Harold Maass of The Week The Best of Today's Business

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Home builders, too, struggle in down market

Home builders are having as bad a time as homeowners, or worse, as tightening credit and the slumping housing market are threatening to sink small builders and gouge larger publicly traded ones. "It's impossible to build anything today at a profit, so builders are either taking losses or have pretty much stopped building," said Mick Pattinson, CEO of California builder Barratt American. (Los Angeles Times) The housing industry generally, and some home builders, stands to benefit from a massive housing bill, passed by the House yesterday, that is expected to become law next week. The bill is designed to prop up the market, but also includes $3.9 billion to help cities buy and fix up foreclosed homes. (The Washington Post)

Amazon profits from online buying shift

Web retailer Amazon said its second quarter profit doubled, to $158 million, as its revenue rose 41 percent, to $4.06 billion, topping analysts' expectations. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said high gas prices probably gave Amazon a "relative advantage" over brick-and-mortar retailers. "Even just driving 10 miles these days is a few dollars worth of gasoline," he said. (AP in Yahoo! Finance) The earnings were boosted by a $53 million sale of Amazon's European DVD rental business. Still, Internet sales at chain stores like J.C. Penney and the Gap have shown similarly strong growth. "Amazon's growth is fueled by behavior shifts rather than consumer-spending shifts," said analyst Scott Tilghman at Soleil Securities. (Bloomberg)

Credit Suisse beats estimates

Credit Suisse, the No. 2 Swiss bank, reported a 62 percent drop in quarterly profit, to $1.18 billion. Analysts had been expecting a profit of about $300 million, though, and Credit Suisse shares rose in early Swiss trading. (MarketWatch) Strong results from its wealth management business, a return to profitability in its securities unit, and a paltry $21 million in net writedowns helped keep Credit Suisse profitable. "Credit Suisse has been able to cut risky positions a bit faster than probably the average in the sector," said Guy de Blonay at New Star Asset Management. Of the other major banks that have reported so far, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan posted profits; Citigroup lost $2.5 billion. (Bloomberg)

Seeking inner peace amid market chaos

As the markets stay turbulent, a growing number of bankers, traders, and money managers are looking for moments of peace in the ancient Indian discipline of yoga. Several firms in London and New York now host yoga classes for employees during work hours, and Pimco bond guru Bill Gross says he gets some of his best ideas while standing on his head, in the sirsasana pose, during his daily yoga sessions. Many financiers say that yoga helps them deal with the stress of the market and the job. But while this trend is profitable for some yoga instructors, others see an inherent conflict. Finance "is the antithesis of what yoga is about in terms of inner peace," says London-based yoga teacher Claire Missingham. (The Wall Street Journal)

BEST COLUMNS OF THE DAY

Banks raid the family jewels

U.S. banks have tapped deep-pocketed foreign investors, and burned them with losses, to make up for steep writedowns, says Daniel Gross in Slate. They have little choice now but to sell "the family jewels" -- often "extremely valuable hard assets that have been passed down from generation to generation." In the past week, E-Trade sold off its Canadian subsidiary, Merrill Lynch sold its 23-year-old stake in Bloomberg, and SunTrust said it will unload its 90-year-old stake in Coca-Cola. With several regional banks facing similar repeat losses, there's probably "more heirloom-hocking to come."

Cheap oil's mixed blessing

"Obviously, the soaring cost of energy is causing plenty of pain for Americans," says John Carey in BusinessWeek.com, but it could make them better off in the long run. The discomfort belies "a deeper truth: Expensive energy, in many ways, is good." We are starting to see benefits in everything from rising efficiency to lower obesity. The U.S. made similar gains after the tough medicine of high oil in the 1970s, but much of that good was lost over the following two decades of too-cheap oil, which just encouraged bad choices. Cheap oil has its upsides, but they come with a hidden price.

GOOD DAY FOR: Two million workers, as the federal minimum wage rises 70 cents today, to $6.55, its first increase since 1997. (CNNMoney.com) The minimum wage is now about a third of the average U.S. wage; it was about half the average wage in the 1950s and 60s. Some 2 million workers will be affected by the increase. (The Atlanta Journal Constitution)

BAD DAY FOR: U.S. bragging rights, after Toyota said it sold 4.8 million cars and trucks worldwide in the first half of 2008, trouncing General Motors, which sold 4.54 million. Both automakers have been dented by the sagging U.S. market, but Toyota has weathered the shift to smaller cars more successfully. Toyota is well on its way to dethroning GM from its 70-plus years as the world's top auto seller this year. (MarketWatch)

NOTED: Nokia and chipmaker Qualcomm settled a patent dispute, hours after their lawsuit was scheduled to go to trial. The two companies said they had reached a 15-year licensing deal in which Nokia will pay undisclosed royalties to Qualcomm for technology that improves cell phone batteries and performance. That could mean $400 million in royalties for Qualcomm next year, said American Technology Research analyst Mark McKechnie. With all lawsuits dropped, he added, the deal is "probably a smart move for Nokia, but a lucrative move for Qualcomm." (The New York Times)

This column was written by Peter Weber and edited by Harold Maass of TheWeekDaily.com.