REAL ESTATE

HOME SALES SLOW IN JULY

Sales of previously owned homes dropped 2.6% in July as mortgage rates crept up. But even with the decline, sales clocked in at the third-highest level on record. The latest snapshot of housing activity, released by the National Association of Realtors yesterday, suggested that the sizzling housing market may be cooling a bit but nonetheless remains in healthy shape. The 2.6% decline from the previous month pushed sales down in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 7.16 million units. “This is a big number any way you slice it, and housing is continuing to stimulate the overall economy,” the association’s chief economist, David Lereah, said.

– Associated Press

RETAIL

WAL-MART SEEKS TO UPGRADE ITS IMAGE WITH ADVERTISEMENTS IN VOGUE

Wal-Mart is advertising in Vogue magazine to polish its image and attract upscale shoppers.

The eight pages of ads in the September issue feature women, including an art professor, a fund-raiser, and a stay-at-home mom, offering testimonials about Wal-Mart’s apparel, a Vogue spokeswoman, Elissa Lumley, said.

The ads may have cost about $800,000, according to Vogue’s Web site, and are part of an agreement in which Wal-Mart will buy 68 pages of ads over two years.

Wal-Mart is seeking to transform its image as a discounter after rival Target spurred sales growth by offering exclusive products by designers including Michael Graves.

Target bought all the ads in last week’s issue of the New Yorker.

– Bloomberg News

IN BRIEF

A plan for Goldman Sachs to build a 40-story headquarters across from ground zero can go forward after the Battery Park City Authority approved a lease yesterday for the $2 billion project that includes tax breaks and $1.6 billion of low-cost loans … A former Kmart CEO, Charles Conaway, and the retailer’s ex-chief financial officer misled investors about finances before a 2002 bankruptcy, regulators said in a lawsuit filed yesterday … Anheuser-Busch settled a lawsuit brought by the family of the late baseball home-run king Roger Maris, which accused the world’s largest brewer of defaming the reputation of the Maris beer distributorship … Canada may impose tariffs on some goods in retaliation for the decision by America to ignore a trade-panel ruling linked to a softwood-lumber dispute … A joint venture between General Electric and Rolls-Royce has won a $2.47 billion contract to develop an engine for the military’s next-generation stealth jet fighter … Gap will open its first Forth & Towne store today, launching a chain for women aged 35 and older as the company tries to reverse declining sales … Verizon will team with Yahoo to offer a lower-priced fast Internet service … Saks said the president and chief executive of its department store group, George Jones, is resigning … The three largest American accounting firms ordered their partners not to poach clients or personnel from KPMG while it is under federal scrutiny for allegedly selling abusive tax shelters … The White House nominated Thomas Barnett as assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s antitrust office yesterday …The jailed former chief executive of Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, started a hunger strike to protest the solitary confinement of his business partner, Platon Lebedev.

– Bloomberg News, Dow Jones Newswires, and Associated Press