Business

The state Transportation Department has torpedoed a proposal for floating billboards on Lake Washington in Seattle.

The company's owner said he'll pursue other Seattle waters. However, the Seattle Times reports the city of Seattle says no deal.

With the Occupy Seattle protests having morphed into a movement targeting banks and companies that protesters believe do not live up to progressive ideals, the local protest movement self-dubbed “Working Washington” says it will be at Amazon’s annual shareholder meeting Thursday in force.

And, with continual protests focusing on its Seattle offices, as Seattle tech blog Geekwire reports, the company is warning protesters to stay off its property.

Facebook's much-publicized first sale of stock to the public started with a bang late this morning as the price per share jumped. But though the volume of shares sold was a record for an initial public offering, the stock's price gave up its gains as the day continued.

By the end of trading in the U.S., Facebook had settled right at the $38 initial offering price that had been set before shares went on sale.

Still, though the social media giant's stock didn't hold on to the gains it made immediately after going on the market, the interest from investors was obviously high.

As The New York Times' Deal Book blog wrote in late-afternoon:

"It was a bad strategy. It was badly executed."

The words of JPMorgan Chase's CEO, Jamie Dimon, as he admitted late yesterday that the investment bank — or, more precisely, a single "rogue trader" working for the bank, had lost some $2 billion in the last six weeks in risky hedge-fund trades.

The news has sent chills through the markets. Shares of JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank, lost 7 percent in after-hours trading and British bank Barclays lost 2.9 percent, while more than 2 percent was shaved from Royal Bank of Scotland.

NPR's Jim Zarroli reports, the trades at JPMorgan Chase:

Amazon will be having its annual shareholder meeting in Seattle on May 24 and Seattle area unions are gearing up. Today, they staged a protest in the plaza below Amazon's new headquarters buildings in the South Lake Union neighborhood.

It was something of a forerunner to a rally planned for the upcoming meeting.  Several union activists carried signs that read,

"Hello, Amazon, see you on May 24."

The number of cruise ships sailing to Alaska from Seattle remains down from the peak of two years ago.  In 2010, 223 ships made the trip.  This year, 202 ships will sail from Seattle.  It's a slight uptick from last year when 196 ships used Seattle as a homeport during the summer Alaska cruising season.

The Port of Seattle says  revenue from the cruise business remains strong .

NEW YORK — Facebook has set a price range of $28 to $35 for its initial public offering of stock.

At the high end, this could raise as much as $11.8 billion. That's much higher than any other Internet IPO in the past, even Google Inc. in 2004.

City leaders in Seattle are thankful there were no serious injuries yesterday – only property damage. Mayor Mike McGinn says he regrets the vandalism, but he says officer safety and the safety of bystanders were his highest priorities.

The mayor and his police chief held a show-and-tell news conference today to highlight the variety of weapons they confiscated during the May Day demonstrations.

Boeing workers in Washington hope the company will decide to build carbon-fiber composite wings for a bigger 777 in the state.