Two local bank stocks, along with others across the nation, soared Tuesday after months of being battered on Wall Street. Everett-based Frontier Financial’s shares rose 18 percent, or $1.54, to close at $9.88. Shares of Lynnwood-based City Bank increased nearly 22 percent, or $1.82, to close at $10.28. Many bank stocks rallied after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said he will announce new lending rules to address recent problems in mortgage lending.
Southwest adds Canadian partner
Southwest Airlines Co. said Tuesday it plans to offer international service — a first for the low-fare carrier — through a deal with Canada’s WestJet. Southwest said it has taken the first step toward striking a so-called code-sharing agreement and planned to announce schedules and other features of the WestJet partnership by late next year.
Microsoft fights Net software
Microsoft Corp. is strengthening its early-stage push to fend off competition by offering more Internet-based software, a change from its traditional method of selling programs that run on individual desktops or corporate servers. With Internet-savvy rivals threatening Microsoft’s usual sales model, Microsoft started offering its Exchange e-mail server software and other programs in March. Under the new setup, companies including Eddie Bauer Holdings Inc. started to let some of their business software be run remotely in Microsoft’s data centers.
Consumer cards used more in May
Consumers boosted their borrowing in May, mostly reflecting heavy credit card use to finance their purchases. The Federal Reserve reported Tuesday that consumer credit increased at an annual rate of 3.6 percent in May, roughly the same pace as logged in the prior month. The pickup pushed total consumer debt up by $7.8 billion to $2.57 trillion. That was a bit more brisk than the $7 billion over-the-month increase economists were expecting.
Crash tests revised for safety
Attention car shoppers: The government is upgrading its crash test program to offer better information about vehicle safety. The Bush administration outlined changes Tuesday to the government’s safety ratings, which grade new vehicles on a scale of up to five stars. The new program will continue to assess vehicles on the five-star scale but will add an overall safety rating that combines scores from several crash tests. Female crash test dummies will be used to represent women and large children.
Congress eyes Internet privacy
Executives from major Internet players — Microsoft Corp., Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. — are due for a grilling about online privacy in a Senate committee today, but the company likely to get the most scrutiny is a small Silicon Valley startup called NebuAd Inc. NebuAd has drawn fierce criticism from privacy advocates in recent weeks for working with Internet service providers to track the online behavior of their customers.
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