The effects of the downturn in real estate markets nationwide reached the Lower Hudson Valley with a vengeance in February as sales of existing homes plunged in both Rockland and Westchester counties.  Rockland’s sales were down 38.6 percent as the median sales price declined 10.7 percent to $436,500 from $489,000. Sales in Westchester dropped 22.1 percent as [...]

Existing home sales fell across the Lower Hudson Valley and most of New York in November, putting more pressure on sellers to lower prices.

Steep sales declines of 22.2 percent in Putnam and 20.7 percent in Rockland coincided with decreases in median sales prices in both counties.

Putnam’s median fell 2.7 percent to $403,950 in November from [...]

IBM Corp. has boosted its quarterly dividend 33 percent to 40 cents and expanded its share-buyback program by $15 billion.

Both actions, announced this morning from Knoxville, Tenn., where IBM’s holdings its annual shareholders’ meeting, will increase the company’s earnings per share by 12 percent to 14 percent, the company estimated. The predicted gains exclude one-time [...]

The Journal News business staff is culling through its stories from 2006 for our annual look at the top local business stories of the year.

Want to help? Nominate the stories you remember and tell us why it belongs on our list.

We’re closing out the nominations Wednesday evening, Dec. 13.

Go to our forums to [...]

Armonk-based IBM Corp. has agreed to acquire Vallent Corp., a supplier of network performance monitoring and service management software.

Vallent, based in Bellevue, Wash., caters to wireless service providers and has more than 200 customers worldwide. The privately held company has 400 employees.

Terms of the deal, announced this morning by IBM, were not disclosed. [...]

Payments received in connection with its partnership with Wyeth helped lift revenues by more than 500 percent at Progenics Pharmaceuticals Inc. in the third quarter.

Progenics, a drug-development company based in Greenburgh, reported this morning that it had revenues of $17.8 million in the quarter, up from $2.77 million a year earlier.

The company had a net [...]

Rising interest rates contributed to a decline in third-quarter earnings at USB Holding Co. Inc., the parent company of Union State Bank.

USB, based in Orangeburg, said its net income fell 3.4 percent to $8.15 million from $8.43 million in last year’s third quarter, largely because of a decrease in net interest income.

The bank holding [...]