Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, September 10, 1993                   TAG: 9309100363
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IN BUSINESS

WASHINGTON - Interest rates on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages fell this week for the sixth straight week to the lowest level in more than 25 years, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. said Thursday.

This week's average was 6.82 percent, lowest since May 1968 when they averaged 6.81 percent. Rates, which averaged 6.93 last week, dipped below 7 percent for the first time since 1968 on Aug. 26, when they fell to 6.97 percent.

On one-year adjustable rate mortgages, lenders were asking an average initial rate of 4.33 percent, the lowest since the corporation began tracking ARMs in 1984 and down from 4.40 percent last week.

Fifteen-year mortgages, an increasingly popular option for those refinancing mortgages, averaged 6.35 percent this week, down from 6.45 percent last week. - Associated Press

Heavy-truck sales roll to 14-year record

Heavy-truck sales soared to their highest August levels in 14 years, according to the American Automobile Manufacturers Association. Estimated sales of 13,463 heavy trucks soared 33 percent from a year before, pushing sales so far this year to 101,017 units, the trade group said.

The boom comes at a time of intense interest in the fallout from the Monday announcement of a merger between France's Renault group and AB Volvo of Sweden.

The merger raised the prospect of a heated race for market share from a combination of Renault-owned Mack Trucks Inc. with Volvo GM Heavy Truck Corp., based in Greensboro, N.C. Volvo GM operates a factory in Dublin.

- Journal of Commerce

About 470 to leave Philip Morris plant

RICHMOND - Philip Morris USA will lose nearly 470 employees at its south Richmond plant as part of an early retirement offer, the cigarette manufacturer said.

Three out of every four eligible employees at the plant took the offer and will leave the company by Sept. 30.

Last year, the company had 11,000 employees, but layoffs and early retirements will bring that number to 9,000 by the end of September. - Associated Press