Viewpoints

Hot Water Products, a Milwaukee water heating products company, has acquired American Mechanical Services, a Milwaukee steam products company.

The median asking price for Milwaukee companies listed on BizBuySell.com dropped to $259,500 in the second quarter, down 5.6 percent from a year ago.

Palermo's Pizza workers will vote July 27 on whether to form a union, the NLRB decided last week.

Milwaukee-based Koss Corp. announced a partnership with Mossy Oak.

Racine-based Johnson Outdoors Inc. unveiled a plan to improve the profit profile of its Watercraft business.

Bradley Corporation has opened its new Germantown plant, a 190,000-square-foot facility in Germantown Business Park.

Mayor Tom Barrett announced that Milwaukee has joined President Barack Obama’s Better Buildings Challenge, pledging to reduce the city’s commercial energy consumption 20 percent by 2020.

Wisconsin's economy could get a boost if Congress moves quickly to take advantage of new trade opportunities with Russia. Congressional inaction, on the other hand, would allow other countries' companies to get into the market first and gain a competitive edge over companies from Wisconsin and the United States.

Veolia Environmental Services launched its women in leadership program last October as a way to help increase diversity at its senior leader table. Last week, the company expanded that program further with its recycling ambassador sponsorship of the U.S. Women's Open in Kohler.

The standard advertising proposition works something like this:

The four-county metropolitan Milwaukee housing market posted additional sales gains in June. The region’s housing market had a 25.8 percent increase in sales during June and a 28.6 percent increase in sales during the second quarter, according to the Greater Milwaukee Association of Realtors (GMAR).

The ongoing European financial crisis, uncertainty about the U.S. economy, the impending federal government “fiscal cliff” and the upcoming U.S. presidential election will play major roles in influencing the stock market in the second half of the year.