Business News Roundup, Feb. 10

A strong holiday shipping season and a couple of favorable economic situations temporarily turned around the financial fortunes of the Postal Service, officials said Tuesday.

“Shipping and package revenue grew 13.5 percent over the same period last year, and was particularly strong during the holiday shipping season,” Postmaster General and Chief Executive Officer Megan Brennan said.

The first-quarter operating revenue for the Postal Service was $19.3 billion, an increase of $613 million, or 3.3 percent, over the same period in the previous year.

For the first time since 2004, drivers are expected to pay an average of less than $2 per gallon for gasoline, the government said Tuesday.

The Energy Information Administration said in its monthly short-term energy outlook that regular gasoline will average $1.98 per gallon nationwide in 2016.

The last time oil averaged less than $2 for a full year was 2004, which was also the last time gasoline at stations in some states fell below $1 a gallon.

The pump savings are a direct result of the 70 percent collapse in crude oil prices since mid-2014.

The International Energy Agency said the supply of oil is set to outpace demand again this year, keeping a lid on any expected price increases.

“If these numbers prove to be accurate, and with the market already awash in oil, it is very hard to see how oil prices can rise significantly in the short term,” the agency said.

The average round-trip U.S. airfare was $372 in the third quarter, the cheapest price for a ticket since 2010, the federal government said Tuesday.

Airlines have been passing along some of their fuel cost savings to consumers, and competition among airlines has also heated up as ultra low-cost carriers like Frontier and Spirit, which offer cheap seats with no amenities, give American, Delta and United a run for their money.

Sears keeps pruning its business in a years-long makeover, a bid to transform itself from a 123-year-old retail store into a nimble, 21st century operator.

While the quarter that contains the critical shopping season was better than the previous three quarters, overall same-store sales fell 9.2 percent in 2015, with Sears stores leading the decline.

“The holiday selling season proved to be challenging, with historically warm weather and intense competition pressuring margins and driving comparable store-sales declines,” the company said Tuesday.

Optimism about the economy by small-business owners slipped last month to a nearly two-year low as concerns about slowing growth led to projections for fewer sales, according to survey results released Tuesday.

“Most of the decline was accounted for by expected business conditions in the next six months and the expected real sales,” said William Dunkelberg, the group’s chief economist.

Survey results on business spending and hiring held fairly steady, he said.

A former business titan convicted in a notorious corporate fraud case is now board chairman of a nonprofit that helps ex-prisoners.

Kozlowski and another Tyco executive were convicted in 2005 of looting the security systems company of $600 million.

The trial featured tales of lavish spending, including a $6,000 shower curtain and a $2 million toga party on the Italian island of Sardinia in 2001 — complete with an ice sculpture of Michelangelo’s “David” urinating vodka.