Caterpillar announced it will slash its workforce by 20, 000 as it
predicts the slowest business year since the end of World War 2.

Home Depot and Sprint Nextel to cut thousands of jobs.
Pfizer and Wyeth hook-up in $68 billion blockbuster drug deal.
Sales of previously owned homes rebounded in December, but prices did
not.
Conway Gittens reports from New York.

Caterpillar, the world's largest maker of heavy duty equipment, is swinging
the ax. Nearly 20,000 jobs are on the chopping block as the economic downturn
spreads around the globe. The cost cutting move comes after Caterpillar
announced a bigger-than-expected drop in fourth-quarter profits and predicted
this could be its slowest year since the end of World War 2.

The job cuts keep on coming. Do-it-yourself retailer Home Depot announced
it was reducing its workforce by 7,000. And up to 8,000 jobs will disappear
at troubled mobile service provider Sprint Nextel.

Pfizer confirms it is buying fellow drug maker Wyeth in a blockbuster deal
valued at $68 billion. Pfizer gets an additional revenue stream from Wyeth's
stable of consumer health care products as they both face looming patent
expirations on key drugs. But analysts say the bigger take-away is the fact
that Pfizer was able to get financing in the current environment; a positive
sign for dried-up merger activity.

Finally, some mixed news on the housing front. Existing home sales
experienced a surprise pop at the end of 2008. But prices dropped over 15
percent on an annual basis, the largest drop since the National Association of
Realtors began keeping track in 1968.

Conway Gittens, Reuters