CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Sonic Automotive Inc. said Wednesday that it has priced $210 million of senior subordinated notes due in 2018.

Sonic plans to use the proceeds to redeem a portion of other senior notes due in 2013.

The new notes will carry an interest rate of 9.125 percent and will be priced at 99.299 percent of par.

Shares of the automotive retailer rose 5 cents to $11.63 in afternoon trading.

Source: Sonic Auto to s...

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. mortgage applications nudged higher last week, reflecting increased demand for home purchase loans even as interest rates trekked higher, data from an industry group showed on Wednesday.

If demand for purchase loans, a tentative early indicator of home sales, continues to climb it will bode well for the hard-hit U.S. housing market, which remains highly vulnerable to setbacks and heavily reliant on government intervention.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage applications, which includes both purchase and refinance loans, for the week ended March 5 increased 0.5 percent.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Calling himself a realist, Gov. Pat Quinn on Wednesday scaled back his proposal to raise income taxes, shifting to a call for an increase of just one percentage point to be used solely for preventing deep cuts to education.

The rest of Illinois' record-breaking $13 billion budget deficit should be addressed mostly by borrowing money and letting more unpaid bills pile up, Quinn said in a brief speech to legislators.

Letting more bills pile up could be disastrous for those who need help with child care, job training, services to the elderly, drug counseling and more. The local organizations the state hires to provide those services, which already are struggling to survive, could go under if they don't get paid.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – WTO chief Pascal Lamy was in Washington Wednesday for talks with US officials and lawmakers amid an uphill effort to wrap up the long-running Doha Round of global trade talks by this year.

Lamy met with US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, a Treasury spokesman told AFP, but declined to provide details about their talks.

And, according to the Geneva-based World Trade Organization, Lamy is scheduled to hold separate talks with President Barack Obama's top trade official Ron Kirk and US lawmakers.

LONDON (AFP) – The euro staged a modest turnaround against the dollar Wednesday in featureless trading as dealers looked for signals on prospects for the world economy and a proposed European monetary fund.

The single European currency moved up over 1.36 dollars late in the trading day after losing ground on disappointing economic data from Germany, the eurozone's leading economy.

German exports dropped by an unexpectedly sharp 6.3 percent in January from the previous month, official statistics showed. It was the first monthly fall since August and came as imports grew by 6.0 percent.

FRANKLIN PARK, Ill. – Specialty metal and plastic products company A.M. Castle & Co. said Wednesday that its fourth-quarter loss shrank, helped by lower material costs and the effect of one-time charges.

The company reported a net loss of $15.5 million, or 68 cents per share, better than the $53.6 million, or $2.37 per share, loss in the year-ago quarter.

Revenue for the period slid 44 percent to $181.3 million on lower sales in its metals and plastics segments. But factors like the cost of materials and a sharply lower impairment of goodwill expense helped make up for the lower revenue.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected a loss of 26 cents per share on revenue of $190.1 million.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. wholesale inventories fell modestly in January, while sales rose to their highest level since October 2008, suggesting that inventories would continue to support economic growth in the first quarter.

The rise in sales pushed the inventory-to-sales ratio, a measure of how long it would take to sell stocks at the current sales pace, to a record low of 1.10 months' worth from December's 1.12 months, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday.

The drop in the ratio, which has trended lower for three straight months, indicates that wholesalers might be closer to replenishing their warehouses, which should boost economic growth.

Total wholesale inventories slipped 0.2 percent, smaller than the revised 1 percent drop in December, the department said. December inventories were previously reported as having dropped 0.8 percent.

WASHINGTON – Businesses trimmed inventories at the wholesale level again in January even though sales rose for a 10th consecutive month. The dip in inventories underscored that businesses remain cautious about restocking their depleted shelves.

The Commerce Department said Wednesday that inventories at the wholesale level were reduced 0.2 percent in January following a 1 percent drop in December. Sales were up a solid 1.3 percent, the best showing since a 3.6 percent rise in November.

Economists are hoping that the steady gains in sales will soon prompt a sustained rebound in inventory restocking. That would trigger increased factory production and provide support for the fledgling recovery.

WASHINGTON – Unemployment rose in 30 states in January, the Labor Department said Wednesday, evidence that jobs remain scarce in most regions of the country.

The data is somewhat better than December, when 43 states reported higher unemployment rates, but worse than November, when rates fell in most states.

Still, five states reported record-high joblessness in January: California, at 12.5 percent; South Carolina, 12.6 percent; Florida, 11.9 percent; North Carolina, 11.1 percent; and Georgia, 10.4 percent.

Michigan's unemployment rate is still the nation's highest, at 14.3 percent, followed by Nevada, with 13 percent and Rhode Island at 12.7 percent. South Carolina and California round out the top five.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US investigators launched a probe Tuesday into a runaway Toyota Prius in California, a high-profile case that threatens to undermine the Japanese automaker's effort to repair its battered image.

James Sikes, 61, says he was driving his 2008 Prius on a busy freeway outside San Diego on Monday when he noticed his car starting to accelerate of its own accord.

The California Highway Patrol said the terrified motorist was helpless as the car raced along the road at speeds of more than 140 kilometers (90 miles) per hour.

WASHINGTON – Economists believe that the federal budget deficit through the first five months of the budget year is running at a record-breaking pace, with the February imbalance likely to climb to the highest level this fiscal year.

Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect the deficit for February will hit $222 billion, up by $28.1 billion from the imbalance in February 2009. The Treasury Department is scheduled to release the February budget figures at 2 p.m. EST Wednesday.

If economists are correct about the big shortfall in February, it will push the deficit total since the budget year began last October to $653.14 billion, an increase of 10.7 percent from the deficit total for the first five months of the 2009 budget year.

NEW YORK – Following a brief pullback on Tuesday, oil prices jumped Wednesday after a government report showed that crude stockpiles grew less than analysts had predicted, raising hopes that demand for oil and gas is picking up.

Oil also got a boost from China, which reported surging trade figures — and from OPEC, which bumped up its global oil demand forecast for the year.

Benchmark crude for April delivery rose as high as $83.03 a barrel in morning trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, before moving back to $82.08, up 59 cents.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A former stock loan trader at Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Corp in New York received well over $100,000 of cash kickbacks by steering orders to other brokerage firms, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said in a lawsuit filed on Tuesday.

In a civil complaint filed in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, the SEC alleged that the trader, Salvatore Zangari, from March 2004 to December 2005 received the money from a Brooklyn-based finder, Clinton Management Ltd.

WASHINGTON – The House has passed a bill that would allow taxpayers to write off charitable donations to Chile earthquake relief efforts when they file their 2009 taxes this spring.

Under current law, donors would have to wait until next year, when they file their 2010 returns, to claim the deductions. The House bill would allow donations made by April 15 to be deducted on 2009 returns.

The House passed the bill Wednesday on a voice vote, with no opposition. It now goes to the Senate. Congress passed a similar bill for donations to Haiti quake victims made before the end of February. The bill would extend the deadline for Haiti donations until April 15 as well.

NEW YORK – Connecticut's attorney general sued Moody's Investors Service and Standard & Poor's over ratings the pair issued on risky investments.

In the civil lawsuit filed Wednesday, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal alleged Moody's and S&P knowingly assigned false ratings to complex investments that pushed the country into recession.

The suit, which Blumenthal called the first of its kind against ratings agencies, is being brought under Connecticut's unfair trade practices law. The attorney general is seeking penalties and fines that could reach into the hundreds of millions of dollars, he said.