OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- Berkshire Hathaway Inc. reported an 8 percent decline in second-quarter profit Friday because it collected fewer insurance premiums and recorded $1 billion in unrealized derivative losses.

Billionaire Warren Buffett's company said it generated $2.9 billion in net income, or $1,859 per share, during the quarter that ended June 30. That's down from the $3.1 billion net income, or $2,018 per share, it reported in the same period a year ago.

The three analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial were expecting earnings per share of $1,370.33 on average.

Berkshire generated $30.1 billion in revenue during the second quarter, up from $27.3 billion last year.

Officials at Berkshire typically do not comment on quarterly earnings reports. A company spokeswoman did not immediately respond to messages left Friday afternoon.

The unrealized derivative losses Berkshire reported in the second quarter are down from the $1.67 billion the company reported in the first quarter. But Berkshire said in its news release that it doesn't think investors should pay much attention to the amount of derivative or investment gains or losses in any given quarter.

Buffett has said he believes the long-term derivative contracts Berkshire has written will ultimately be profitable.

Berkshire's derivatives fit into two major categories. Berkshire will have to pay on some of the contracts if

NEW YORK (AP) -- Cisco Systems Inc. said Tuesday that sales would be weaker than analysts had forecast in the next few quarters, but investors who had expected worse were cheered.

The world's largest maker of computer networking gear said orders would grow 8 percent in the current quarter, as customers, particularly telecom carriers, pinch their money.

Investors had been expecting the weak economy to catch up to the company. It's the dominant player in an industry that has been growing dramatically, but at the same time, its routers and switches are capital investments, the kind that suffer in an economic downturn.

Cisco shares were up $1.58, or 7 percent, at $24.25 in extended trading after the release of the results. The stock has slid from the year's high of $27.72 set June 5 as investors prepared for a weak forecast.

For the fiscal fourth quarter that ended July 25, Cisco reported earnings of $2.01 billion, or 33 cents per share. In the same period last year, Cisco earned $1.93 billion, or 31 cents per share.

Sales rose 10 percent to $10.4 billion.

Excluding one-time items, earnings were 40 cents per share. Analysts had expected Cisco to report earnings of 39 cents per share on $10.3 billion in revenue, according to a Thomson Financial poll.

Chief Financial Officer Frank Calderoni said the results, coming in "a quarter of somewhat uncertain

NEW YORK (AP) -- Oil traders sent crude prices tumbling as low as $118 a barrel Tuesday on the growing belief that a U.S. economic slowdown and high energy costs are curbing consumer demand for gasoline and other petroleum products.

Crude oil finished the day just above $119 a barrel -- its lowest settlement price since early May.

Crude's decline is giving Americans more relief at the pump. A gallon of regular gasoline on average fell another penny overnight to $3.871, according to auto club AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express. Gas prices have fallen four straight weeks for the first time since December; prices are off 5.9 percent from their July high as U.S. motorists cut back on their driving to save money.

A day after plunging as much as $5 a barrel in a dramatic sell-off, crude continued its downward trend. Gasoline and heating oil prices also fell, while natural gas ended unchanged after Monday's steep drop.

Light, sweet crude for September delivery fell $2.24 to settle at $119.17 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest close since May 2. During trading, the contract dipped to $118 -- nearly $30 below the trading high of $147.27 reached July 11.

"The market psychology has finally shifted," said Stephen Schork, an analyst and trader in Villanova, Pa.,

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Confronted by problems at every turn -- rising unemployment, shaky growth, credit troubles and creeping inflation -- the Federal Reserve left an important interest rate unchanged, taking a gamble that for now the best move was no move at all. The next direction for rates probably is up but that's not likely until next year.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and all but one of his central bank colleagues agreed Tuesday to leave its key rate alone at 2 percent for the second straight meeting.

In turn, the prime lending rate for millions of consumers and businesses remained at 5 percent. The prime rate applies to certain credit cards, home equity lines of credit and other lines.

"Although downside risks to growth remain, the upside risks to inflation are also of significant concern," the Fed said. Policymakers are faced with dueling problems: weak economic growth and advancing inflation. To treat one, risks aggravating the other. The Fed indicated Tuesday that each problem poses about equal risks to the economy.

It was welcome news to Wall Street, however, where stocks put in their best showing in months on relief that the Fed's assessment of the economy and inflation wasn't worse. The Dow Jones industrials closed up 331.62 points at 11,615.77, its biggest one-day point gain since April 1, when it kicked off the second quarter with a nearly 400 point rally.

Many economists believe the Fed will leave rates where they are at its next meeting on Sept. 16 and

Exchange-traded funds, which share the design of mutual funds but trade on exchanges like stocks, are no fad in the financial world. So far in the United States, ETFs have attracted more than $600 billion in assets. That's tiny compared with the $12 trillion invested in conventional mutual funds, but ETFs are gaining fans quickly.

Tom Lydon, president of the Newport Beach, Calif., firm Global Trends Investments, is one of a growing number of financial advisers who favor ETFs over mutual funds. Lydon, coauthor of a new book, iMoney: Profitable ETF Strategies for Every Investor, and a blogger at ETF Trends, says between 80 percent and 90 percent of his firm's clients now have pure ETF portfolios. Lydon recently spoke to U.S. News about why investors are gravitating to ETFs, where the industry is headed, and which funds to buy now. Excerpts:

Why choose an ETF over a mutual fund? We're seeing more and more investors make that choice, and the big reason is that many individual investors have lost faith and trust in the mutual-fund industry. After a big run-up in the 1990s and a big decline in 2000-02, many investors felt that the fund companies were going to take care of them. But when the S&P 500 declined 47 percent and the Nasdaq declined 75 percent, these mutual funds felt the pain as well.

During this time, investors were calling their fund companies, wanting to hear what their fund manger was doing, and some would say that they're thinking about making a move. Meanwhile, people at the funds were telling them not to time the market, to take a long-term perspective, and they were very much

DETROIT (AP) -- With another huge quarterly loss now in its rearview mirror, General Motors Corp. faces the ominous task of raising revenue by selling cars rather than trucks.

But even with plans to boost production of its hot-selling fuel-efficient models and cut output of unpopular trucks and sport utility vehicles, the company is running short on time if it keeps burning through more than $1 billion in cash every month.

GM on Friday reported a $15.5 billion second-quarter loss, the third-worst quarterly performance in its nearly 100-year history. Through the first half of the year it used up more than $7 billion in cash, including $3.6 billion from April through June.

Company officials seem optimistic that a combination of expense cuts, increased car production and the introduction of new vehicles will slow the cash burn and eventually return GM to the black. But they're still prepared for an economic downturn that could last until 2010.

"Ultimately we're going to have to grow the business in a tough market," conceded Chief Financial Officer Ray Young.

The third quarter didn't start well for the company. On Friday it reported July sales fell 26 percent compared with the same month last year as high gas prices continued to cut into pickup truck and SUV sales. U.S. sales overall fell 13 percent for the month.

The company couldn't produce enough small and midsize cars to meet demand in the first half, but that

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- Yahoo Inc.'s board emerged largely unscathed from the Internet company's annual meeting Friday as a subdued crowd of shareholders raised few questions about the directors' rejection of Microsoft Corp.'s $47.5 billion takeover bid.

Some shareholders expressed displeasure by opposing the re-election of Yahoo's current directors, but the resistance wasn't as intense as last year, when three directors were rejected by more than 30 percent of the vote.

In this year's balloting, only two directors -- Chairman Roy Bostock and Arthur Kern -- were opposed on ballots representing at least 20 percent of Yahoo shares. Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang, who steered the Microsoft negotiations with Bostock, was approved by 85 percent of the votes cast.

Many investors had already made an emphatic statement about their feelings by dumping their holdings in Yahoo shares. The company's stock price has fallen by 31 percent since Microsoft withdrew a takeover offer of $33 per share in early May.

Much of the drama was drained from Friday's meeting last month when Yahoo reached a truce with activist investor Carl Icahn, who had been campaigning to oust the company's entire board for spurning the Microsoft bid.

Icahn, who owns a 5 percent stake in Yahoo, will join the company's board next week and can't criticize

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Stores, factories and other businesses large and small showed workers the door last month, sending unemployment to its highest rate in four years and adding to the evidence an economic recovery remains far off.

Employers clamped down on hiring and cut 51,000 jobs in July, the Labor Department said Friday. The economy has shed jobs each month this year -- 463,000 in all.

The unemployment rate rose to 5.7 percent, up from 5.5 percent in June.

The jobs report contributed to another day of grim news for the economy. General Motors reported a staggering quarterly loss of more than $15 billion and said its sales fell by more than a quarter from last year.

The Commerce Department said spending on construction projects around the country dropped 0.4 percent in June as cutbacks in home building eclipsed gains in commercial construction.

And manufacturers' business was flat in July. The Institute for Supply Management's reading of activity from the producers of cars, airplanes, appliances and other goods hit 50, down from 50.2 in June. A reading above 50 signals growth.

Job losses in July were the heaviest in industries hard hit by the slow housing market, the clampdown on credit and the shaky financial sector. Manufacturers cut 35,000 jobs, construction companies 22,000 and

NEW YORK (AP) -- Oil prices pulled back Thursday, wiping out some gains from the previous day's $4 a barrel rally, as traders bet that a cooling U.S. economy will continue to eat into U.S. demand for fuel.

At the pump, easing prices underscored Americans' waning consumption of gasoline. The average price of a gallon of regular slipped 1.7 cents to $3.909, according auto club AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express.

Light, sweet crude for September delivery fell $2.69 to settle at $124.08 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, a day after the contract soared more than $4 in the biggest one-day jump in two weeks. Prices have now fallen in four of the last seven sessions and are 14 percent off their all-time trading high above $147, reached July 11.

The Commerce Department said U.S. gross domestic product rose just 1.9 percent in the second quarter despite government tax rebates aimed at jolting the economy. Economists had expected growth of 2.4 percent. The weak 1 percent GDP figure of the first three months of 2008 also was modified lower to 0.9 percent.

Meanwhile, a Labor Department report said the number of people seeking jobless benefits rose to the highest level in five years. Economists warned the weekly figures can be volatile and some dismissed them as an aberration, however.

Still, the poor readings rekindled fears of a recession, prompting energy traders to dump oil contracts on expectations that more belt-tightening lay ahead for Americans who are already skipping vacations, giving

NEW YORK (AP) -- In a sign that it may be finally turning its fortunes around, Motorola Inc. surprised investors Thursday by reporting a small profit for the second quarter and revealing it had shipped more cell phones than in the first quarter. Its shares soared.

The unexpected profit was the result of a sales increase across all units from the first quarter, helped by cost cuts. The company has laid off more than 10,000 workers since last year.

The Schaumburg, Ill.-based company earned $4 million, less than 1 cent per share, in the three months ended June 30. That includes accounting charges of 2 cents per share.

Analysts polled by Thomson Financial had been expecting a loss of 3 cents per share.

In the same quarter a year ago, Motorola lost $28 million, or 2 cents per share.

Its sales fell 7.4 percent to $8.1 billion, but that exceeded the $7.7 billion that analysts were predicting.

Motorola shares rose 96 cents, or 12.5 percent, to $8.64 Thursday.

The company shipped 28.1 million cell phones, up from 27 million in the first quarter, and said it maintained its share of the global handset market.

According to research firm IDC, Motorola's market share actually slipped slightly from 9.4 percent of the global market in the first quarter to 9.2 percent in the second, but the company narrowly maintained its