New CEO at Best Buy says he’ll tackle ‘showrooming’

Best Buy’s new CEO said Tuesday that its time for the struggling electronics chain to try to embrace one of its biggest problems, “showrooming” – when customers check out electronics at its stores and then buy them cheaper online.

Ten weeks into the job, CEO Hubert Joly and other Best Buy executives laid out plans to reverse the consumer electronics chain’s slumping sales and declining profit during an analysts’ meeting in New York, which was webcast.

This was the first chance for analysts to hear the plans Joly has for the company, which he laid out in detail, although he added that since he has only been on the job for a few weeks the plans are preliminary.

Most elements of the plan – cost cutting, rethinking store square footage, improving customer service in stores and creating a better experience online – have been discussed by Best Buy management for years, but Joly said he is putting plans in place he thinks will actually achieve results.

Trial opens on hedge fund manager’s inside trade case

A money manager the government says set a record by making $50 million on a single trade based on inside information went on trial Tuesday as a prosecutor promised to take jurors “into the world of hedge funds.”

Anthony Chiasson, a co-founder at former hedge fund group Level Global Investors, is standing trial on insider trading charges along with Todd Newman, a Needham, Mass., hedge fund portfolio manager. Lawyers for the men said they did nothing wrong, relying on research conducted by analysts that the government now says were corrupt.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Tarlowe said both men benefitted from a “corrupt chain of people who shared secret inside information” with one another.

He said Chiasson made about $50 million and Newman recorded a $2.8 million profit for his hedge fund when both learned that Dell Inc. was going to disappoint investors when it announced in the summer of 2008 that gross margins were lower than expected.

Home Depot surge keeps market from drastic drop

U.S. stocks closed lower after uneven trading Tuesday as fears about the “fiscal cliff” and Greece tipped major indexes between gains and losses. A surge in Home Depot’s stock prevented a steeper drop for the Dow Jones industrial average.

The Dow closed down closed down 58.90 points, or 0.5 percent, at 12,756.18. It would have been lower without support from Home Depot, whose stock jumped 3.6 percent after the big-box retailer beat expectations for its fiscal third-quarter earnings. Home Depot is benefiting from the gradual housing recovery and rebuilding efforts after Superstorm Sandy. Home Depot rose $2.22 to $63.38.

Stocks had opened lower after European leaders postponed the latest aid package for Greece. The Dow turned positive in the first hour of trading and rose solidly through the morning, gaining as much as 83 points. Starting around 2 p.m., the average slid steadily into the red.

Other indexes also closed lower. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index lost 5.50 points, or 0.4 percent, to 1,374.53. The Nasdaq composite index fell 20.37 points, or 0.7 percent, to 2,883.89.