Business Briefing

Mortgage rates fall across board

Rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.26% this week, down from 6.37% last week and the lowest since the week of June 5, mortgage company Freddie Mac said.

Average rates on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, a popular refinancing option, dropped to 5.78% from 5.91%. Rates on five-year adjustable-rate mortgages fell to 5.80% from 5.82%, while one-year ARMs dropped to 5.10% from 5.17%.

These rates do not include add-on fees known as points. The nationwide fee for 30-year, 15-year, five-year and one-year mortgages all averaged 0.6 of a point this week.

State home sales slowest since ‘88

Housing data show the median price of a home in California plunged 31.5% in June, compared with the same month last year, as languishing properties began settling for less, a real estate tracking firm said.

DataQuick Information Systems said the median price for new and resale homes and condos stood at $328,000 last month, down from $479,000 in June 2007.

A total of 35,202 homes were sold statewide in June, down 8.1% from a year earlier and the lowest June number since DataQuick began tracking sales in 1988.

First-time jobless claims rise 18,000

The number of Americans filing first-time claims for unemployment benefits rose last week, reflecting a weakening labor market.

Initial jobless claims grew 18,000 to 366,000 in the week ended July 12, the Labor Department said.

Total benefit rolls declined to 3.122 million in the week ended July 5 from a 4 1/2 -year high the week before.

Jury clears J&J in Motrin lawsuit

Johnson & Johnson and its McNeil unit were cleared by a California jury of liability for injuries suffered by an 11-year-old girl whose allergic reaction to Children’s Motrin rendered her blind.

J&J failed to adequately warn of risks of contracting Stevens-Johnson syndrome, the disease that caused Sabrina Brierton Johnson’s blindness at age 7, the jury in Malibu found. Still, the lack of a warning wasn’t a factor in her blindness, the jury said.

Fremont loan unit can be acquired

Fremont General Corp., the bankrupt Brea financial services holding company, won a court order allowing its Fremont Investment & Loan to be acquired by a unit of CapitalSource Inc.

CapitalSource Bank will acquire a “substantial portion” of Fremont Investment & Loan’s assets, Fremont said. CapitalSource Bank will take over all of the bank’s branches and deposits, the companies said.

Fremont, once the nation’s fifth-largest subprime lender, listed $362 million in assets in a July 3 filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Santa Ana.

A spokesman didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment after business hours.

Amazon debuts streaming service

Amazon.com Inc. introduced a Web-based service that would allow customers to instantly watch movies and TV shows on their computer rather than wait for them to download.

A test version of the Video on Demand streaming service, which has more than 40,000 titles, was made available Wednesday to some users.

Customers of Amazon.com’s Unbox video service previously had to download films to their computers or TiVo digital video recorder.

From Times Wire Services