ECONOMY & MARKETS

Jefferies & Co. upgraded its rating on shares of Global Payments Inc. (NYSE: GPN) to buy from hold with a price target of $50.

Gold strengthened further on Monday as falling equities and lingering worries about a debt crisis in Europe drew investors to the precious metal, which posted its the biggest quarterly gain this year, but a firm U.S. dollar could still cap gains.

More than three years after the financial crisis struck, the U.S. economy remains stuck in a consumer debt trap.

The rupee fell over 1 percent on Monday tracking the slide in domestic equities and the euro on fears that Europe's debt crisis will hurt global growth.

Now that Kodak shares trade at only 78 cents, the collapse of the imaging icon would be a technology tragedy and a black eye for the U.S.

Will microprocessor giant Intel (INTC) benefit from a ripple-effect from the iPhone 5 Wave? Most likely that will be the cases, as millions of new customers in October consider the iPhone 5 and other technology products/gadgets -- and that's good news for Intel's operation.

This past quarter was miserable for bullish U.S. stock investors. The bad news is, things may get worse before they get better.

India reached 66 percent of its full-year fiscal deficit target just five months into the financial year, reinforcing worries about its ability to stick to the budgeted target for the year that ends in March.

U.S. stocks concluded the third quarter on a bad note. For the quarter, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 1,500.96 points, or 12.09 percent, its worst performance since the first quarter of 2009.

To say that the U.S. stock market had a rough quarter would be like saying invading Germany had a rough retreat from Stalingrad in the winter of 1943 -- stocks closed near session lows Friday, a down day that meant all three major averages plummeted more than 10 percent in the third quarter. Where is the Dow headed from here?

The economy grew in July, the second straight month of expansion, setting the stage for a positive third quarter after the second-quarter's worrying contraction.

Stocks fell on Friday, putting equities on track for their worst quarter since 2008, as economic data from China and Europe fueled fears of a global economic slowdown.

U.S. stocks are the asset class to be in, Jeremy Siegel, a Finance Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, told CNBC.

Stocks opened lower on Friday, putting equities on track for their fifth straight monthly decline as China's manufacturing shrank and kept fears of a global economic slowdown in the forefront.

The card company's newest collection features animals and some encouraging words.

Flashed on the side of a building here in Shanghai's historic Bund district, an image shows a giant ship named Hony, setting sail from China, traveling past the Statue of Liberty, past Big Ben, and bringing home crates of golden coins.

European stock index futures fell Friday, putting shares there firmly on course to post their biggest quarterly decline since the months following the collapse of Lehman Brothers three years ago.

Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit said the current turmoil in the global financial markets will not be a repeat of the 2008 downturn, Singapore newspapers reported on Friday.

Asian stocks fell Friday, extending the worst monthly performance since the most volatile days of the global financial crisis in October 2008, with Chinese shares racking up sharp losses.

New Zealand suffered its second ratings downgrade within hours on Friday as Standard & Poor's cut the country's rating by one notch because of its growing foreign debt, after rival Fitch Ratings' had taken similar action.

Gold prices tanked 11 percent so far in September, shaking the confidence of some investors and spectators. “Gold is not a safe-haven asset” and “gold is no longer a one-way bet” are common exclaims.

Major markets around the world are in liquidation mode, meaning investors long risk-assets are still trying to sell out of their positions, Craig Ferguson, a currency hedge fund manager at Antipodean Capital Management in Melbourne, told Bloomberg TV.

A weakening of the Canadian dollar helped pushed up the Canadian producer price index in August by 0.5 percent, Statistics Canada said on Thursday.

Climate change will cause damage in Canada equivalent to around 1 percent of GDP in 2050 as rising temperatures kill off forests, flood low-lying areas and cause more illnesses, an official panel said on Thursday.

When Stratfor, a geopolitical intelligence firm, takes on the euro crisis and Greece, you know it's going to offer a fresh perspective.

New Zambian President Michael Sata fired his respected central bank governor on Thursday and his new mines minister floated plans to boost tax receipts from mining companies, rattling investors in Africa's biggest copper producer.

House prices in the United States are about to end a five-year-long decline but a meaningful recovery is a number of years away owing to a structural deficit in demand, according to analysts.

The top after-market NYSE gainers on Wednesday are: Janus Capital Group, Complete Production Services, Federated Investors, Dice Holdings and Imperial Holdings. The top after-market NYSE losers are: Advanced Micro Devices, Great Plains Energy, Seadrill, Chesapeake Energy and Continental Resources.

The top after-market NASDAQ Stock Market gainers are: Zhongpin, Dynamic Materials, ImmunoGen, NASDAQ OMX and Silicon Motion Technology. The top after-market NASDAQ Stock Market losers are: Hanwha SolarOne Co, CNinsure, First Solar, Steven Madden and Central European Media Enterprises.