Reno Gazette-Journal from Reno, Nevada • Page 18

16A Thursday, June 2, 1983 Gazette-Journal Major retail chains say May sales booming By The Associated Press The major retail chains today reported big increases in May sales, and the chairman of Sears, Roebuck and Co. said consumers were reacting to an improved economy. Separately, the Labor Department reported that first-time filings for unemployment benefits edged slightly higher in the third week of May. Even so, the number of filings has declined substantially from the start of the month. In Chicago, Sears said its sales in May were 6.3 percent higher than a year earlier, led by strong increases in sales of major appliances and home furnishings.

Edward R. Telling, the Sears chairman, said the increased sales of such goods was a reflection of improved economic conditions. Among the other big retailers, mart reported a 10.3 percent sales gain, F.W. Woolworth Co. was up 4.2 percent and Allied Stores was up 16 percent.

In its report on unemployment benefits, the Labor Department said first-time filings rose to 455,000 from 449,000 in the previous week. The latest week's total was nearly 30,000 less than in the first week of the month. Meanwhile, the Commerce Department said Wednesday that orders for manufactured goods rose 2.1 percent in April the fifth increase in the past six months. The department also said inventories held by factories rose 0.1 percent, a sign that manufacturers are expecting orders to continue rising in the months ahead. The inventory increase was the first since February 1982.

David Cross, an economist at the private economic research firm of Chase Econometrics, said the increase in new orders, following a 3.1 percent rise in March, "reinforces the recovery psychology among businesses" and "implies there will be some increase in production." The April gain included a 3.8 percent rise in durable goods those items expected to last three years or longer and a 0.5 percent increase for nondurable goods. In a separate report, the Commerce Department said construction spending in April was 0.4 percent higher than in March, marking the first monthly gain since January. Spending on private projects rose 1.8 1 percent and public project spending was down 4.8 percent. The reports appeared to have little effect on the financial markets, which had been rocked Tuesday by a new wave of worry that interest rates may begin rising. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrial stocks, which had lost almost 30 points in the previous three trading sessions, rose 2.23 points to 1,202.21.

8.8 percent interest rate on some GM, Ford lines Passenger traffic on rise at Reno Cannon airport Passengers through Reno Cannon International Airport totaled 228,869 in April, a 4.8 percent increase over April 1982. The increase was the third monthly gain this year. For the first four months, 920,701 passengers have used the airport, a 3.4 percent increase over the same period last year. The local increases are in line with those of other airports nationwide, said Rich Peacock, spokesman for the Airport Authority of Washoe County. Nevada Resources calls meeting Nevada Resources a local mineral exploration and development company, will hold its annual meeting at 3 p.m.

Friday in the community room of the Security Bank Building in downtown Reno. The firm, based in Reno, employs six professionals and contracts with others for services. Currently, it is conducting feasibility studies for the Yellow Cat gold mine in Millard County, Utah. The stock is traded on the Over-the-Counter exchange. Las Vegas casino buys Bingo Club LAS VEGAS (AP) The Pioneer Club in downtown Las Vegas has acquired the adjacent Club Bingo and plans to expand to a 15,000 square foot casino operation at a cost of $1 million.

Jackie Gaughan and Mel Exber, owners of Club Bingo since 1961, closed the operation at midnight Tuesday. Eighty people were thrown out of work. Gaughan said the Club Bingo was closed because it was not making money. The sales price was not disclosed. Pioneer Club owner William Richardson said he planned to expand his operation from 6,000 to 15,000 square feet with the addition of the Club Bingo property.

The Pioneer Club will operate 14 blackjack games, two craps tables, one roulette wheel and one keno game in addition to several hundred slot machines. Richardson said the $1 million expansion will take about 30 days to complete. At one time the Club Bingo was known as the Las Vegas Club. It was owned by Horseshoe Club founder Benny Binion and Tropicana Hotel founder J. Kell Houssels from 1939 to 1961 when it was sold to Exber and Gaughan.

Conrail looking more profitable WASHINGTON (AP) Conrail, the government-owned freight railroad, on Wednesday won a key agency's judgment that it could be profitable, a major step toward its being maintained as a single unit instead of broken up. The U.S. Railway Association, which administers public money that goes to Conrail, concluded that the railroad's cash flow is "sufficient to justify the determination that it will be a profitable carrier." As a result of the association's determination, the Transportation Department, which holds Conrail's stock, must continue to try to find a buyer for the entire railroad instead of breaking it up and selling it piecemeal. Conrail, which was a consistent money loser during the first four years of its existence despite government subsidies of $3.3 billion, earned a profit of $174 million last year despite a 26 percent drop in revenue because of the recession. Government schedules rice subsidy WASHINGTON (AP) Rice farmers will get nearly 40.3 million hundredweight of surplus rice in ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTC DETROIT (AP) General Motors Corp.

and Ford Motor Co. on Wednesday increased new sales incentives for most of their small cars and small trucks by offering 8.8 percent financing, replacing 9.9 percent financing programs that expired this week. The 8.8 percent financing through General Motors Acceptance Corp. applies to the Chevrolet Chevette, Cavalier and Citation; Pontiac 1000, 2000, and Phoenix; Oldsmobile Firenza and Omega; Buick Skyhawk and Skylark; Cadillac Cimarron and Chevrolet S-10 and GMC S-15 pickups, a GM statement said. The financing rate will rise to 9.9 percent on July 1 and that rate will expire on July 31, the GM statement said.

Buyers of the Chevette, Pontiac 1000, S-10 or S-15 who do not want to use the subsidized financing can receive a $300 rebate until the end of July, the statement said. "During April and May, 9.9 percent financing the lowest offered by GMAC in over 20 years contributed to the strong level of sales," said Robert D. Lund, GM vice president of sales and marketing. GM sales fell last year when the automaker dropped its 12.8 percent subsidized financing program. GM's daily sales rate of 15,361 cars in May 1982 fell to 9,964 in June after the financing program ended.

Ford will offer the 8.8 percent financing through Ford Credit on its Ford Escort, EXP and Ranger and Mercury Lynx and LN7 models until June 31, the automaker said. A second 9.9 percent financing program would run July 1-31 for those five models, a Ford statement said. Buyers of the new cars covered by the program who chose not to use the financing can receive a cash rebate of $400 for Escort and Lynx, $300 for Ranger and $500 for EXP and LN7 until the end of July, the automaker said. Ford said that from June 1-July 30, its LTD Crown Victoria, Grand Marquis, Tempo, Topaz, Bronco, Bronco II, Econoline and Club wagon will be available with 13.9 percent financing. Mustang and Capri buyers will receive 12.9 percent financing or a $500 cash rebate.

All other cars and light truck will be available for 12.9 percent financing, Ford said. "Improving consumer confidence and a continuing economic recovery indicate an increasing interest in new car purchase," Ford vice president for sales and operations Philip E. Benton said. "Everybody's going to have to do the same thing," independent analyst Arvid Jouppi said. "It has worked, it has kept the industry moving upward and I don't think the industry's going to make the same mistake it did last year." LAYOFFS: The Washington Public Power Supply nuclear plant No.

3 in Satsop, Wednesday layed off 1,250 workers and is in default on a $15.6 million payment. Struggling power plant lays off 1 ,250 Fed pushes for lower deficits SEATTLE (AP) The growing financial woes of the Washington Public Power Supply System, teetering on the edge of multibillion-dollar default, have reached into more pockets with the layoffs of 1,250 nuclear power plant construction workers. The pink slips went out late Tuesday, the day the supply system missed a $15.6 million monthly interest payment due to Chemical Bank, trustee for $2.25 billion in WPPSS construction bonds. Although Chemical had said it would formally declare WPPSS in default if the payment was missed, a judge had already blocked a default decree, at least for now. Chemical said it is considering an appeal.

WPPSS was formed in 1957 as the construction arm of a consortium of 88 public and private utilities in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. It originally planned to build five nuclear power plants to feed an expected rapid growth in electricity demand. However, the demand forecasts were reduced and the costs of financing the plants rose. Last year WPPSS canceled construction on two of the plants and mothballed a third, and last week it decided to temporarily halt work on one more. The fifth is near completion.

WPPSS' failure to make the payment will not prevent bond holders from receiving their semiannual interest, which is payable by Chemical on July 1. In New York, meanwhile, a major credit rating service suspended its rating on bonds issued to finance three of the five nuclear power projects originally planned by WPPSS. Moody's Investors Service Inc. said Wednesday it had undertaken a new review of the bonds' creditworthiness. Another rating service suspending its ratings on the bonds last month.

Steven J. Hueglin, executive vice president of Gabriele, Hueglin Cash-man a municipal securities firm in New York, said trading in WPPSS bonds is slow. "There are very few people who want to buy with the news as bad as it is, and very few people who want to sell with the price as bad as it is," Hueglin said. He estimated the price of some bonds issued to finance the two canceled power plants have fallen about $50 for each $1,000 in face value in the past week alone. On Friday, WPPSS' executive board decided to halt construction on the nuclear plant known as No.3 for three to five years because it could not raise more money to complete it.

WASHINGTON (AP) The vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board urged Congress on Wednesday to reduce budget deficits and warned that raising taxes to cut federal red ink could stiffle the fledgling recovery. "Raising taxes this early in a recovery is very risky, and I would rather not see that kind of measure enacted," Preston Martin told the House Banking subcommittee on domestic monetary policy. Martin's comment came in response to questions about Democratic proposals to eliminate or cap the third phase of President Reagan's federal income tax cut scheduled for July 1. Both the House and Senate have approved 1984 budget blueprints calling for between $9 billion and $30 billion in higher federal revenues. Both Martin and Silas Keehn, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, declined to discuss specific tax increase proposals in their official capacities.

As a private citizens, however, both men said they favored raising federal revenues by special taxes aimed at consumption rather than across-the-board general tax increases. exchange for reducing their acreage this year under the government's payment-in-kind program, the Agriculture Department said Wednesday. At recent farm prices, the rice would have a book value of about $8.12 per hundredweight or roughly $327 million. The rice will include grain directly from USDA-owned inventories and 1982-crop rice currently held by producers and their cooperatives under price support loan. By states, the PIK rice payments which will be made approximately at the normal time of harvest include: Arkansas, 13,599,740 hundredweight; California, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas, 6,928,523.

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