Positive jobs report fails to lift stocks

January 7, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

The stock market offered a reminder Friday that even if the U.S. job market is improving, there’s plenty to worry about elsewhere in the world.

The unemployment rate fell in December to 8.5 percent, the lowest level in nearly three years. Yet stock indexes teetered between small gains and losses all day as traders fretted about Europe’s ongoing financial drama.

Italy’s borrowing costs spiked to dangerously high levels, and the euro fell to a 16-month low against the dollar. U.S. bank stocks fell on concerns that the debt crisis will spread through the financial industry.

Most European markets closed lower after new data showed economic sentiment and retail sales falling across the region. Unemployment is stuck at 10.3 percent in the 17 nations that use the euro.

Yahoo tempted new CEO with $27M pay

SAN FRANCISCO

Yahoo lured newly hired CEO Scott Thompson away from PayPal with a compensation package worth as much as $27 million.

The struggling Internet company disclosed the details about Thompson’s pay package in a regulatory filing late Friday. Thompson starts his new job Monday after spending the past four years running eBay Inc.’s PayPal service. Thompson’s deal includes a $1 million salary and a bonus of up to $2 million this year. He also will receive stock incentives valued at $22.5 million. The stock awards could be worth more or less, depending how Yahoo’s long-slumping shares fare under Thompson’s leadership.

Key weekend for NYC Opera talks

NEW YORK

The union representing New York City Opera’s chorus says it assumes it will be locked out by the troubled company if a labor agreement isn’t reached by the start of rehearsals Monday.

The national director of the American Guild of Musical Artists says Friday that it’s possible a deal could be reached to avoid a work stoppage. But, Alan Gordon says, the unions could decide to end talks today.

The company announced in May that it was leaving its home since 1966 at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts to perform at several venues. Its first opera of the season, Verdi’s “La Traviata,” is scheduled to open at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Feb. 12.

SEC changes policy

WASHINGTON

The Securities and Exchange Commission will stop letting companies and individuals say they “neither admit nor deny” wrongdoing in a civil case when they admit to related criminal charges.

A federal judge said he threw out a $285 million deal in November between the SEC and Citigroup in part because the SEC settlement said that. The change, which the SEC disclosed Friday, will take effect right away.

But it won’t apply to the Citigroup case — or to most SEC settlements. It will affect only SEC cases in which authorities such as the Justice Department file related criminal charges against a company or individual, and the company or person admits guilt in resolving the criminal charges. The SEC files only civil charges.

Associated Press