Business Highlights

WASHINGTON — Sales of new homes, after falling for three months, rose in August. But the gain was expected to be temporary as the battered housing industry struggles with a near-record level of unsold homes.

The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that home sales increased by 4.1 percent last month, the best showing since an 8 percent increase last March.

But even with the increase, the median price of a new home fell to $237,000, a drop of 1.3 percent from August 2005. It was the first year-over-year price decline since late 2003.

Earlier, it was reported that sales of existing homes fell for a fifth straight month in August while the median price of an existing home dipped on a year-over-year basis for the first time in more than a decade. Also, construction of new homes and apartments plunged by 6 percent in August. Analysts were unimpressed with the August rise in new home sales, noting that it followed a sharp 7.5 percent drop in July and still left sales 17.4 percent below the pace of a year ago.

"August is just a blip. Housing is still headed down,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. "Everything still points to continued weakness in sales, construction and home prices.”

Many analysts said the government statistics understated the drop in new home prices because they don’t pick up heavy discounting that is under way as builders offer incentives such as kitchen upgrades and free landscaping to move unsold homes. The inventory of unsold homes did decline slightly to 568,000 houses, but that was still the second highest level on record after July’s backlog of 570,000 unsold homes.

Judge dismisses key part of AMD antitrust lawsuit against Intel

SAN JOSE — A federal judge dismissed a major portion of Advanced Micro Devices Inc.’s antitrust lawsuit against archrival Intel Corp., ruling that AMD cannot sue in the U.S. for Intel’s alleged monopolistic tactics overseas.

The judge also set a trial date of April 27, 2009 for AMD to argue that Intel forced major customers into exclusive deals and offered secret rebates to undercut AMD in the market for microprocessors that act as the brains of computers.

U.S. District Judge Joseph J. Farnan Jr. set the 2009 trial date Wednesday, a day after stripping a key component from AMD’s lawsuit, which alleges anticompetitive practices in several countries including Britain, Germany and Japan.

On Tuesday, the Delaware-based judge ruled that AMD failed to prove that Intel’s alleged strong-arm tactics abroad had "direct, substantial and foreseeable effects” on AMD’s operations in the United States. AMD said it would appeal the ruling.

Santa Clara-based Intel, the world’s largest computer chip maker, argued that AMD should not be able to sue in the U.S. for alleged lost sales of microprocessors that were made and sold in other countries. It also argued that part of AMD’s case should be dismissed because AMD was seeking redress abroad for "foreign commerce claims.”

AMD, which filed its lawsuit in June 2005, maintains that the market for microprocessors is global and that Intel’s conduct domestically and abroad are inextricably linked.<