FedEx nixes holiday surcharges

FedEx will skip special charges for most packages shipped during the holiday season this year as it seeks to undercut rival UPS in a fight for a larger share of the millions of items now bought online.

FedEx Corp. said Thursday that it won’t charge extra for peak-season residential deliveries unless the package requires extra handling, such as for very large items.

On an average day, FedEx delivers more than 12 million packages to businesses and homes, but that can jump to 25 million on peak days in December.

Jobless aid requests decline

Fewer Americans applied for jobless aid last week, keeping the number of people seeking benefits close to historic lows.

Weekly unemployment applications fell by 5,000 to 240,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. The less volatile four-week average declined 2,500 to 241,750. The number of people collecting unemployment benefits has fallen 8.6 percent over the past 12 months to about 2 million.

The job market appears solid as the U.S. enters its ninth year of recovery from the Great Recession. Employers are holding onto workers with the expectation that business will continue to improve. Jobless claims — a close indication of layoffs — have come in below 300,000 for 126 weeks in a row. That’s the longest such stretch since 1970, when the U.S. population was much smaller.

Dunkin’ without the ‘Donuts’?

Dunkin’ is thinking about dumping “Donuts” from its name.

A new location of the chain in Pasadena, California, will be simply called Dunkin’, a move that parent company Dunkin’ Brands Inc. calls a test. The Canton, Massachusetts-based company said Thursday that a few other stores will get the one-name treatment, too.

The chain wants people to think of its stores as a destination for coffee, although it will still sell doughnuts. Dunkin’ Donuts said it won’t make a decision on whether it will change its name until late next year, when it expects to start redesigning stores.

Average mortgage rates steady

Long-term mortgage rates were little changed this week after declining for two straight weeks.

Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the rate on 30-year, fixedrate mortgages inched up to 3.93 percent from 3.92 percent last week. While historically low, that’s still above last year’s

U.S. services firms grew last month at the slowest pace since August 2016, a performance consistent with only modest economic growth.

The Institute for Supply Management said Thursday that its services index slipped in July to 53.9 from June’s 57.4. It was the lowest reading since the index registered 51.7 in August 2016. Still, anything above 50 signals growth, and American services companies are on a 91-month winning streak.

Production, new orders, hiring and export orders all grew more slowly in July.

The index came in lower than economists had expected and below the 55.9 average over the past 12 months. Anthony Nieves, chairman of ISM’s services