Business Page for January 14, 2010

BUSINESS PAGE - If you are fan of some of the biggest cars on the road, you might want to act fast before the last Hummers disappear. General Motors is ending production of the once popular Hummer H-3 model. While the American owned company will no longer be manufacturing the Hummer brand of vehicles, efforts are still underway to sell that line of vehicles to a Chinese company. A China  based maker of construction and industrial equipment hopes to move in the private vehicle market with the Hummer line in 2011 if the G-M brand sale goes through.
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 Home loan rates continued to decline in the latest figures released by the federal government. The average rate on a 30 fixed mortgage loan was five point zero six percent this week. That was a slight decline from the week before. Analysts say the mortgage rates continue to fall based on the yield of longer term yield treasury bonds. Falling mortgage rates are expected to give a boost to he housing market heading toward the spring.
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There was some disappointment with the retails sales numbers from December just released. Analysts had predicted a slight spike in consumer spending but instead, sales numbers were off slightly for the final month of two thousand and nine. High unemployment and job concerns were blamed for consumers keeping tight control over their holiday spending this year. Some analysts say these figures raise some questions about the durability of the economic comeback that has given a boost to the stock market in recent months.