•Companies

Reebok wins NFL hat case: The National Football League didn’t violate antitrust laws in granting Reebok International Ltd. an exclusive license to make hats featuring logos of the league’s 32 teams, a federal appeals court has ruled. Rejecting cap maker American Needle Inc.’s argument that the NFL and its franchises illegally conspired to restrain trade, the Chicago-based U.S. Court of Appeals found the league speaks with one voice in its marketing. “NFL teams are best described as a single source of economic power when promoting NFL football through licensing the teams’ intellectual property,” U.S. Circuit Judge Michael Kanne wrote yesterday for the three-judge panel. The league, its 32 teams and their licensing arm, NFL Properties LLC, were all sued in 2004 by Buffalo Grove, Ill.-based American Needle. The company had held a license to make NFL team logo hats for more than 20 years before sportswear maker Reebok won the exclusive contract in 2001, according to the appeals court ruling. Reebok, based in Canton, Mass., was acquired in 2006 by Adidas AG of Herzogenaurach, Germany. (Bloomberg News)

•Markets

Dollar retreats: The dollar fell against major currencies yesterday in New York, ending at 110.17 Japanese yen, down from Friday’s close of 110.56 yen. The euro closed at 3:30 p.m. at $1.4697, up from $1.4680.

Metals climb: Gold for current delivery closed at $799.70 a troy ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up from Friday’s close of $786.00. Silver closed at $13.087 an ounce, up from $12.801.

Fuels drop: September light, sweet crude oil fell 90 cents to $112.87 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Heating oil fell 3.43 cents to $3.0848 a gallon. Gasoline fell 4.5 cents to $2.8152 a gallon. Natural gas fell 20.4 cents to $7.888 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Treasury securities: The Treasury Department yesterday auctioned $28 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 1.85 percent, down from 1.87 percent last week. Another $27 billion in six-month bills was auctioned at a discount rate of 1.98 percent, down from 2.02 percent last week. The three-month rate was the lowest since those bills averaged 1.71 percent on Aug. 4. The six-month rate was the lowest since those bills averaged 1.92 percent also on Aug. 4. The discount rates reflect that the bills sell for less than face value. For a $10,000 bill, the three-month price was $9,953.24, while a six-month bill sold for $9,899.90. That would equal an annualized rate of 1.885 percent for the three-month bills, and 2.028 percent for the six-month bills. Separately, the Federal Reserve said yesterday the average yield for one-year Treasury bills, a popular index for making changes in adjustable-rate mortgages, fell to 2.18 percent last week from 2.23 percent the previous week.

Associated Press