Retailers

NEW YORK - Discount retailer Target Corp. said yesterday it will cut 9 percent of its headquarters staff, close a distribution center, and reduce planned store openings as it battles the weak economy. The staff cuts include 600 employees and 400 open positions, mostly in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota where it is based. The company plans to close its Little Rock, Ark., distribution center, which employs another 500 people, later this year. "We are clearly operating in an unprecedented economic environment that requires us to make some extremely difficult decisions to ensure Target...

Shares of some top specialty retail companies are up at 10 a.m.: Autozone Inc. rose $3.47 or .9 percent, to $372.87. Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. rose $.41 or .6 percent, to $72.88. Best Buy rose $.31 or 1.6 percent, to $19.13. Home Depot Inc. rose $.14 or .3 percent, to $49.85. Lowe's Cos. rose $.11 or .4 percent, to $27.21. OfficeMax rose $.04 or .8 percent, to $4.99. RadioShack rose $.07 or 1.3 percent, to $4.90. Staples rose $.01 or .1 percent, to $13.50.

NEW YORK -- Shares of J.C. Penney Co. Inc. and Saks Inc. each climbed more than 8 percent yesterday, fueled by published reports this week that both retailers could be selling their businesses. Penney shares surpassed their previous 52-week closing high of $48.98. Saks shares closed above their 52-week high of $17.92. Women's Wear Daily reported yesterday that Cerberus Capital Management LLP and the Carlyle Group are teaming up to make a bid for Penney, which is based in Plano, Texas.

Shares of some top department store retail companies are mixed at 1 p.m.: Kohl's Corp. rose $.79 or 1.6 percent, to $50.83. Macy's Inc. fell $.17 or .4 percent, to $37.86. Nordstrom rose $.46 or .9 percent, to $50.91. J.C. Penney Co. rose $.66 or 2.4 percent, to $27.97. Saks fell $.01 or .1 percent, to $10.25. Sears Holdings Corp. rose $.17 or .3 percent, to $56.76. TJX Companies rose $.05 or .1 percent, to $40.95.

WASHINGTON — US banks lost a Washington battle yesterday to delay the advent of lower “swipe fees’’ that merchants pay when customers use debit cards to settle their bills, a move hailed as a victory by retailers and consumer groups. The Senate refused to postpone next month’s rule reducing the invisible fees to 12 cents per transaction, bringing them down from as much as 44 cents. Banks expect to lose collectively up to $16 billion a year with the lower fees. Banks suffered the defeat despite an unexpected, 11th-hour plug from Representative Barney Frank, who coauthored...

NEW YORK - After a long weekend of battling crowds at the malls, the last thing most people want to do is go back to the stores after work to do more shopping. To make it easier for the bruised, battered, and otherwise shopped-out, retailers kicked off the official start to the online season, dubbed "Cyber Monday," with lots of come-ons to keep the cash registers ringing. With an overall holiday season that is expected to be the weakest since 2002, and the number of new online customers leveling off, Web retailers are dangling even more incentives to keep them...

NEW YORK - Oh, what a difference a weekend can make. Shoppers taking advantage of big discounts and earlier store hours during the start of the holiday shopping season last weekend helped boost retailers' revenue for the entire month of November. Retailers from Macy's to Costco reported monthly revenue that beat Wall Street estimates. The overall tally for the 21 retailers that reported revenue for November rose 3.2 percent, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers.

WASHINGTON - Ceding ground amid growing business opposition, the Obama administration has signaled a willingness to exempt retailers, real estate brokers, lawyers, and auto dealers from oversight of its proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Yesterday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told Congress he supports a plan by US Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, that would narrow the purview of the new consumer watchdog. His remarks all but guarantee that lawmakers will move ahead with financial oversight legislation that’s less...

NEW YORK -- The T-shirts and pajamas are meant to be funny, with cartoon captions like "Boys Are Stupid -- Throw Rocks at Them. " But some protesters, encouraged by a fathers-rights talk show host, are unamused and have pressured three retail chains into dropping the merchandise. The products in question -- an array of girls' clothes and accessories -- are manufactured or licensed by David & Goliath, a T-shirt company based in Clearwater, Fla. Its chief designer, Todd Goldman, has created a series of cartoonish graphics used on the merchandise with what he intended...

BRAINTREE — You can pretty much size up the state of the nation's big-box retailers by surveying The Marketplace at Braintree: They are shrinking. At the shopping center off Route 3, office supplier Staples has already shed about 2,500 square feet of unwanted space, leasing it to video game seller GameStop. Kmart is shaving roughly 11,000 square feet from its shell to make room for cosmetics seller Ulta Beauty. And the former Borders bookstore sits vacant in the corner of the complex, a symbol of the newretail order brought about by the Great Recession.

Burlington Town Meeting on Monday turned down a plan by the Gutierrez Co. to locate a Target store and a restaurant on land south of the interchange of routes 3 and 128. With opponent citing concerns about traffic impacts, Town Meeting voted, 72-39, to reject a zoning change sought by Gutierrez for the development. The vote came a week after selectmen approved agreements with Burlington-based Gutierrez and the state Department of Transportation that included commitments by the company and the state to carry out at least $3.2 million in improvements to the Middlesex Turnpike in the event the project went...

Companies that help their customers stretch a buck never really go out of style. But many retailers who do exactly that have never been more popular on Wall Street. Exhibit A: Shares of TJX Cos., the off-price retailer based in Framingham, closed yesterday at $57.59, just 22 cents off an all-time high achieved last Friday. The company, which owns two well-known chains - TJ Maxx and Marshalls - now boasts the fourth-largest stock market value of any public company in Massachusetts (behind just EMC Corp., Biogen Idec Inc., and American Tower Corp.)