Finance news. My opinion.

Existing home sales climbed for the second month in a row in September, fueling some hope that a housing recovery is underway.

Sales of previously owned homes rose 10% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.53 million units last month, the National Association of Realtors reported Monday. That was up from a 4.12 million rate in August.

The report came in much stronger than expectations. Economists had forecast sales to edge up to an annual rate of 4.25 million units, according to consensus estimates from Briefing. com.

The gains of the past two months were welcome news, after home sales sank 27% to their lowest level in 15 years in July. While some economists say a housing recovery is underway, a foreclosure moratorium in October may have a negative impact on next month’s report.

"A housing recovery is taking place but will be choppy at times depending on the duration and impact of a foreclosure moratorium," Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said in a release. "But the overall direction should be a gradual rising trend in home sales, with buyers responding to historically low mortgage interest rates and very favorable affordability conditions."

While Tuesday’s report offered a glimmer of hope for housing, home sales remained 22% below this year’s peak in April, and 19% from a year earlier. The housing market peaked thanks to an $8,000 tax credit for first-time buyers, which has since expired.

But now, amid high unemployment and uncertainty about the economy, consumers just aren’t ready to take the plunge into home ownership, like they were a year ago, said Leif Thomson, chief executive of Mortgage Master Inc., a privately owned lending firm.

"Despite having unbelievably great interest rates and low housing prices, the housing market is stuck in the mud right now," he said.

The inventory of homes on the market edged down 1.9% in September to 4.04 million units, but that number is still "unbelievably high," Thomson said.

About 35% of homes sold during the month were in foreclosure, the Realtors said.

The median price of homes sold in September was $171,700, down 2.4% from a year earlier, the report showed. 

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One of Microsoft’s key visionary thinkers is making his exit.

Chief software architect Ray Ozzie is retiring from the company, chief executive Steve Ballmer said Monday in an e-mail to employees. Ozzie will stick around a bit longer to manage his transition, but will soon depart, and has no further job plans at this time.

The surprise move eliminates one of Microsoft’s highest profile leaders. Famed in tech circles for his role in creating Lotus Notes, Ozzie joined Microsoft as its chief technical officer in 2005, after the company acquired his collaboration software venture Groove Networks.

In 2006, Ozzie inherited the chief software architect role from the man it was created for: Bill Gates, who turned the reins over as part of his plan to relinquish day-to-day control of the software giant.

Ballmer said the company will not seek a replacement for Ozzie and will eliminate the chief software architect job.

Before he departs, Ozzie will focus his efforts on Microsoft’s entertainment business. That unit has struggled for years and underwent a management shakeup earlier this year, when leader Robbie Bach left the company.

"While Ray will be onboard for a while, I’d like to thank him today for his contributions to Microsoft," Ballmer said in the memo.

As chief software architect, Ozzie was responsible for driving key elements of Microsoft’s technical strategy, including its strategy for competing in the "cloud" computing arena of pervasively connected devices. His departure comes as Microsoft faces growing doubts about its positioning for the smartphone-driven for the future — and about its leadership.

"Since being at Microsoft, both through inspiration and impact he’s been instrumental in our transition toward a software world now centered on services," Ballmer said of Ozzie.  

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Verizon Wireless will begin selling Apple’s iPad at its 2,000 retail stores nationwide on Oct. 28, the companies announced Thursday.

The move ends AT&T’s (T, Fortune 500) exclusive grip as the U.S. wireless carrier for Apple’s wildly popular tablet, and potentially sets the stage for a broader partnership between Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) and Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500). The two are widely rumored to be preparing to bring Apple’s iPhone to Verizon’s network in early 2011.

Verizon Wireless will offer three iPad bundles, all featuring an iPad Wi-Fi model and a separate Verizon mobile hotspot device. The retail prices range from $630 for a 16 GB iPad to $830 for the 64 GB model.

Those prices match the cost of Apple’s WiFi + 3G iPads, which come with built-in 3G capabilities running over AT&T’s network. Stand-alone, Wi-Fi only iPads — which Verizon says it will also sell — begin at $500.

Customers could already run their Wi-Fi iPads over non-AT&T networks using hotspot external devices, like the one Verizon is selling as part of its iPad bundles. But the Verizon partnership marks the first time Apple has linked up to sell its devices with a U.S. wireless partner other than AT&T.

Verizon’s mobile hotspot comes with the added bonus of being able to connect up to five other devices.

There are a few drawbacks, though. The battery on Verizon’s mobile Wi-Fi device only lasts four hours, compared to the nine to 10 hours Apple estimates iPad users can get from their devices while surfing on Wi-Fi or 3G networks. And although Verizon’s smartphone data plans offer unlimited data use, the company isn’t being so generous with its iPad data cap. A monthly plan offering up to 1 GB of data will cost an additional $20. That compares to $15 on AT&T for a 250 MB data plan, or $25 for a 2 GB plan.

The new iPad rates are still cheaper, though, than Verizon’s current mobile plans for non-phone devices, which start at $40 for 250 MB a month.

Some experts think the competition will be good for consumers.

"Once Verizon starts to see a lot of uptick in iPad adoption, we’ll have a price war, which is good for consumers and corporations," said Laura DiDio, principal analyst with ITIC. "Apple is still giving AT&T a bit of a ‘favored nation’ status for a while, and it’ll be up to Verizon to sweeten the pot."

For Apple, it’s yet another brilliant marketing move.

"We’re thrilled to be working with Verizon Wireless to get iPad into the hands of even more customers this holiday season," Apple chief operating officer Tim Cook said in a prepared statement.

Following that bang with a whimper, AT&T announced Thursday that it too will start stocking iPads in its 2,200 retail stores on Oct. 28. The device will also be on shelves at Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500), Best Buy (BBY, Fortune 500) and Target (TGT, Fortune 500).

"Basically, Apple figured out a way for the carriers and stores to do the selling for it, which is very clever," noted DiDio. "Soon we’ll see it on every carrier, which will only fuel price wars and demand — everyone is going to want an iPad."

The tablet, which first hit the market in April, could get even more appealing when Apple updates to its next version.

Verizon and Apple are rumored to be working on an iPhone that would run on Verizon’s forthcoming 4G-LTE network, with broadband-like speeds. Now that Verizon is officially on board as an iPad partner, the next iteration of Apple’s tablet could have those same 4G capabilities baked in. 

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Google Inc. is part of a group that plans to build a $5 billion offshore wind power backbone that will run from New Jersey to Virginia.

Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Good Energies, a renewable energy investment firm, have agreed to take a 37.5 percent equity stake each in the project which will connect 6,000 megawatts of offshore wind turbines.

Google said on its official blog that the line can handle the equivalent of 60 percent of the wind energy that was installed in the entire country last year and enough to serve approximately 1.9 million households.

The initial investment in first phase construction alone works out to about $200 million each, Robert L. Mitchell, the CEO of Trans-Elect told the New York Times. The Maryland-based transmission-line company proposed the venture.

A Japanese trading company, Marubeni, has also taken a 10 percent stake. Construction is planned to start in 2013.

"We believe in investing in projects that make good business sense and further the development of renewable energy," Google said of its investment. "We’re willing to take calculated risks on early stage ideas and projects that can have dramatic impacts while offering attractive returns. This willingness to be ahead of the industry and invest in large scale innovative projects is core to our success as a company."

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Fifteen San Antonio stocks were up on Friday as the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 11,000.

Only two stocks were down at the end of trading on Oct. 8. The Dow rose 58 points, or 0.53 percent, to close at 11,006.

Harte-Hanks Inc. saw its stock rise more than 4 percent over the previous day’s trading. Harte-Hanks is a direct marketing, market research and shopper advertising company.

Friday’s closing tally:

• Abraxas Petroleum Corp.’s (NASDAQ: AXAS) — $3.03, up 1.34 percent.

• Alamo Group Inc.’s (NYSE: ALG) — $24, up 3.9 percent.

• Biglari Holdings Inc.’s (NYSE: BH) — $342.95, up 1.49 percent

• CC Media Holdings’ (Pink Sheets: CCMO) — $7.10, unchanged.

• Cullen/Frost Bankers Inc.’s (NYSE: CFR) — $53.58, down 0.09 percent.

• GlobalSCAPE Inc.’s (AMEX: GSB) — $2.50, down 3.85 percent.

• Harte-Hanks Inc.’s (NYSE: HHS) — $12.10, up 4.3 percent.

• Kinetic Concepts Inc.’s (NYSE: KCI) — $37.84, up 1.39 percent.

• NuStar Energy LP’s (NYSE: NS) — $64.14, up 0.52 percent.

• NuStar GP Holdings LLC’s (NYSE: NSH) — $34.22, up 0.62 percent.

• Pioneer Drilling Co.’s (AMEX: PDC) — $6.41, up 3.22 percent.

• Rackspace Hosting’s (NYSE: RAX) — $24.48, up 2.04 percent.

• Rush Enterprises’ (NASDAQ: RUSHA) — Class A stock closed at $15.07, up 1.82 percent.

• Rush Enterprises’ (NASDAQ: RUSHB) — Class B stock closed at $13.61, up 0.93 percent.

• Tesoro Corp.’s (NYSE: TSO) — $13.71, up 2.54 percent.

• U.S. Global Investors’ (NASDAQ: GROW) — $8.49, up 1.07 percent.

• Valero Energy Corp.’s (NYSE: VLO) — $17.89, up 1.25 percent.

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Hewlett-Packard named Léo Apotheker as its new chief executive on Thursday, ending nearly two months of speculation about who would take over for ousted CEO Mark Hurd.

Apotheker, the former CEO of business software firm SAP (SAP), will take the helm at HP (HPQ, Fortune 500) beginning November 1, the company said in a press release.

"Léo has been a leader in anticipating the transformation taking place in our industry, and we believe he is uniquely positioned to help accelerate HP’s strategy," Robert Ryan, an HP board member, said in a statement.

Apotheker worked at SAP for more than 20 years before leaving the German software giant in February. He was named co-CEO in April 2008 as part of a plan to transition management of SAP from Henning Kagermann, who was CEO at the time.

HP’s decision to name Apotheker was somewhat surprising because the company had been widely expected to appoint an internal candidate to the top spot. Todd Bradley, executive vice president of HP’s personal systems group, and Ann Livermore, of the company’s enterprise business, were among the leading contenders.

Brian Marshall, an analyst at Gleacher & Company, said Apotheker was low on the list of external candidates, behind executives such as Steven Mills, a vice president at IBM (IBM, Fortune 500) and Michael Capellas, the former CEO of Compaq.

"He’s definitely an outside choice, but there are positives to that," Marshall said. "The investment community has been somewhat frustrated with management at HP for some time."

The search took almost two months — about as long as HP took to replace former CEO Carly Fiorina, who stepped down in 2005 amid a corporate espionage scandal paydayloans.

Hurd resigned from his position of CEO and chairman of the board on Aug. 6 after the company found he submitted false expense reports to hide a relationship with a marketing contractor.

The contractor filed a sexual harassment claim against Hurd, which was settled privately. An internal investigation at HP cleared Hurd of breaching the company’s sexual harassment policy but found he violated HP’s standards of business conduct.

Cathie Lesjak, HP’s chief financial officer, had been acting as interim CEO since Hurd resigned. She took herself out of the running for the permanent CEO position.

The company also announced that Ray Lane, a managing director at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, as its non-executive chairman. Lane also used to work for software company Oracle (ORCL, Fortune 500) as its chief operating officer. Hurd is now Oracle’s co-president.

Marshall said both Apotheker and Lane have substantial experience in the software business, which could help HP compete with its main rival IBM.

"His software experience is going to be a tremendous help," he said of Apotheker.

Shares of HP were down 3% to $40.78 in extended trading after being halted briefly following the announcement. The stock fell 1.8% in active trading to close at $42.07. 

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DaVita Inc. said Friday it will offer $1.45 billion in senior notes with an eye toward refinancing existing debt.

The Denver-based kidney-dialysis company (NYSE: DVA) said it plans to use the notes proceeds, as well as some of the funds it plans to borrow under new credit facilities, to buy or redeem its outstanding 6-5/8 percent senior notes due 2013 and 7-1/4 percent senior subordinated notes due 2015. Those existing notes total $1.55 billion in principal.

DaVita recently announced a $3.35 billion plan to refinance debt that involves credit-line borrowings.

Here is a link to DaVita's press release announcing its notes offering: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20101001005346/en/DaVita-Announces-Offering-1.45-Billion-Senior-Notes

And here is its release concerning its tender offers for its existing notes: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20101001005343/en/DaVita-Commences-Cash-Tender-Offers-Consent-Solicitations

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