Business briefs for August 11, 2003

Monday, Aug. 11, 2003 | 11:06 a.m.

Greenspan expected to keep rates steady

WASHINGTON -- A key short-term interest rate is at a 45-year low, and Federal Reserve policy-makers are expected to keep it there when they meet Tuesday.

Fed officials, however, will certainly spend time discussing what, if anything, they can do to stop long-term rates from rising and derailing the economy.

Only this spring did Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and his colleagues draw praise for cleverly manipulating market expectations with talk of deflation, which is a sustained fall in prices.

Now, they are criticized for misleading the bond market and causing a big run-up in long-term rates over the past month.

For that reason, many analysts see the Fed meeting as an opportunity for the central bank to correct the botched signals.

Losses narrow for company

Cinema Ride Inc. of Studio City, Calif., announced a second-quarter loss of $353,113, or 6 cents a share.

The results marked an improvement over the second-quarter 2002 loss of $418,258, or 10 cents a share for the company, which owns and operates a motion simulator attraction at the Forum Shops at Caesars and sells discounted tickets to Las Vegas shows through its 50 percent-owned subsidiary, Tickets2Nite LLC.

Second-quarter revenue fell 20 percent to $455,728 for the quarter, down from $569,423 for the same 2002 quarter.