Business Briefs

Refinancings spur loan applications

WASHINGTON -- Applications for home loans rose last week as consumers raced to refinance at the lowest rates in decades.

The Mortgage Bankers Associations said Wednesday that overall applications increased nearly 7 percent from a week earlier. Applications to refinance home loans were up 9 percent to the highest level since May 2009. New mortgages taken out to buy homes fell 2 percent.

The average rate for a 30-year fixed loan sank to 4.58 percent last week, according to Freddie Mac. That was the lowest since the company began keeping records in 1971.

Applications to refinance loans made up 79 percent of total applications, the highest share of refinancing activity since April 2009.

Factory will supply BMW's electric car

MOSES LAKE, Wash. -- Officials in Washington state have broken ground on a carbon fiber plant that will make parts for a BMW electric car.

Plans were announced in April by SGL Automotive Carbon Fibers, a joint venture backed by BMW Group and SGL Group. It was drawn to central Washington by cheap, sustainable hydropower.

The company is spending $100 million on the first phase of the factory. It will support about 200 construction jobs and initially employ 80 workers.

The plant will import raw materials from Mitsubishi Rayon in Otake, Japan, and spin them into fibers that will be turned into fabric in Germany for components of BMW's Megacity vehicle.

YouTube upgrades mobile website

SAN BRUNO, Calif. -- YouTube has upgraded its mobile website to make it more convenient and appealing to watch videos on touch-screen devices such as Apple's iPhone and Motorola's Droid X.

The improvements unveiled Wednesday are designed to make it easier for smart phone users to navigate YouTube's vast video library. The fine-tuning also enables YouTube's mobile website to stream videos in higher resolution than clips served up through YouTube applications installed on smart phones.

YouTube, owned by Google Inc., is changing its mobile website as part of its effort to create a video operating system that works on any gadget with a screen. The video site says it already serves up more than 100 million videos per day on mobile devices.

Sony latest to cut price for e-readers

SAN FRANCISCO -- Sony has cut the prices on its electronic-book readers to keep up with competition from Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble, which recently slashed prices on their own e-readers.

Sony said Wednesday that it has dropped the price of its Reader Daily Edition by $50, to $300.

Cuts outlined for Wells' finance unit

NEW YORK -- Wells Fargo says it's laying off 3,800 employees over the next year as part of a restructuring of its consumer finance unit. The bank is consolidating Wells Fargo Financial into its community banking network. The company says 638 independent consumer finance offices will be closed as a result. The changes won't affect Wells Fargo and Wachovia community banks across the country.