Car-Mart rolls out 151st dealership
America’s Car-Mart has opened its 151st dealership, the used-car company said Thursday.
The lot in Edmond, Okla., is the third the buy-here pay-here car dealer has opened this fiscal year. The new dealership is located at 909 S. Broadway and will be managed by April Renfro.
Rogers-based Car-Mart began using a new logo this month, keeping the company’s red, white and blue color scheme and featuring an open road. The company’s new tagline is “Keeping You on the Road.”
In November, Car-Mart reported record revenue for its second quarter. In May, Car-Mart said it would relocate its headquarters from Bentonville to nearby Rogers.
Car-Mart has more than 81,000 customers and more than 2,000 employees, and it operates dealerships in 12 states.
— John Magsam
Activity at LR port down in November
The Port of Little Rock worked 21 barges and handled 31,000 tons of cargo in November as the slowdown in the energy industry continues to weigh on the port’s tenants.
Barge traffic and cargo tonnage remains “well off” last year’s pace,” said Bryan Day, the port’s executive director. “Most of this shortfall relates to the oil and gas industry slowdown,” brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
Last month’s barge total was 44% lower than the 36 barges the port worked in November 2019. The cargo tonnage was 33% lower than the 55,000 tons the port handled a year ago.
For the year, the port has worked 329 barges and handled 500,000 tons of cargo. Both numbers were about 30% lower than the totals in the the first 11 months of 2019, 487 and 744,000, respectively, according to port data.
Meanwhile, the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System has handled 9.4 million tons of cargo through the first 11 months of 2020, a 25% increase over the tonnage handled in the same period last year. A third of the cargo handled, or 258,501, was rock, sand and gravel, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which manages the lock-and-dam system.
— Noel Oman
Arkansas Index up 5.05, ends at 485.20
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, closed Thursday at 485.20, up 5.05.
“Stocks closed at record highs today boosted by expectations of fiscal stimulus as well as vaccination approval ahead of Friday’s quarterly option and futures expiration and S&P 500 Index rebalance which is expected to drive unusually high volume,” said Leon Lants, managing director at Stephens Inc.
Shares of USA Truck Inc. rose 3.7%. Uniti Group shares rose 5.4%. Murphy Oil shares fell 1.9%.
The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.
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