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Shares of Best Buy Co. surged Thursday after the electronics seller posted fiscal fourth-quarter results that beat Wall Street’s expectations.

Net income for the three months ended Feb. 27 jumped nearly 37% to $779 million, or $1.82 a share. Revenue rose 12% to $16.6 billion from a year earlier.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were looking for earnings of $1.79 a share on sales of $16.08 billion.

Comparable sales gained 7.4%, driven by double-digit percentage increases in sales of its notebook computers and flat-panel TVs.

Best Buy (BBY, Fortune 500) shares rose 7% in early trading, but pared gains a bit to end the day almost 3 low fee pay day loans.6% higher.

The government reported that overall retail sales last month rose 0.3%, better than what analysts had been expecting. The increase was led by a 3.7% jump in electronics and appliance sales, signaling that demand in the sector may be recovering.

In January, Best Buy said sales grew 13% in December, the first holiday season without competition from Circuit City, which closed its doors last year.

Looking ahead, Best Buy forecast earnings of $3.45 to $3.60 per share for fiscal year 2011.  

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The Obama administration is turning up the heat on tanning salons across the country with the passage of its new health care bill.

To help fund the $940 billion health care overhaul, a 10% tax on individuals receiving indoor tanning services was tacked on, and the initiative is expected to generate $2.7 billion over ten years.

As a result, many salon goers and owners are outraged by the so-called "tanning tax" and think they’re being unfairly targeted by the bill.

"It’s terrible," said Jan Meshon, owner of City Sun Tanning in New York City. "You know how they say that passing a bill is a bit like making sausage? Well this was the weirdest, ugliest piece of sausage to get stuffed into the bill."

City Sun Tanning customers are shocked and disappointed by the tax as well, and Meshon said he expects the tax to hurt business.

"We’ll do everything to keep our customers, but they are very upset by this," he said. "When they first hear about the tax, their reaction is, ‘What? How did that get in there? Why are they attacking me?’"

Meshon said the average customer spends about $15 to $20 per visit, and a typical tanning session lasts about 10 minutes, which is roughly the equivalent of thirty minutes in natural sunlight.

"An extra 10% on top of that is definitely not helpful," he said. "All of our customers would like to spend less already."

Adrienne Zarisky, a regular tanner, said she has used tanning salons several times a week for the last two years in order to maintain sufficient levels of Vitamin D.

"I use it not so much for the cosmetic effect as I do for my health," she said. "But of course, in the dead of winter it just feels so good."

Zarisky said she probably won’t change her tanning habits because it’s still "cheaper than having to take sunny vacations three times a year," but she is sure the tax will cause financially-strapped tanners to give up bronzing, and in turn, will seriously hurt the salons.

"I really fear for the salon owners," she said. "The place I go has really been a fixture in my neighborhood. I got to know some of the people that work there and they’re lovely people — I would just really hate to see people like that lose their jobs."

Jobs on the line

The tanning tax will go into effect July 1 and will apply to electronic products designed for tanning that use one or more ultraviolet lamps with wavelengths between 200 and 400 nanometers. Other sunless tanning options such as spray tans and tanning lotions are not included in the tax.

"This is going to close tanning salons," said Joseph Levy, vice president of the International Smart Tan Network, which has 3,000 member salons. "You can’t just pass on a tax like this to customers and not have it hurt your bottom line."

Levy estimates that about 9,000 jobs are in jeopardy and more than 1,000 salons are at risk of being forced to close their doors. The tax also targets middle-class and female business owners, with about two-thirds of tanning salons in the U.S. owned by women, he said.

In addition to putting thousands of employees out of work, Levy predicts the tax will ultimately generate 40% to 50% less than the projected $2 fast payday loan no faxing.7 billion.

"There was no due diligence done on how much money this will raise, and it’s going to be nowhere near what they are expecting," he said. "After taxing female entrepreneurs and primarily female customers, this is the other part of what’s so repulsive about this tax."

The health care reform bill is returning to the Senate for revisions, and Levy is rallying support to nix the tax from the measure before it’s too late.

"We have more than 200,000 signed letters to Congress between our businesses and customers," he said. "We’re hopeful that the Senate and Senators we’ve talked to will come through and get this ridiculous tax out of the bill."

As another last ditch attempt to remove the tax, the Indoor Tanning Association has started a Web site, Stopthetantax.com, where tanning salon owners and customers can send personalized letters of opposition directly to state representatives and senators.

Cutting out the ‘Botax’

The 10% tanning tax has replaced the 5% tax on cosmetic surgery that was originally included in the bill.

That tax, nicknamed the "Botax," would have included Botox injections and breast implants among other elective surgeries, but was cut out of the bill last year after heavy lobbying from the medical and dermatology industries.

Because the Botax was expected to generate $5.8 billion, more than double the amount the tanning tax is projected to raise, many tanning industry professionals are furious about the switch, arguing that while the tanning tax targets middle-class, women-owned businesses, the Botax would mainly impact wealthier Americans who would be more able to handle higher prices.

The American Academy of Dermatology, which strongly opposed the Botax, applauded the inclusion of the tanning tax as a replacement because of the significant health risks associated with indoor tanning.

According to the Academy, indoor tanning before the age of 35 is linked to a 75% increase in the risk of melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, which has also become more common in young females. Meanwhile, nearly 30 million Americans hit the tanning beds each year and about 2.3 million of these people are teenagers.

An indoor tanning tax will therefore "serve as a signal from the federal government to young people that indoor tanning is dangerous and should be avoided," said Dr. William James, president of the academy.

In addition, because the United States currently spends about $1.8 billion on treating skin cancers each year and $300 million on melanoma alone, the tax will significantly reduce the future costs of treating skin cancers, Dr. James said.

Meshon and Levy, however, said many of the health concerns over indoor tanning are unjustified and exaggerated.

"It’s at least as good for you as it is bad for you," said Meshon. "There’s a lot of misinformation out there and scare tactics trying to make indoor tanning sound like the scariest thing in the world, and while there are risks to tanning like almost anything else you do, the risks in tanning are relatively low." 

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The risk posed by asset bubbles in Asia is overstated because surging prices in markets don’t threaten regional economies, said Stephen Roach, chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia Ltd.

“The difference between the asset bubbles in this region and asset bubbles also around the world is that they have not affected the real side of the Asian economy,” Roach told Bloomberg Television in an interview in Hong Kong today.

Concerns about inflation in Asia are “overblown” as excess capacity in the global economy is likely to keep a “lid” on prices for the next few years, said Roach, author of “The Next Asia.” “Beyond that, it’s a big challenge.”

Standard & Poor’s warned yesterday that Asian policy makers may fuel asset bubbles by leaving interest rates “too low for too long” as the region leads a global recovery from the worst slowdown since World War II. Stock and property markets are looking “frothy” in Asia, said David Wyss, an economist at S&P.

The U.S. had “monster bubbles in property credit that ended up stalling home-building activities and personal consumption” and when they burst the “economy went into the tank,” said Roach. In contrast, in Asia “you have bubbles that come and go, but they don’t impact on the real economy free credit reports.”

China’s Economy

Roach also said that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s past warnings that his nation’s growth path is “unbalanced and unsustainable” have become a “serious concern now.”

“Two of the main engines of the Chinese economy, exports and investments, really have reached their point of maximum dynamism,” Roach said. “The Chinese need to change the model and move much more into consumer-led” growth, he said.

China’s central bank last month ordered banks to set aside more deposits as reserves for the second time in a month to cool the economic expansion after loan growth accelerated and property prices surged 9.5 percent in January, the most in 21 months. The China Banking Regulatory Commission told banks the same month to “strictly” follow property lending policies.

China’s consumer prices increased 1.5 percent in January from a year earlier, mainly due to gains in food costs resulting from the cold winter weather, the National Bureau of Statistics said. The gauge rose 0.6 percent from December.

In the fourth quarter of 2009, the Chinese economy grew 10.7 percent from a year earlier, the fastest pace since 2007.

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Microsoft and Yahoo said Thursday that their online search deal has received approval from U.S. and European Union regulators, paving the way for the two companies to combine much of their Internet search business.

Under the 10-year deal, which was announced in July, Yahoo.com and Bing.com will maintain their own branding but search results on Yahoo.com will say "powered by Bing." Yahoo, in turn, will be responsible for getting premium advertisers.

Microsoft will pay Yahoo 88% of the revenue it gains from searches on Yahoo’s sites. Microsoft will also have the rights to integrate Yahoo’s search technology into its own existing Web search platforms.

With the final hurdle out of the way, the companies said Thursday that they will start implementing their partnership in the coming days. Yahoo and Microsoft have set a goal to complete all aspects of the deal in the United States by the end of 2010 and globally by the end of 2012. The companies previously said that U.S. users will start to see the change three months after regulators approved the deal.

"This breakthrough search alliance means Yahoo! can focus even more on our own innovative search experience," said Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz in a statement.

Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer called the regulatory approval "an exciting milestone," noting that the companies are "just at the beginning of this process."

Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) remains the clear dominant search engine, controlling more than 65% of the market, according to online data tracker comScore. But Microsoft’s (MSFT, Fortune 500) Bing and Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) control nearly 30% of the market combined, which analysts say will help the companies attract better advertising partners.

Shares of Microsoft and Yahoo both rose less than 1% in midday trading. 

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Drugmaker Pfizer Inc., which just bought rival Wyeth in October, said Wednesday that it would scrap testing of roughly 100 experimental drugs from their combined research operations to focus more resources on its priority areas.

New York-based Pfizer said it would continue with about 500 research projects. About 70 percent of those — and 75 percent of its late-stage research — fall within what it calls "Invest to Win" areas because of the great need for better treatments.

They are Alzheimer’s, diabetes and metabolic disorders, pain, cancer, inflammatory disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis, and mental illnesses.

Pfizer will reduce the square footage of its R&D facilities by one-third, eliminating six research sites and an unspecified number of workers.

Pfizer maintains a research facility in Chesterfield, though the company is scaling back those operations. The company announced in November that it would eliminate 600 of the 1,000 jobs at the research center and sell the property to Monsanto.

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NEW YORK, N.Y.—Shares of Walmart Stores Inc. moved ahead Monday morning in the first trading since the retail giant announced on the weekend that it’s slashing 11,200 jobs at Sam’s Club warehouse stores.

In New York, Walmart (NYSE:WMT) stock lifted 20.5 cents to US$53.14, as other U.S. retailers also moved on the news, pulling the entire sector higher.

Walmart said it will close 10 underperforming warehouse locations, at a cost 1,500 jobs, as it works to improve sales at its Sam’s Club stores.

Sam’s Club has fallen short of expectations for the Walmart chain in the U.S. and abroad.

Walmart already pulled its Sam’s Clubs stores out of Canada, laying off 1,200 people at six stores in Ontario last year.

Sam’s Club had been in Canada for only about five years. Walmart Canada president and CEO David Cheesewright said at the time that the stores didn’t perform to the company’s standards no fax payday loans.

In the U.S., Sam’s Club employees found out about the cuts during a mandatory meeting on Sunday morning. The stores are undergoing various changes as the company turns over the task of in-store product demonstrations to an outside marketing company.

The job cuts represent about 10 per cent of the warehouse club operator’s 110,000 staffers across its 600 stores. That includes 10,000 workers, mostly part-timers, who offer food samples and showcase products to customers.

Walmart also eliminated 1,200 Sam’s Club workers who recruit new members.

During Walmart Stores’ most recent quarter, revenue at the Sam’s Club division slipped nearly one per cent to US$11.55 billion while U.S. Walmart stores posted a 1.2 per cent sales increase to $61.81 billion.

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The cost of living rose less than forecast in December, indicating the economic recovery is showing few signs of stoking inflation.

The consumer-price index rose 0.1 percent following a 0.4 percent gain in November, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. Excluding food and energy costs, the so-called core index also increased 0.1 percent from a month earlier.

Companies may have little success raising prices with unemployment projected to average 10 percent this year, the highest annual rate in seven decades. Federal Reserve policy makers have said they expect “subdued” inflation in coming months, allowing them to keep interest rates close to zero to help fuel growth.

“Consumer pricing pressures remain very subdued,” said Russell Price, a senior economist at Ameriprise Financial Inc. in Detroit, who accurately forecast the rise in the core rate. “It gives the Fed further leeway to continue keeping rates where they are well through 2010.”

Stock-index futures trimmed losses and Treasury yields fell after the report. Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index expiring in March declined 0.3 percent to 1,141.9 at 8:34 a.m. in New York after losing 0.7 percent earlier. The yield on the 10- year Treasury note dropped to 3.7 percent from 3.74 percent late yesterday.

Last Year

Americans paid 2.7 percent more for goods and services in 2009. The annual gain followed a 0.1 percent rise in 2008 that was the smallest since 1954 as energy costs plunged the most since those records began four years later.

Prices excluding food and energy rose 1.8 percent in 2009, matching the previous year as the smallest gain since 2003. Service costs, which make up 60 percent of the CPI, rose 0.9 percent last year, the smallest gain since 1945.

Economists forecast the consumer-price index would rise 0.2 percent in December from a month earlier, according to the median of 77 projections in a Bloomberg News survey. Estimates ranged from a 0.1 percent drop to a gain of 0.3 percent.

The core index was forecast to rise 0.1 percent, according to the Bloomberg survey.

Fed policy makers’ long-term forecast for their preferred measure of inflation, the Commerce Department’s index tied to consumer spending and excluding food and fuel, calls for gains in a range of 1.5 percent to 2 percent. That gauge, which is typically lower than the CPI, was up 1.4 percent in the 12 months to November.

Energy Prices

Energy costs increased 0.2 percent in December, less than the previous month as gasoline and fuel oil costs slowed.

The year-over-year gains in the consumer price index are getting bigger as crude oil prices increase from an almost five- year low in December 2008. Energy costs last year jumped 18.2 percent, the most since 1979.

Crude oil futures traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange averaged $74 need a personal loan with bad credit.60 in December, compared with $78.15 the previous month. Prices have rebounded this month, averaging $81.59 a barrel.

Gasoline prices in December averaged $2.61, compared with $2.65 a gallon the previous month, according to AAA. Prices for regular-grade gasoline at the pump have climbed to an average of $2.71 so far this month.

Food Costs

Food costs, which account for about 15 percent of the CPI, increased 0.2 percent in December, reflecting higher prices for fruits and vegetables, dairy products and cereals. The cost of food for all of last year dropped 0.5 percent, the biggest decline since 1961.

Delhaize Group SA, owner of Food Lion supermarkets in the U.S., said in a statement yesterday that revenue fell for the first time in five quarters on declining food prices. The Brussels-based company said U.S. retail food deflation accelerated to 2.1 percent in the fourth quarter and prices in its stores fell 0.92 percentage point more than the cost of goods sold.

Rents, which make up almost 40 percent of the core CPI, were unchanged. Owners-equivalent rent, one of the categories used to track rental prices, held steady last month after a 0.1 percent decline. Owner-equivalent rent hasn’t risen since August.

The CPI is the broadest of the three monthly price gauges from the Labor Department because it includes goods and services. A report yesterday showed the cost of imported goods was unchanged last month. The Labor Department is scheduled to report December wholesale prices on Jan. 20.

Prices of Services

Almost 60 percent of the CPI covers prices consumers pay for services ranging from medical visits to airline fares and movie tickets.

United Airlines, the third-largest U.S. carrier, discounted fares to as low as $55 each way in an effort to boost travel during the winter months. The carrier’s Chicago-based parent UAL Corp. made the announcement this month in a statement and followed one-way discounts offered by JetBlue Airways Corp.

Retailers offering discounts during the holiday shopping season to spur demand weighed on earnings for some companies.

GameStop Corp., the world’s largest video-game retailer, reported fourth-quarter earnings that fell short of estimates because of disappointing sales. The Grapevine, Texas-based company offered a $50 discount on Nintendo Co.’s top-selling Wii console from Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

“The macroeconomic environment put a damper on people buying as many video-games as we expected,” Chief Executive Officer Daniel DeMatteo said in a Jan. 8 interview. He said sales were impacted by “economic weakness.”

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UPS announced plans to cut 1,800 jobs as part of a restructuring plan intended to streamline the company’s domestic management structure.

The cuts will eliminate management and administrative positions across the country, UPS (UPS, Fortune 500) said in a statement Friday. Approximately 1,100 employees will be offered voluntary separation packages; other impacted workers will receive severance benefits and access to support programs.

"The decision to reduce our workforce is difficult and we appreciate the significant contributions of those who will be affected by this change," said Scott Davis, UPS chairman and chief executive. "But we believe this will allow us to sharpen our focus on profitable growth while being even more nimble in serving our customers."

UPS said the restructuring plan, which takes effect in April, will reduce the number of districts in the company’s small-package operation to three from five and the number of regions to 20 from 46. The consolidation does not involve closing operating facilities.

The announcement came the Atlanta-based company said its expects to beat its earnings estimate for the fourth quarter of 2009. The company previously projected it will earn between 58 cents and 65 cents per share during the final quarter of last year. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect earnings per share to fall to 63 cents, a 24% decline compared to same period in 2008.

UPS said it expects to incur a charge in 2010 as a result of the restructuring plan, but said it will be offset by cost savings.

Shares of UPS were up more than 5% in early trading.  

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The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents on Friday unanimously approved three capital projects at UW-Milwaukee, including the purchase and redevelopment of Columbia St. Mary's Hospital to allow for expansion of the land-locked east side campus.

The capital projects are part of a broader initiative to support the institution’s research activities and to reinforce its impact as an economic driver in the state.

The approved projects include:

• The first phase of the Kenwood Integrated Research Complex;
• The purchase and redevelopment of Columbia St. Mary’s Hospital; and
• Replacement of the Neeskay research vessel.

Regent president Chuck Pruitt told the Board that UW-Milwaukee’s Research Growth Initiative is a central pillar to the UW System’s efforts to boost educational output and stimulate job creation, as advocated in its Growth Agenda for Wisconsin.

“These capital investments will ensure that we have the facilities needed to enhance the university’s impact as an economic driver for Milwaukee and all of Wisconsin,” Pruitt said in a press release from the UW-System.

In his presentation before the board, UW-Milwaukee Chancellor Carlos Santiago told Regents that the projects represent the future not only of the university, but of the city, region and state cash advance payday loans.

“We’re moving the pendulum to a more balanced perspective for a research university. We have not taken money from the fine arts or from the humanities to do this. We are providing opportunities with new dollars for the faculty, and new faculty in particular, to avail themselves of the opportunities that Milwaukee provides. That is really what this is all about,” Santiago said.

To use a flexible pool of funds provided by Gov. Doyle and the state Legislature in the 2009-11 Biennial Budget, the Regents were required to approve a detailed expenditure plan for the UW-Milwaukee Initiative, identifying specific projects and sources of funding. The Board had previously approved UW-Milwaukee’s plans to build a new facility for the School of Freshwater Sciences Research at its meeting in December.

Senior vice president Tom Anderes told the Board that, with the approval of the three projects on Friday, $176 million of the UW-Milwaukee Initiative’s $240 million in funding, including all of the taxpayer-supported borrowing, will have been committed. That leaves $64 million of approved funding capacity for future projects, including $25.6 million in program revenue supported borrowing and $38.4 million in gifts/grants.

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As President Barack Obama said in his recent jobs summit, future jobs will be found in cultivating alternative energy sources to create a cleaner environment. According to the Renewable Energy Policy Project, efforts to rein in Missouri’s carbon emissions have the potential to generate more than 22,000 manufacturing jobs in wind, solar, geothermal and biomass industries.

In addition to job creation, carbon reduction and energy savings are among the key reasons green training is important.

The potential for new jobs in Missouri spurred the IBEW/NECA Electrical Industry Training Center to consolidate 70 courses into one comprehensive green curriculum to keep pace with rapidly changing technology that includes greater understanding of energy-conversion rates of solar panels. Traditional solar cells are comprised of crystalline silicon, which has a relatively poor light absorption rate, requiring considerable thickness just to harness 11 percent to 16 percent of the sun’s rays. With silicon accounting for half the cost of a solar cell panel, we are now training on "thin film" technology installment payday loans. "Thin film" panels are less expensive, easier to install, more durable and have the potential to capture up to 35 percent of the sun’s rays.

Another part of green training is the study of advances in geothermal energy, which taps the steady flow of heat from the Earth in winter and displaces heat in the summer. This advanced training is applied to geothermal pump installations that can reduce utility costs up to 70 percent, compared with conventional systems.

Also key is understanding the dynamics of energy transfer in wind turbines, which convert the wind’s kinetic energy into electricity for homes and businesses.

The next phase of green training will be smart grid technology. It will produce a network among electric utilities to distribute power more efficiently while modifying consumer use to control energy costs.

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