BusinessWeek has picked a portion of Snohomish County as Washington state’s fastest-growing “city.” The magazine selected Everett’s Silver Lake neighborhood and the Seattle Hill/Silver Firs areas further south as the state’s fastest growing, saying the area has 16,254 households and has grown 42 percent since the year 2000 and 4 percent since 2008. The area’s average household income was listed as $110,837. The article on the magazine’s Web site looks at the nation’s migration patterns and tries to identify growth areas in each state. To look at what it said about Snohomish County, go to tinyurl.com/y98odxz.
Strong Hasbro sales boost stock price
Strong sales of boys’ brands including Transformers and Nerf helped Hasbro Inc. post a better-than-expected fourth-quarter profit, sending shares up 11 percent, briefly touching a 52-week high. The owner of the G.I. Joe, Tonka and Play-skool brands also said it expects sales and earnings per share to grow this year, although it didn’t offer specific estimates. “Overall in 2009, the global economic environment did not improve significantly, but it also did not deteriorate further,” Chief Executive Brian Gardner said. “We were well positioned when the consumer came out to shop, and the consumer did come out to shop, albeit late in the fourth quarter.” Shares rose 11.4 percent during morning trading.
Magazine sales drop slows in late 2009
U.S. consumers showed less willingness to spend money for magazines at newsstands and other retail outlets as single-copy sales fell more than 9 percent in the second half of 2009. One positive sign: The drop in newsstand sales was not as severe as in the first half of 2009, when publishers saw a year-over-year decline of 12 percent, according to figures released Monday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Still, the figures are troubling for the magazine industry as the weak economy continues to put a damper on spending and consumers have plenty of free reading options available online. Newsstand sales are important for publishers because they charge more per copy.
T-bill rates rise in Monday auction
The Treasury Department auctioned three-month bills at a discount rate of 0.11 percent, up from 0.095 percent last week. Six-month bills were auctioned at a discount rate of 0.17 percent, up from 0.165 percent last week. For a $10,000 bill, the three-month price was $9,997.22 while a six-month bill sold for $9,991.41. That would equal an annualized rate of 0.112 percent for the three-month bills and 0.173 percent for the six-month bills. Separately, the Federal Reserve did not release on Monday the average yield for one-year Treasury bills, a popular index for changing adjustable rate mortgages. Heavy snowfall over the weekend forced the Fed, to shut down Monday.
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