decades they have suffered headaches, sinus problems and intense, putrid smells that can't be removed from clothing or household fabrics.
The suit heard Tuesday pits Smithfield against 10 neighbors of a farm raising 15,000 livestock hogs under contract with the pork giant. Kinlaw Farm and its owners are not defendants. Instead, the suit targets Smithfield, which determines the farm's operating standards.
-- The Associated Press
Europe fixes grid's clock-slowing glitch
BERLIN -- Electricity grid operators in Europe have fixed a glitch that had slowed down countless clocks across the continent for months.
The problem started earlier this year after a dispute between Serbia and Kosovo resulted in energy being diverted from the local grid. That triggered a domino effect, reducing the electric frequency across the 25-country network that stretches from Portugal to Poland, and Greece to Germany.
Because many radio alarms, oven clocks and devices used to program heating systems keep time with the help of the grid frequency, they were slowed down by several minutes since January.
The European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity said Tuesday that its members added energy into the system over the course of March to move the frequency back to its target average of 50 hertz.
-- The Associated Press
Spotify goes public with $26.6B value
NEW YORK -- Spotify made its highly anticipated Wall Street debut on Tuesday, with a closing price of $149.60, giving the music streaming company a valuation of $26.6 billion -- comparable to Tyson Foods Inc.
The price was 13 percent more than the $132 reference price set by the New York Stock Exchange, based on how the stock traded on private markets before public trading began.
Spotify's stock opened at $165.90 and experienced stable trading before falling later in the day. Analysts had anticipated volatility and perhaps irregularities during Spotify's market debut because the company chose an unusual path to go public, but "This was a smooth open," Thomas Farley, president of the New York Stock Exchange, said during intraday trading.
-- The Washington Post
Business on 04/04/2018