ECONOMY & MARKETS

Here are five classic videos from the era when rock ruled the airwaves -- ranked from least to most favorite. Enjoy.

About 7 million Americans get jobless benefits under seven different state and federal programs. Around one-quarter of them will fall off the rolls in January unless the U.S. Congress renews an extended-benefits program that expires at the end of the year.

United Nations Climate Change Conference participants agreed on a pact Sunday that for the first time would force all the biggest polluters to take action to slow the pace of global changing.

President Barack Obama blasted his Republican foes and Wall Street on Tuesday as he portrayed himself as a champion of the middle class and laid out in the starkest terms yet the populist themes of his 2012 re-election bid.

Despite some recent signs the sluggish U.S. economy might be improving, President Barack Obama warns it could be years before the country is on a sound footing in an interview with CBS' 60 Minutes program that will air Sunday,

The Indian government, on Friday, said it overestimated export-related figures by over $9 billion, due to software upgrades and punching errors, resulting in a margin of error of 5.52 per cent which prompted data revision for eight months.

On top of Eurozone debt troubles, Wall Street now has to worry about sagging sales from Europe as a recession in the region appears more likely than it has previously.

Growth in Chinese exports and imports slowed in November -- more evidence of the faltering demand abroad and at home that is pushing Beijing toward a more explicit pro-growth policy.

The Amazon Price Check app seems simple enough. Shoppers use the app, introduced earlier in 2011, to compare the retail giant's prices with other retailers. They scan a barcode, snap a picture, say the product name or type the search.

Stocks rose on Friday as European Union leaders agreed on measures to tackle the region's sovereign debt crisis and data showed U.S. consumer confidence rose to a six-month high.

The Conservative government may chop federal spending by C$8 billion ($7.87 billion) in each of the next three years, twice the amount it previously estimated, La Presse newspaper said on Friday.

Nearly seven million Americans, sustained by government unemployment (extension) checks, are hanging on by a thread, stated a recent National Employment Law Project (NELP) paper.

Stock in the largest American banks were particularly bullish on the developments, trading up in heavy volume during pre-market action in the New York Stock Exchange. Shares of Citigroup (NYSE:C), Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) and Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) were up more than 2 percent in very early pre-market trading. Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS), whose operations are generally considered to be more sensitive to developments out of Europe than its large bank peers in the U.S., was up over 3 percent.

Whenever economists discuss the “big picture”— where we’ve come from, where we’re going— someone is bound to bring up Joseph Schumpeter. Schumpeter (1883-1950) was, in fact, a master of thinking about the “big picture,” most famously in his writings on economic development, entrepreneurship, and the past and future of capitalist societies.

The euro rose in early Friday trading after a report indicated China plans to create an investment fund to deal with the eurozone debt crisis.

The government report released Thursday reveals notable declines in initial and continued employment claims, and the news was joined by a report that wholesale inventories in October jumped the highest in five months, signaling that businesses are also in a recovery mode with higher consumer demand.

Analysts are hoping for a better fourth quarter for the household net worth as the U.S. stocks have performed well at the end of the third quarter.

Crude oil prices dropped below $98 a barrel in Asian trade Friday as investors' hopes dimmed over the outcome of a crucial European Union summit later in the day.

The top aftermarket NYSE gainers Thursday were: Cooper Companies, Pall Corp, AGL Resources, Enersys, Texas Industries, Strategic Hotels & Resorts, Goodrich Petroleum, Precision Drilling, Office Depot and Hertz Global Holdings.

The top aftermarket NYSE losers on Thursday were: Invesco Mortgage Capital, Texas Instruments, Stone Energy, Dynegy, Cincinnati Bell, Getty Realty, GenOn Energy, First Republic Bank, Esterline Technologies and MEMC Electronic Materials.

Asian stocks plunged Friday, following overnight declines on Wall Street, after the European Central Bank gave no indication of more government bond buying.

India's tax department have frozen 11 bank accounts of Kingfisher Airlines (KING.NS) and 10 of Air India AIR.UL earlier this month as they have failed to pay their service tax dues.

Shares of Alibaba.com Ltd fell nearly 8 percent to a two-month low early on Friday morning after sources said parent Alibaba Group is seeking up to $4 billion in debt financing, expected to help it buy back a 40 percent stake from Yahoo Inc.

Talk of Greece voluntarily leaving -- or being kicked out of -- the eurozone was once verboten. Now bank economists, investors, and even central bankers are talking about it as though it's a done deal. The divide between rhetoric is also growing. Those predicting the future Greek exit are calling it "manageable," while those saying it won't happen are labeling the possibility "catastrophic."

Canadian housing starts slumped last month, hurt by weakness in the condominium sector, in the latest sign that a property boom fueled by low interest rates is under pressure from global economic uncertainty.

Risks to Canada's financial stability rose sharply in the second half of the year largely because of the European sovereign debt crisis, even though domestic banks remain stronger than in most other countries, the Bank of Canada said on Thursday.

Initial jobless claims are dropping -- they're down to 381,000 but they will have to continue to decline to give investors confidence that the current U.S. economic expansion is sustainable.

Fewer Americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits last week. Thursday's data once again edged back from the 400,000 mark -- the level below which economists say signals a strengthening job market - after popping above it in the prior week.

The top pre-market NASDAQ stock market gainers are: Affymax, G-III Apparel Group, Central European Distribution, BioSante Pharmaceuticals, and Amgen. The top pre-market NASDAQ stock market losers are: Tesla Motors, Clearwire, Aixtron, ASM International, and Crosstex Energy.