Local Miracle Ear centers get top honor

Miracle-Ear Centers in Cape Girardeau, Perryville and Farmington, were honored as the No. 1 small franchise in the Miracle-Ear franchise system, the company announced recently.

The designation of membership in the Miracle-Ear Platinum Club is recognition of a local franchise as the best of the best in market penetration, customer satisfaction and franchise administration, the company said.

The offices in Cape Girar-deau, Perryville and Farmington have been in operation more than 14 years with new satellite offices in the Jackson Medical Center and Ste. Genevieve Memorial Hospital. Rural communities are served by monthly service centers located in Arcadia, Fredericktown, Marble Hill and Chaffee.

Two local companies among 'most admired'

Manpower and Northwestern Mutual have again been included among "Fortune Magazine's" list of America's most admired companies, according to the March 4 edition of the magazine.

Manpower was the highest-ranked full-service firm in three key areas including social responsibility, innovation and management quality.

"We are very proud to be consistently ranked in Fortune's annual survey," said Peggy Gates, Cape Girardeau district manager.

Northwestern Mutual has been ranked first in its category since 1983. Kimberly Clark and Northwestern Mutual are the only two companies that have led their categories throughout the history of the survey.

"This survey began 20 years ago and we continue to be recognized as No. 1 year after year for the expert guidance and financial solutions our financial representatives and specialists provide our clients," said district agent Ron Hahs.

The winners were chosen from the 1,000 largest U.S. companies ranked by revenue. More than 10,000 executives, directors and securities analysts rated companies in 58 industries.

U.S. workers rush to online news sites

With much of the nation tracking developments in Israel and Afghanistan, traffic to major online news dailies surged last week, according to Internet audience measurement service Nielsen/NetRatings.

ChicagoTribune.com claimed the top spot as the fastest growing online newspaper during the week ending March 31, attracting 479,000 unique visitors from those Web viewers logging on at work.

The site gained a 65 percent in traffic from the previous week.

Following closely at No. 2, NYPost.com soared 59 percent, drawing 817,000 office workers to their site. Another New York daily, NYTimes.com jumped 24 percent to more than 2.2 million surfers.

Rounding out the list, WSJ.com recorded a 22 percent increase to 399,000 visitors, while LATimes.com rose 21 percent to 618,000.

Yahoo! posts loss but beats revenue forecast

Yahoo! Inc. posted a net loss for the sixth quarter in a row last week, but beat revenue forecasts and said its turnaround plan remains on track as it aims to tap new sources of revenue beyond advertising.

In the first three months of the year, Yahoo lost $53.6 million, or 9 cents per share, on $192.7 million in revenue. In the first quarter of 2001, the Sunnyvale-based company lost $11.5 million, or 2 cents per share, on sales of $180.2 million.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial/First Call were expecting 2 cents per share, though Yahoo blew past the revenue forecast of $175 million.

Sears sales surges 6 percent last week

Shares in Sears, Roebuck and Co. surged 6 percent last week, closing at its highest level since July 1998, after the retailer reported preliminary first-quarter profits far exceeding Wall Street's estimates.

While describing sales as still "soft," Sears said estimated operating earnings for the quarter more than doubled from a year ago thanks to improved profit margins and lower operating costs.

It pegged earnings, excluding non-comparable items, at 93 cents a share -- up from 45 cents in the first quarter of 2001 and well above analysts' consensus estimate of 61 cents.

-- From staff, wire reports