IN BRIEF

Boyd Gaming Corp., the owner of 16 U.S. casinos, advanced the most in two weeks in New York trading after an analyst raised his rating on the company.

Dennis Forst, of KeyBanc Capital Markets in Century City, Calif., changed his rating on the shares to “hold” from “sell.”

After falling 25 percent in seven weeks, Boyd’s shares are “roughly in-line with our expectations,” Forst wrote Friday in a note.

Boyd, based in Las Vegas, rose $1.02, or 5.8 percent, to close at $18.62 on the New York Stock Exchange, the biggest gain since April 1.

CHICAGO

Strong sales stoke rise in Caterpillar’s profits

Caterpillar parlayed an increased reliance on international markets to surprisingly strong sales and a 13 percent jump in first-quarter profits.

Caterpillar earned $922 million, or $1.45 per share, in the January-March period, compared with $816 million, or $1.23 per share, a year earlier. That blew past the $1.33-per-share estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.

Revenue rose 18 percent to $11.8 billion, up from $10.02 billion a year earlier. Of that, $10.98 billion came from machinery and engines sales and $817 million from financial products.

Court says agency must rethink wind farm idea

A federal appeals court says the Federal Aviation Administration has to reconsider allowing a wind farm atop a mountain near the planned Ivanpah airport in Southern Nevada.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia issued a ruling Friday upholding Clark County’s challenge of an FAA finding that 83 electricity-generating turbines atop Table Mountain wouldn’t obstruct air space or disrupt radar systems.

Clark County alleged the FAA failed to follow proper administrative procedures, didn’t conduct open hearings and disregarded a county consultant’s study that the 400-foot tall turbines might threaten aviation safety.

There’s no immediate comment from the FAA and county officials.

The wind turbine site is about 10 miles from the proposed airport, some 30 miles south of Las Vegas near the California-Nevada state line. The county plans to build and open the new regional airport by 2017.

CARSON CITY

Former politicians join fight against tax push

Nevada’s casino industry is getting a hand from former U.S. Rep. Barbara Vucanovich and former Assembly Speaker Joe Dini in a fight against an initiative petition being circulated by teachers to raise gambling taxes to generate money for public education.

Vucanovich, who served seven terms as a Republican congresswoman from Reno, and Dini, a Yerington Democrat who served a record eight times as speaker, will focus on rural areas of Nevada where they’re well known.

The strategy is to prevent the Nevada State Education Association from getting signatures needed from each of the state’s 17 counties. The overall number is 58,628, but signature-gathers must get a certain percentage of each county’s voters.

Dini and Vucanovich said they’ll encourage voters not to sign the NSEA petition.

NEW YORK

Treasury prices mixed after Fed officials speak

Treasury prices finished mixed after an initial decline Friday as investors moved into long-term government debt after comments from Federal Reserve officials appeared to quell some concerns that policymakers would continue to slash interest rates.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose 0.09 points to 98.28 and yielded 3.71 percent, down from 3.73 percent late Thursday, according to BGCantor Market Data.