Arizona Republic du lieu suivant : Phoenix, Arizona • Page 78

Business TiiHAitiyovMUriniu: uh1 htiwo tiMUMfiiUH turn m0ney.a2ccntral.com FRIDAY SECTION 0 THURSDAY'S MARKET 110)10 I Arizona's jobless rate on rise once again 1 II, I'f A 1 t3 KUJtw J0.H0.00 I I TSm. 1 1 r-W) 2.046 59 J0 42 7 It 10 fS 2.000 I I I Ctw Out 400" Nvst Amn i y.n 617 44 i.si 891 06 t.0J LJJ ZhU 11 .908 39 1J.M ft? 641884 Torwto Srieti BWt)y''Tri Aiiwn Rrtxiilic Frank Marzullo (left) and his son Chris of Southwest Vending Sales are among the Valley's vending machine operators. M. i BoKa ARIZONA STOCKS One machine's profits A vending company typically earns about 11 cents a can from a soda machine in a high-activity location in the summer. Typical weekly sales for the machine are 10 cases, or 240 cans, for a total of $132.

Net profit for the week: $26.40. HonrywHI 3ti S6 0.0 1914 IS Amcnai W.t lOu'CI 0.10 MpT 29 107 Avnrt 21 70 010 RATIS Pfimf ralf 6 75 WC 30jjmort.ijjp 7 08 -0J3 CO 410 Money 310 3 month T-bill 3 44 0.02 6-month 3 41 0,01 T-note 5 10 0.01 30 year bond 5 53 O.OI 60-month cm loan 8 10 NC PWCES Crude oil 2470 Unled g.w (Ph) 1 527 Few riches are reaped in vending H) ll.il Mattcm Tlx Aiiimv Republic After two months of declines, Arizona's unemployment rote rose aain in June, and a state economist cautioned that more bad news mijjht be ahead as consumer spending slows. Arizona lost 36,100 jobs in June, pushinR the unemployment rate up slightly to 4.4 ptr" cent from May's 4.2 percent. The jobless rate in metropolitan Itioenix increased to 3.6 percent from 3.5 percent. Dan Anderson, research administrator for the state Department of Economic Security, attributed the increased unemployment to the seasonal loss of service and ed-ucation jobs and the continued slump in the technology industry.

"The high-tech manufacturing folks are kind of taking it on the chin," Anderson said. The rate of job growth, a key economic indicator, continued to slow significantly in June. For the second month in a row, more jobs were lost than were created, pulling the year-over-year rate of job growth down to just 1 percent. Arizona has experienced an average job growth rate of 4 to 5 percent a year for most of the past decade. There were some bright spots in the job picture last month.

The construction industry added 1,200 jobs because of the continued demand for housing in Arizona. And relatively strong consumer spending continued to prop up the local economy, resulting in 400 new jobs in department and apparel stores. "There is, however, increasing evidence beginning to show consumer spending, a significant factor in the economy, may eventually be or already is at risk," Anderson said. More listings. 03 Source: Associated Press.

bankrate.com. AAA azjcerrtralcom Get market updates today at money.azccrrtral.com BRIEFS LdAK Jjj-8 By I l.il M.iltorn The Arizona Republic Dazzled by the prospect of making easy money in the vending business, Richard McDugald invested $20,000 in soda and snack machines six years ago. He could just imagine opening them up every week and watching the coins spill out like quarters from a Las Vegas slot machine. But reality set in a few months later. "I went to a trade show to meet people and get ideas about the business, and I saw a guy in a pickup selling machines like mine for a quarter of the price I paid," McDugald said.

"My heart sank." It turned out that McDugald, like many people trying to break into the vending business, had purchased vastly overpriced machines from one of a number of companies that move around the country sponsoring seminars that promise easy money. Those promises rarely pan out. But unlike many others, McDugald stuck with it. And now, as co-owner of VendPro West, a Glendale business with eight employees and about 400 machines, he is successful, though he still isn't raking in the cash he originally expected. "It's not the road to riches," said McDugald, a member of the board of the Arizona Automatic Merchandising Council.

That's because the Phoenix-area vending business is highly competitive, with an estimated 800 mostly See RICHES Page D2 Jobless rates Seasonally adjusted I lie I 3.UT0 j- The U.S. trade deficit narrowed considerably in May, hitting its lowest point in 16 months as Americans cut back on purchases of foreign-made goods, from telecommunications equipment to toys. Exports rose. The Commerce Department reported Thursday that the trade imbalance shrank by 11.4 percent, to $28.3 billion, the lowest level since January 2000. Copper prices fell to a nearly two-year low, to 70.65 cents a pound, as slowing world economies reduce demand for building materials and manufactured goods.

U.S. building permits, an indicator of future construction, have fallen in four of the past five months, signaling weaker demand from copper's biggest market. Inventories monitored by the London Metal Exchange have surged 74 percent this year. INDEX Tony BustosThe Arizona Republic i 3.5 4 Arizona Z- 4.4 2-5 'V Metro Phoenix 3.6 2.0 Group's promise of fortune tainted JAS0NDJFMAMJ 2000 2001 Source: Arizona Department of Economic Security The Arizona Republic So says an invitation from Natural Choice USA, a Culver City, company that sponsors seminars around the country to entice people into entering the automatic merchandising, or vending machine, business. The company, which sells vending machines, is holding a series of seminars today through Sunday in Scotts-dale and has mailed invitations to the "select group" of people.

Natural Choice's mailing doesn't By Hal Mattern The Arizona Republic This weekend, a "select group" of Valley residents will be let in on a tip that can start them on the road to "fortune and freedom." It's "an amazing money-making opportunity a business that takes just a few hours a week, and starts filling your pockets with cash in as little as 60 days!" specify what it's selling or how much it charges, but people who have attended the seminars say the company sells a package of vending machines for about $18,000, minus a $1,150 rebate. They say such machines can be purchased used for a fraction of that cost. Dave Campbell, co-owner of Nothing New in Phoenix, which refur- See FORTUNE Page D2 Business in Brief D2 Dilbert D2 In Arizona D2 Real Estate Notes D2 Qwest COMING SATURDAY cut delays 0 I Macy's, Robinsons-May and Sears. It says it's 95 percent for June leased and producing $457 a square foot in sales compared Napster's demise spawns spinoffs lJ By Jonathan Sidener The Arizona Republic Qwest Communications In Autos ternational said Thursday that it left no homes or businesses without a telephone for more than a month in nine of 14 states where it provides local telephone service. Arizona was not among the BMW's best U.S.

sales So far, 2001 has been BMWs best sales year, eclipsing for the first time in June fellow luxury brands Lexus, Mercedes-Benz and Cadillac in overall sales. A new poll picks BMWs 3 Series as the best car or truck sold in the United States, in Autos, in Saturday's Republic, nine states, but Qwest has said it reduced the number of such Midscale Fiesta Mall up for sale By Glen Creno The Arizona Republic Fiesta Mall is shopping for a buyer but the Mesa shopping center says it's not due to the East Valley's bruising retail competition. The center near the Superstition Freeway on Alma School Road declined to say how much it's asking but confirmed it's been on the market for several months. Sheila Hunter, the mall's marketing director, said the institutional investors who own the mall want to rotate money from retail into other industries. "It's just like any other real-estate cycle," she said.

"You stay in a home for amount of years and you decide to sell it." The 1-million-square-foot mall is anchored by Dillard's, delays here to 27 in June from 70 in June of last year. New York Times The record industry's largely successful effort to cripple Napster, the online music site turned social phenomenon, has left it facing something potentially worse: a new generation of music-swapping sites, more numerous and much harder to police. Figures to be released today show that a precipitous drop in Napster's traffic over the past several weeks has been paralleled by explosive growth in less centralized services welcoming millions of Napster refugees. "Napster is probably dead," said Brian Itschner, to last year's national average of $261. Opened in 1979, Fiesta is the oldest of the East Valley's active regional malls and is under increasing pressure from newer properties.

It's bracketed by Superstition Springs Center in Mesa to the east and Tempe's Arizona Mills to the west. Chandler Fashion Center, another regional mall, opens in October. Hunter said Fiesta, which remodeled two years ago, has weathered competitive assaults before, seeing sales trough, then recover, after new malls opened. The mall is counting on its middle-market positioning to keep it vital while the Chandler mall chases more upscale shoppers. Judi Butterworth, first vice president of retail properties at CB Richard Ellis in Phoenix, said Fiesta has a reputation as a stable mall.

"Just because something's for sale doesn't mean something's wrong with property," she said. Six of the alternative services had 320,000 to 1.1 million users each in May, according to figures to be released today from Jupiter Media Me-trix, a Web traffic measuring service. Five of those services had little traffic or did not even exist in February. Those figures are consistent with those from other services that track Internet use. Last week, people initiated downloads of 1.1 million copies of software for the Music City service on a software clearinghouse offered by Cnet Networks on which hundreds of programs are available.

The program, called Morpheus, was the single most widely downloaded program on the site. The second most popular was also a file-exchange program, Audioga-laxy Satellite, with 977,000 downloads. LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION The company also announced Thursday that it plans to open a customer service center in Phoenix this summer. Qwest and its predecessor, US West, have not had a walk-in customer facility in the Phoenix area for at least seven years. The new customer center at 20 E.

Thomas Road is expected to open with about 150 employees. At peak staffing, the center could grow to approxi- See QWEST Page D2 -J imiiini-' 29, a law-office manager in Tampa, and former Napster user who has moved to Mu- CATHERINE REAGOR The Arizona Republic On assignment sicCity.com. "But it hasn't stopped this" free-music exchange movement..