Business Briefs

Stocks rise ahead of new jobs report

NEW YORK -- Optimism about the government's February jobs report sent the Dow Jones industrials back into the black for 2010.

Stocks ended Thursday with a moderate advance after managing only modest moves for much of the day. Investors seemed to set aside concerns about the day's mixed economic reports and focus instead on the Labor Department's jobs report, due this morning.

An unexpected drop in pending home sales held the market to a tight range for most of Thursday's trading. The National Association of Realtors said that its index of home sales agreements fell 7.6 percent in January from December. Sales contracts fell to the lowest level since April.

Georgetown's port to ship briquettes

Carolina-Pacific, a South Carolina-based exporter of wood briquettes that are used as renewable energy source, loads its first shipment from the Port of Georgetown today.

The company will export 5,000 tons of its product to Scandinavia on the first ship, the 351-foot Liamare. The company signed a 20-year contract with the State Ports Authority last summer to ship through Georgetown and occupy 100,000 square feet of warehouse space to make the briquettes, which are described as an environmentally friendly coal substitute.

Boeing will bid to build USAF tanker

WASHINGTON -- Boeing Co. said Thursday that it will bid for the Air Force's troubled $35 billion refueling plane contract, leaving rival Northrop Grumman to decide if it will make its own proposal.

Boeing said it plans to offer a military version of its 767 jet for a fleet of 179 aerial refuelers. Boeing said it will submit its formal bid by May 10. It remains to be seen if Boeing's bitter contest with Northrop will be renewed after two failed Pentagon attempts to pick a winner.

Northrop has warned that it might not bid, saying the Air Force's guidelines appear to favor Boeing.

Mortgage rates fall below 5% mark

McLEAN, Va. -- Mortgage rates have dipped below 5 percent again, four weeks before a government program that is helping keep rates low is set to run out. A 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.97 percent, down from 5.05 percent a week earlier, mortgage financier Freddie Mac said Thursday.

Rates have been kept down by a Federal Reserve effort to spur home sales by lowering how much it costs to get a loan. The program is to end March 31.

Squibb: New drugs are in pipeline

TRENTON, N.J. -- Executives at Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. told analysts Thursday that the drugmaker has 60 potential drugs in development, seven in late-stage studies.

The company said it expects future revenue from those medicines and growing sales from existing drugs to help offset an expected plunge in Plavix sales in 2012. That's when U.S. generic competition will start slashing sales of the $6 billion-a-year blood thinner, the world's second-best-selling drug.

Key drugs in development include the blood thinner apixaban, organ transplant drug belatacept, cancer drug brivanib, diabetes drug dapagliflozin and skin cancer drug ipilimumab.