Stocks off to a weak start, continuing a decline

NEW YORK — The stock market fell on Monday, led by declines in financial companies and specialty retailers. Technology stocks stemmed their losses after a slump last week.

KEEPING SCORE: The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell nine points, or 0.5 percent, to 1,856 as of 11:14 a.m. Eastern time. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 98 points, or 0.2 percent, to 16,312. The Nasdaq fell 19 points, or 0.5 percent, to 4,128.

USED CAR SALES: CarMax slipped $1.54, or 3.4 percent, to $44.04 after the company said late Friday that its fourth-quarter earnings fell 7 percent. Net income declined as the effects of an accounting correction offset higher demand for its vehicles. The company's revenue also fell short of financial analysts' expectations.

TECH REBOUND: Technology and biotechnology stocks halted their declines from Friday. Among the reviving stocks was Netflix, which rose $4.69, or 1.3 percent, to $342.35 after falling almost 5 percent on Friday. Facebook, which also slumped Friday, gained 25 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $57.08. Biotechnology stocks also recovered.

PHARMA BUY: Questcor Pharmaceuticals jumped $11.54, or 17 percent, or $79.37 after Mallinckrodt said it was acquiring the company for a combination of stock and cash valued at about $5.2 billion.

FIRST-QUARTER EARNINGS: Investors will start focusing on the outlook for corporate earnings this week, as companies begin to report their first-quarter results. Aluminum maker Alcoa, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo are reporting. Companies are expected to report first-quarter earnings growth of 0.45 percent over last year's first quarter. That rate of growth, however, is down from 8 percent in the fourth quarter, according to S&P Capital IQ.

THE QUOTE: "The expectations are incredibly low, largely due to the impact of winter weather" said Kate Warne, an investment strategist at Edward Jones.

BARBIE WOES: Mattel dropped $1.05, or 2.66 percent, to $38.35 after analysts at BMO Capital cut their outlook for the company. They cited lower demand for some of the toymaker's key products, like Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels cars. The company has also exhausted its cost-savings opportunities.

P&G PAYOUT: Procter & Gamble edged up following news that the maker of Tide detergent would raise its quarterly dividend by 4 cents to 64 cents. P&G rose 62 cents, or 0.8 percent, to $80.40.

BORROWING: Later Monday, the Federal Reserve will release a report on how much consumers borrowed in February. The forecast is that borrowing rose slightly to $14 billion, according to FactSet. Some economists consider an increase in borrowing an encouraging sign that people are more confident and willing to take on debt.

FED AHEAD: The U.S. Federal Reserve will release minutes on Wednesday from its meeting in mid-March. Investors will be parsing the minutes from that two-day gathering to try to anticipate the Fed's next moves on interest rates, and its huge bond-buying program. That buying is being scaled back.

BONDS AND COMMODITIES: Bond prices rose slightly. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.70 percent from 2.72 percent late Friday. The price of crude oil was unchanged at $101.18 a barrel. Gold fell $3.90, or 0.3 percent, to $1,299.70 an ounce.

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Barbara Walters sets May 16 for exit

NEW YORK — Barbara Walters plans to make her final appearance on "The View" on May 16, part of a daylong retirement celebration that will include ABC News naming its New York headquarters after her.

Later that night, ABC will air a two-hour prime-time special on her career. Walters, who is 84, began in television in 1961 and became the medium's best-known interviewer. She announced last year that she will retire from regular TV appearances.

Walters will remain involved behind the scenes as an executive producer at "The View," the daytime talk show she invented.

"That way, I can keep my eye on all of you," she said on Monday's show, with a glance at her fellow panelists, as well as watch her longtime producer Bill Geddie "get older and balder — as I get blonder."

Walters will be a lifelong member of the ABC News team, and she will make special appearances as news warrants.

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Online:

http://abc.go.com/shows/the-view/

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Boston's bike share program thrives, official says

BOSTON — Boston's bicycle sharing program, which just opened for its fourth season, is thriving, the program's director said, at a time when similar programs in other cities are struggling financially.

Hubway opened last week with a positive financial prognosis, a fresh contract between the city and bike-share operators, an expectation that the system will continue turning a profit and plans for 10 new stations, The Boston Globe reported (http://b.globe.com/1mU7vFD ).

"We're in a very, very solid financial place," said Nicole Freedman, director of the city's program. "We're in a position to fund expansion."

Montreal's bike-share program filed for bankruptcy in January. Last month, reports surfaced that operators of New York's program had asked for tens of millions of dollars in aid from the city.

Some have attributed Hubway's success to more conservative choices — closing for winter and launching with a compact system that spread cautiously — as well as its dependence on both public and private money.

Boston will now pay a lower rate for bike-share operations with a new contract that could allow the city to collect larger profits.

Previously Boston divided the costs of operating the system 50-50 with Alta Bicycle Share, the contractor that operates and maintains the system's bikes, stations, software and memberships. Boston uses public grant money, along with private sponsorships, to pay the city's share without dipping into municipal coffers. Up until now, Alta and Boston have split the profits in half.

Now, Boston will pay Alta for the full operations cost, but in turn, the city will take all of the profits from membership fees and advertising.

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Information from: The Boston Globe, http://www.bostonglobe.com

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Court declines to hear dispute over Mich. mine

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has declined to intervene in a dispute over construction of a new nickel and copper mine in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

The justices on Monday rejected an appeal from an outdoor sporting club that claims the mine will spoil the environment.

The Huron Mountain Club has been challenging the Eagle Mine in state and federal courts. The club owns 19,000 acres, including land that comes within 3.3 miles of the mine. Some mining will take place under the Salmon Trout River and area wetlands.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had turned aside the club's arguments that the mine needs federal permits.

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TD Garden in Boston to get $70M makeover

BOSTON — The home arena of the Boston Bruins and the Boston Celtics is getting a $70 million makeover.

TD Garden owner Delaware North Companies Inc. announced Monday that the two-year-project includes the expansion and relocation of the shop that sells Bruins and Celtics memorabilia from the North Station concourse to the second-floor turnstile area in an effort to maximize fan accessibility.

The arena's loge and balcony concourses will receive a complete floor-to-ceiling redesign that will include an increased variety of concessions options.

The Legends Club restaurant on level three will also receive a makeover.

Plans also call for upgraded technology infrastructure to support fans' digital expectations.

Charlie Jacobs, principal owner of Delaware North and the Bruins, says he wants to make sure the nearly 20-year-old arena "sets the industry standard."

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Tech stock sell-off spreads through world markets

LONDON — A sell-off of Internet and technology stocks that started on Wall Street spread around the globe on Monday, with tech companies hammered by worries about excessively high valuations.

Renewed concerns over Ukraine also unsettled investors, particularly in Europe. Pro-Russian separatists who seized a provincial administration building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk proclaimed the region independent — an echo of events prior to Russia's annexation of Crimea. Ukrainian authorities called the move an attempt by Russia to sow unrest.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 1.1 percent at 6,623 while Germany's DAX fell 1.8 percent to 9,521. The CAC-40 in France was 0.8 percent lower at 4,448.

In the U.S., the Dow Jones industrial average was down 0.5 percent at 16,338 while the broader S&P 500 index fell 0.4 percent to 1,859.

The latest bout of nerves started last Friday when mainstays of the Internet economy such as Google and Netflix that have surged over the past year were hammered as investors had a change of heart and decided prices were too high. The technology-heavy Nasdaq had its biggest one-day drop since February.

"Sentiment remains tricky for investors looking purely at valuations of companies, particularly within the tech-focused sectors," said Joao Monteiro, analyst at Valutrades. "Therefore the upcoming earnings season, which begins in earnest on Tuesday when aluminum maker Alcoa reports, is crucial."

Earlier in Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 led regional declines, dropping 1.7 percent to close at 14,808.85. Hong Kong's Hang Seng was down 0.6 percent to 22,377.15, while South Korea's Kospi gained 0.1 percent to close at 1,989.70. Markets in mainland China were closed for a holiday.

Investors this week will be looking ahead to some key releases for further clues on the economic outlook. On Tuesday, they'll be awaiting a policy statement from the Bank of Japan that may reveal whether the central bank will provide further stimulus. On Wednesday, they'll be scrutinizing minutes from the Federal Reserve's policy setting committee.

The mood was less choppy in other markets. Among currencies, the euro was up 0.3 percent at $1.3743 while the dollar fell 0.1 percent to 103.19 yen. In the oil market, a barrel of benchmark New York crude was 6 cents higher at $101.19.

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Supreme Court to hear class-action dispute

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court will consider the requirements for transferring class-action lawsuits from state courts to federal courts.

The justices on Monday agreed to hear an appeal from a Michigan energy company that asserts it should be allowed to move a class-action case from Kansas state court to federal court. Federal law allows such transfers in cases involving more than $5 million.

A group of royalty owners sued the Dart Cherokee Basin Operating Co. alleging they were underpaid royalties on oil and gas wells. The plaintiffs did not seek a specific damage amount, but the company claimed it would far exceed $5 million.

A federal judge rejected the transfer request because the company did not offer any evidentiary support. The company says the law does not require detailed evidence.

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Air travel: Late flights are up, complaints down

DALLAS — A big drop in customer complaints helped U.S. airlines post their best ratings ever even though more flights were late and more bags were mishandled, according to a report released Monday by university researchers.

Virgin America topped the ratings, and three regional airlines scored at the bottom.

Among the four biggest airlines, Delta ranked best followed by Southwest, American and United, according to researchers from Wichita State University and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

The researchers have graded airlines since 1991 on government figures for on-time performance, mishandled bags, bumping passengers, and complaints filed with the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Their key findings:

ON-TIME PERFORMANCE: Airlines operated 78.4 percent of their flights on time in 2013, down from 81.8 percent in 2012. Best: Hawaiian Airlines; worst: American Eagle. Only two airlines improved: American Airlines and United.

BAG HANDLING: The rate of lost, stolen or delayed bags rose 5 percent. Best: Virgin America; worst: American Eagle.

BUMPING: The rate of bumping passengers from flights fell 8 percent. Best: JetBlue Airways; worst: SkyWest.

COMPLAINTS: Consumer complaints to the government dropped 15 percent in 2013 after rising 20 percent the year before. Best: Southwest Airlines; worst: Frontier.

One of the report's authors, Wichita State business professor Dean Headley, credited the drop in complaints partly to United Airlines. The company suffered several computer-network outages and grounded hundreds of flights in 2012 when it combined the United and Continental computer networks after a merger, but "got their act together" in 2013, he said.

Headley said the drop in complaints might also reflect "a certain amount of resignation" that "it's never wonderful for airline passengers."

It's not clear that the researchers captured the mood of travelers. No matter how much people gripe about airlines, very few of the millions of fliers ever bother to file a complaint with the government. The Department of Transportation, or DOT, received just 9,684 complaints last year after getting 11,447 in 2012.

Chris Lopinto, CEO of ExpertFlyer.com and not involved in the academic report, said he believes that most consumers complain directly to the airlines instead.

"The DOT can't comp you miles or comp you a voucher — only the airlines can do that," Lopinto said. "A passenger might not think to file with DOT."

Most of the worst grades — from late flights and lost bags to bumping passengers off planes — were earned by smaller regional airlines. In the overall standings, American Eagle, the regional affiliate of American Airlines, finished last, just ahead of SkyWest and ExpressJet, which operate regional flights for United and Delta.

Regional airlines fly smaller planes, their flights are the first to be canceled in bad weather, and they operate at smaller airports that might lack the maintenance capability of bigger airports. However, they have become critical to the so-called hub-and-spoke system that United, American and Delta use to connect passengers to flights at big "hub" airports.

"If you have hubs, you need spokes or the wheel doesn't work," Headley said.

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Contact David Koenig at http://www.twitter.com/airlinewriter

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Laclede buys Energen's gas utility for $1.28B

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The Laclede Group Inc. is acquiring Alabama Gas Corp., the natural gas utility business of Energen, for about $1.28 billion in cash.

The deal will expand Laclede's geographic footprint beyond its home state of Missouri and boost its customer base from 1.13 million customers to about 1.55 million. Alabama Gas Corp. is the largest natural-gas utility in Alabama.

Laclede, a natural-gas utility based in St. Louis, will also take on about $320 million of debt as part of the agreement.

For Energen Corp., the sale pushes it closer to becoming a pure exploration and production company. The Birmingham company said that it will use the proceeds to reduce debt, allowing it to accelerate drilling and development of its Permian Basin assets starting next year.

The deal is expected to close in 2014 and add to Laclede's earnings in 2015.

Shares of Laclede fell 76 cents to $45.47 by midmorning, slightly worse than the broader market. Energen shares added 17 cents to reach $81.69.

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Obama: Students need help to get 'in-demand jobs'

BLADENSBURG, Md. — President Barack Obama on Monday announced more than $100 million in grants for two dozen schools across the country that are helping students gain work experience for what he called the "in-demand jobs of the future."

The money, which comes from fees that companies pay for visas to hire foreign workers for specialized jobs, is the result of an executive order Obama signed last year to better prepare high school students for college or for careers. Students are working on "cooler stuff than when I was in high school," Obama said as he announced the grants before cheering high school students in Washington's Maryland suburbs.

A total of 24 schools are being awarded the money after a nationwide competition, including the Los Angeles Unified School District, the New York City Department of Education and districts in Denver, Indianapolis and Clinton, S.C. Obama explained it will allow schools to "develop and test new curricula and models for success. We want to invest in your future," he said.

Obama announced the grants at Bladensburg High School, one of three high schools in Washington's Maryland suburbs that have created a Youth CareerConnect Program that is the recipient of $7 million under the announcement. Students at Bladensburg work on real-world projects with community partners to get ready for college admission or careers. The grant at the school, where more than 70 percent of students are low-income, will expand the Health & Biosciences Academy to prepare more students for careers in the region's fast-growing healthcare field.

Obama visited a 10th grade microbiology class, where he asked the students in lab goggles huddled over microscopes what careers they are interested in. "You on the CSI thing, forensics huh?" the president said to one student.

In another effort to make education more accessible, Vice President Joe Biden announced that the Education and Labor departments will run a program to facilitate community college students getting academic credit for apprenticeships in business and industry, in line with the federal job-training revamp that Biden has been charged with leading. Colleges will agree to provide credit for apprenticeships that are certified by an independent group, enabling students to finish their degrees quicker.

Obama also planned to take action Tuesday to use the federal government's vast array of contractors to impose rules on wages, pay disparities and hiring on a segment of the private sector that gets taxpayer money and falls under his control. He was scheduled to issue an order prohibiting federal contractors from retaliating against workers who discuss their pay and direct the Labor Department to issue new rules requiring federal contractors to provide compensation data that includes a breakdown by race and gender.

The steps, which Obama plans to take at a White House event, take aim at pay disparities between men and women. The Senate this week is scheduled to take up gender pay equity legislation that would affect all employers, but the White House-backed bill doesn't have enough Republican support to overcome procedural obstacles and will likely fail.

The executive actions are designed to let workers discuss and compare their wages openly if they wish to do so and to provide the government with better data about how federal contractors compensate their workers.

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Follow Jim Kuhnhenn on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/jkuhnhenn

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