|
Rachel Lee: The housing market keeps losing steam. Sales of previously owned homes fell 5. 7% last month according to the National Association of Realtors. If you're looking for a house , the group's chief economist David Lereah says it's a good time.
David Lereah: (Er) certainly (ah) it's been a seller's market for many years, and now the buyer will have a little more control or little more power when negotiation's going forward.
Still sales of existing home set a record last year for a 5th straight year, more than 7 million homes were sold.
Rachel Lee: Threatened by big fines, Microsoft says it'll licence Windows source code in Europe. Competitors need the code to make products compatible with Windows.
Rachel Lee: BlackBerry users are safe for a month. The judge won't consider a possible injunction untill Feb. 24th.
Rachel Lee: The government reports stockpiles of gasoline grew last week while crude oil inventory shrank. Denton Cinquegrana is markets editor at the Oil Price Information Service.
Denton Cinquegrana: One of the things that probably led to the crude oil drop is, what's imported I think import's dropped by about 600, 000 barrels a day. But also refinery demand is down a little bit and would probably continue to drop , probably through the rest of the first quarter as refiners are going to make then choose it. . .
Rachel Lee: Crude oil futures fell more than $1 a barrel underreport.
Rachel Lee: The govenment's taking a closer look at hydrogen fuel as an energy alternative. Ed McCarthy has details.
Ed McCarthy: Don't expect a quick fix, U. S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman says more researches are ahead and they grant secured for the work on hydrogen fuel cells.
Samuel Bodman: We are awarding $19, 000, 000 for fuel cell membrane research. The fuel cell membrane is really the heart of a fuel cell device.
Ed McCarthy: It could be 2020 by the time hydrogen fuel is used and there are other problems, the high cost to produce fuel cells and a lack of infrastructure of filling stations to make them useful. Ed McCarthy, CNN.
Rachel Lee: American Airlines expects to bring in more money this year but the company's CFO also looks for higher costs especially for fuel.
CNN Radio Marketplace, I'm Rachel Lee.
|