Here are today’s top headlines from the Marketplace Morning Report and from around the web.
Today the Fed will wrap up its two day meeting in Washington with a short written statement. We don’t yet know the exact wording, but it’ll probably tell us the Fed is going to finish up its $600 billion bond buying program on schedule. And keep interest rates low for a while longer.
The U.K. is reporting this morning its economy grew by a minuscule half a percent last quarter. Economists are blaming the stagnation on steep spending cuts by the government.
The U.S. government said this morning that businesses upped their orders of heavy machinery last month for the third straight month. That’s good news because some thought durable goods orders would drop off because of rising oil prices.
Apple says the idea that iPhones store their users’ locations is based on a misunderstanding of how the phones help determine where they are.
Shares of Sony are off more than 2 percent on news that its PlayStation gaming network was hacked and credit card information may have been stolen from 75 million users.
Whirlpool beat quarterly profit and sales estimates on cost controls and improving sales in most markets, prompting the world’s largest appliance maker to back its full-year outlook.
WellPoint posted a quarterly profit well above analyst estimates, helped by health plan gains and lower-than-expected medical costs, and the insurer raised its full-year earnings outlook.
Boeing reported a larger quarterly profit and a 5 percent revenue gain for its defense business.
Ratings company Moody’s posted a higher first-quarter profit as corporate bond issuance increased.
Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc. reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings and affirmed its full-year outlook Wednesday, helped by price increases.
Automaker Volkswagen says it had a strong first quarter, with net profit jumping to $2.51 billion as sales increased in Asia and North America.
Applications for U.S. home mortgages fell last week as higher insurance premiums for government-insured loans sapped demand, an industry group said Wednesday.
MySpace is up for sale. It’s being valued at around $100 million. News Corp. paid nearly $600 million for it back in 2005
There’s the housing market, and then there’s the housing market in the Hamptons… where billionaire David Tepper bought a mansion last year for $43 million. And he’s just gotten approval to tear it down. The house has a tennis court, big marble bathrooms, and a sun-drenched living room with an ocean view. But at 6,100 square feet, it’s a bit of a tight squeeze. So after he tears it down, Tepper is replacing it with a house twice the size.
And finally, the latest casualty of state budget cuts? The final frontier. The famed SETI institute in northern California, which scans the skies for alien life, has been shut down by budget cuts. SETI needs about $5 million to return to action and keep keeping tabs on those billions and billions of stars.
You can read the rest of today’s stories from the Marketplace Morning Report here.
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