Anxiety

...ba href=/anxiety/a/b about rates, Wall Street was heartened by the consumer confidence report.The Fed has been raising rates steadily since June 2004 under a program begun by Bernanke's predecessor, Alan Greenspan.

Since that time, the benchmark federal funds rate, the interest that banks charge each other for overnight loans, has risen from 1 percent to the current level of 4.5 percent.Oil futures were trading sharply higher following the threat of a strike in Norway, where production is already down.

Oil was trading up $1.59 a barrel at $65.75 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.General Motors Corp.

announced another round of layoffs Tuesday, but fter initially falling its shares edged up 20 cents to $23.13.

The move, affecting several hundred salaried workers, follows last week's announcement of buyout offers to more than 100,000 hourly workers.Tiffany & Co.

fell 18 cents to $38.33 after the high-end jewelry retail reported earnings that were well below the same level a year ago.Level 3 Communications Inc.

jumped 75 cents or 16.7 percent to $5.22 after the network operator raised its estimated quarterly operating income target to a range of $140 million to $150 million from a prior level of $105 million to $125 million.Drug maker Eli Lilly & Co.

fell $2.33 or 4 percent to $56.34 as two analysts downgraded the company.

One said Lilly was under pressure from sluggish growth at some of its major products; a poor late-stage pipeline for new drugs and competition in drugs for diabetes and d...

...ba href=/anxiety/a/b about the next hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico.

Some analysts believe gasoline prices could climb as high as $3 a gallon this summer, though that assumes some significant disruptions at refineries or difficulty in getting fuel to markets.

Dow Jones Newswires reported Tuesday that Norway's largest private industry union, Fellesforbundet, threatened to strike on Saturday if there is no settlement with the Federation of Norwegian Industries over pensions and wages.

The strike would affect 38,000 members in the manufacturing industry, including Norway's shipyards, engineering industry and manufacturing for offshore oil and gas projects.

The strike would not affect offshore oil and gas production, Dow Jones said.

On Monday, militants in Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta released their last remaining foreign hostages - two Americans and one Briton - more than five weeks after the oil industry workers were kidnapped.

The militants took nine foreign oil workers hostage Feb.

18 from a barge owned by Houston-based oil services company Willbros Group Inc., which was laying pipeline in the delta for Royal Dutch Shell PLC.

The group released six of the captives after 12 days in captivity.

The militants are behind a spate of attacks that have cut Nigeria's oil exports by more than 20 percent.

On Saturday, they said they killed three soldiers in clashes near a key natural gas plant run by Shell.

Shell said there was no impact on the gas plant.

Iran, the No.

2 oil producer in ...

...ba href=/anxiety/a/b about the next hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico, were expected to limit any price decline.

Some analysts believe gasoline prices could climb as high as $3 a gallon this summer, though that assumes some significant disruptions at refineries or difficulty in getting fuel to markets.

On Monday, militants in Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta released their last remaining foreign hostages - two Americans and one Briton - more than five weeks after the oil-industry workers were kidnapped.

The militants took nine foreign oil workers hostage Feb.

18 from a barge owned by Houston-based oil services company Willbros Group Inc., which was laying pipeline in the delta for Royal Dutch Shell PLC.

The group released six of the captives after 12 days in captivity.

The militants are behind a spate of attacks that have cut Nigeria's oil exports by more than 20 percent.

On Saturday, they said they killed three soldiers in clashes near a key natural gas plant run by Shell.

Shell said there was no impact on the gas plant.

Iran, the No.

2 oil producer in OPEC, also remains a potential source of concern.

It has been referred to the U.N.

Security Council over fears it may want to misuse its nuclear program to make weapons, but the council has been at loggerheads over U.S.-led efforts to ratchet up the pressure on Tehran.

March 28, 2006 11:26 AM Story Options: Print this story Email a friend ©2006 Copyright Calkins Media, Inc.

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