Business Highlights

Wall Street closed narrowly mixed Monday as investors wrestled with record-high commodities prices and data that pointed to a continually weakening economy.

Rising commodities prices — although they threaten to eat into consumers' discretionary spending — encouraged Wall Street to pour money into energy, metals and mining companies. Crude oil surged to a record near $104 a barrel before settling up 61 cents at $102.45, while gold soared to a record near $1,000 an ounce. Silver, corn and soybean prices also hit all-time highs.

Mining and energy companies were big winners in the stock market Monday. Coeur d'Alene Mines Corp. rose 34 cents, or 7.1 percent, to $5.16; Harmony Gold Mining Ltd. rose $1.08, or 8.9 percent, to $13.22; and Massey Energy Co. rose $3.34, or 8.7 percent, to $41.60.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The price of oil gushed to a record high Monday, spreading dangerously to factories, groceries, gas stations and every citizen's pocketbook.

Builders are building less, the government reported. Manufacturers are cutting back, another report said. General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. said they would cut second-quarter production.

The galloping energy prices are doubly painful as the nation teeters on the edge of recession: High energy costs push companies to charge shoppers higher prices, then those consumers and businesses cut back in turn, dumping more cold water on the economy.

Oil prices marched past $103 a barrel Monday, the latest in a recent string of record-high oil prices, before settling at $102.45.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Construction spending took its biggest nosedive in 14 years and manufacturing activity contracted, fresh trouble signs for a struggling economy.

The Commerce Department reported Monday that construction spending plunged by 1.7 percent in January. Builders slashed spending on residential projects, but the weakness spread beyond that ailing sector. There were cutbacks in spending on, among other things, hotels and motels, highways and various projects by state and local governments.

Another report showed fallout from housing and credit problems cutting deeper into manufacturing.

The Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing index clocked in at 48.3 in February. That was the weakest reading in nearly five years. A reading above 50 indicates expansion. Anything below that shows contraction. Still, the reading was a bit better than the 48.1 that economists were forecasting.

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DETROIT (AP) — Automakers got hit where it hurts in February, with U.S. sales of their most profitable vehicles — trucks, sport utilities and large sedans — plunging as consumers reacted to high gas prices and the possible recession. General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. announced second-quarter production cuts in the face of the falling sales.

GM reported a sales decline of almost 13 percent for the month while Ford's sales slumped 7 percent, Chrysler's tumbled 8 percent and Toyota's fell 3 percent. It was expected to be a difficult month for automakers as consumer confidence continued to slide. Declines in home construction also have significantly weakened truck sales.

Honda Motor Co. bucked the trend, posting a 5 percent increase in U.S. sales as booming sales of its small cars and crossovers picked up the slack from its slumping Ridgeline pickup and luxury sedans. The subcompact Honda Fit saw sales jump 62 percent. Honda's sales were up nearly 2 percent for the first two months of the year.

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NEW ORLEANS (AP) — More than 44,000 people have signed up for shares of a $4.85 billion settlement over the withdrawn painkiller Vioxx, a sign that the deal is on track to go forward, Merck & Co. announced Monday.

Of roughly 47,000 people who registered for the settlement earlier this year, more than 44,000 have submitted all or some of the paperwork necessary for enrollment in the deal, Merck said in a news release.

People who enrolled in the settlement by this past Friday could be eligible to receive an interim payment later this year.

Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based Merck has said it will withdraw from the agreement unless at least 85 percent of people in different groups of claimants join in the settlement.

Those thresholds would be met — and exceed 93 percent of eligible claims in each of four key categories — if all of the more than 44,000 submissions are verified, the company said.

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NEW YORK (AP) — The dollar briefly fell to historic levels Monday on news that construction spending took its biggest nosedive in 14 years, extending a string of record lows for the U.S. currency.

The euro purchased as much as $1.5266 in New York trading, topping the previous intraday record of $1.5238 it hit Friday. The euro gave up some gains and was trading at $1.5192 later in the day.

The British pound fell to $1.9847 from $1.9883, while the dollar slid to 103.18 Japanese yen from 103.96 yen, trading near three-year lows.

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HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — ATM and ballot machine maker Diebold on Monday rejected a $2.63 billion takeover bid from United Technologies, saying the offer was inadequate.

The board of directors of the North Canton, Ohio-based Diebold Inc. urged its shareholders to take no action on the offer, even though it was about two-thirds more than its closing price Friday.

UTC, parent company of jet engine-maker Pratt & Whitney, Otis elevator and Sikorsky Aircraft, said it made the unsolicited offer after attempting to negotiate a deal with Diebold for two years.

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OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Billionaire Warren Buffett said Monday that the U.S. economy is essentially in a recession even if it hasn't met the technical definition of one yet.

Buffett said in an interview with cable network CNBC the reports he gets from the retail businesses his holding company owns show a significant slowdown in purchases.

The chairman and CEO of Omaha-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said millions of people have also lost equity in their homes because home prices have dropped.

Buffett said it's not clear how far the recession will go because that is difficult to predict.

The technical definition of a recession most economists use is two consecutive quarters of negative growth in the nation's gross domestic product.

On Thursday, the Commerce Department reported that the gross domestic product increased at a low 0.6 percent pace in the quarter that ended Dec. 31.

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Genesco Inc. announced on Monday it has agreed to end a legal battle to compel Finish Line Inc. and UBS AG to proceed with a proposed $1.5 billion buyout of the specialty retailer.

Genesco shares tumbled 17 percent on the announcement, while Finish Line shares rose 40 percent.

The proposed settlement, which must be approved by the companies' boards, would require UBS and Finish Line to pay Nashville-based Genesco $175 million in cash and 12 percent of Finish Line's outstanding common stock.

Both Genesco and Finish Line boards were scheduled to meet on Monday on whether to approve the settlement deal.

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BERLIN (AP) — Europe could see a new automobile and truck empire emerge after Porsche got clearance from its board Monday to take a majority stake in Volkswagen — just as VW said it would amass a controlling interest in Swedish truckmaker Scania.

The moves could put Porsche Automobil Holding SE — which owns Porsche AG and a nearly 31 percent stake in Volkswagen AG — in a position to also absorb a new commercial truck giant combining Scania with German truckmaker MAN AG, in which Volkswagen holds 29.9 percent.

Analysts said both deals boiled down to making money — lots of it.

Porsche has been steadily raising its stake in Volkswagen for more than a year and won a significant victory last year when the European Union's highest court ruled that the German government had to remove a cap on voting rights at VW.

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By The Associated Press

The Dow Jones industrial average — after slumping more than 100 points briefly during afternoon trading — finished down 7.49, or 0.06 percent, to 12,258.90.

Broader stock indicators were mixed. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 0.71, or 0.05 percent, to 1,331.34, while the Nasdaq composite index fell 12.88, or 0.57 percent, to 2,258.60.

Light, sweet crude for April delivery was sent past $103.76 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That's the level many analysts consider to be the true record high for oil, after its $38 barrel price from 1980 is translated into 2008 dollars.

Futures later retreated from that high to settle up 61 cents at $102.45 after Royal Dutch Shell PLC said it would resume oil shipments from Nigeria that had been disrupted by rebel attacks.

In other Nymex trading, April heating oil futures rose 3.39 cents to settle at $2.8408 a gallon, and April gasoline futures rose 0.21 cent to settle at $2.672 a gallon. April natural gas futures fell 2 cents to settle at $9.346 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, Brent crude futures rose 38 cents to settle at $100.48 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.