•Companies

General Dynamics gets gun order: General Dynamics Corp., the largest maker of armored vehicles for the U.S. military, yesterday won an Army contract valued at as much as $326.5 million to produce mobile-gun versions of its Stryker transports. The company will produce 62 of the Stryker Mobile Gun Systems to be delivered by February 2010, Falls Church, Va.-based General Dynamics said in a statement. The mobile-gun order follows a $1.2-billion Army contract Aug. 6 for another 615 Stryker transports. The company had total sales of $27.2 billion last year, including $7.8 billion from the combat-systems group that makes Stryker. (Bloomberg News)

Lockheed Martin bid protest denied: Government auditors have denied Lockheed Martin’s protest of a $1.16-billion Navy contract to develop unmanned aircraft that can patrol coastlines and open ocean because its proposal was deemed riskier than the other bids, according to details released yesterday. Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp. beat out Lockheed Martin Corp. and Chicago-based Boeing Co. in April to develop a plane for the Navy’s Broad Area Maritime Surveillance — or BAMS — program. The contract could ultimately be worth billions based on the Navy’s plans to buy 68 planes. Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin filed a protest in May with the Government Accountability Office challenging the Navy’s decision, saying its review of past performance was “inconsistent” with its request for bids and was “unreasonable in numerous aspects.” (Bloomberg News)

Cuomo probe targets three banks: New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo will intensify his probe into auction-rate securities by focusing on Bank of America Corp., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Deutsche Bank AG, a person close to the investigation said yesterday. The banks are the three biggest players in the auction-rate securities market that have not already reached a settlement with Cuomo, who is seeking deals on behalf of regulators and state authorities. For the next phase, Cuomo has directed staff to spend more time gathering facts and talking to the three banks about the sale of the risky securities, said a person inside the attorney general’s office. (Associated Press)

•Markets

Dollar uneven: The dollar closed mixed against major currencies yesterday in New York, ending at 109.79 Japanese yen, down from Tuesday’s close of 109.82 yen. The euro closed at 3:30 p.m. at $1.4741, down from $1.4768.

Metals mixed: Gold for current delivery closed at $810.30 a troy ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange, down from Tuesday’s close of $811.10. Silver closed at $13.093 an ounce, up from $13.029.

Fuels rise: September light, sweet crude oil rose 45 cents to $114.98 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. October crude rose $1.01 to $115.56 a barrel. September heating oil rose 3.98 cents to $3.1635 a gallon. September gasoline rose 4.64 cents to $2.9103 a gallon. September natural gas rose 10.1 cents to $8.077 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Associated Press