ECONOMY & MARKETS

The top after-market NASDAQ stock market losers are: SMART Modular Technologies, ValueVision Media, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, TriQuint Semiconductor, Affymetrix, Avago Technologies, Comcast, Infinera, Arch Capital Group, and VeriSign.

The top after-market NASDAQ stock market gainers are: YRC Worldwide, Take-Two Interactive Software, Oracle, Iconix Brand Group, Rightnow Technologies, Dress Barn, Activision Blizzard, Research In Motion, China MediaExpress Holdings, and OmniVision Technologies.

NZD/USD broke below the 100-day SMA and plunged to a 11-week low late Thursday in New York on concerns about the kiwi currency's weakening fundamentals while a lack of confidence in euro added to the relative strength of the greenback.

Dan Mudd, CEO of Fortress Investment Group (NYSE:FIG), said the year 2011 can see record asset sales.

Stocks rose, likely boosted by a drop in jobless claims and an optimistic forecast by FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX), ahead of post-closing earnings reports from Research In Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM) and Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL).

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is concerned about the fiscal health of several Pacific Island countries.

The PIMCO Total Return Fund (NASDAQ: PTTAX), the world’s largest bond fund, will widen its investment strategy to allow portfolio manager Bill Gross the flexibility of holding up to 10 percent of the portfolio’s assets in “equity-linked” securities, such as preferred shares or convertible stock, according to an SEC filing.

While peripheral European countries are forced by the bond market to raise taxes and cut spending in 2010, they were some of the steepest tax cutter among OECD members from 2007 to 2009.

Smartphones are threatening the sales of brick-and-mortar retailers by enabling customers to easily compare their prices with online retailers, who often sell the same products for less.

Flybe Group plc, Britain’s largest domestic airline and Europe’s largest regional carrier which just went public, has a famous investor – billionaire hedge-fund manager/financier George Soros has invested 7.2-million pounds sterling into the company

U.S. stocks advanced in early trade on Thursday, following better-than-expected initial jobless claims and housing starts data.

Nokia has filed fresh patent infringement claims against Apple in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands, alleging that Apple infringed its patents in many of its products sold in these countries, including iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

Applications for jobless benefits in the U.S. fell unexpectedly for the week ended Dec. 11, posting a decline for two consecutive weeks.

The top pre-market NASDAQ stock market losers are: Cardica, Tower Bancorp, Apogee Enterprises, Gaming Partners International, Caribou Coffee Company, Qiagen, VeriSign, Baidu, Dendreon, and Micron Technology.

Australian dollar has been trending higher against the US dollar since early Wednesday in New York and the pair seems to be up for a fall within the trending channel, study on AUD/USD 10-minute chart shows.

The top pre-market NASDAQ stock market gainers are: CyberDefender, Lattice Semiconductor, support.com, Cost Plus, Enzon Pharmaceuticals, Cogo Group, Sky-mobi, LJ International, Entropic Communications, and Novavax.

Ireland's gross domestic product recorded a marginal rise of 0.5 percent in the third quarter on a sequential basis, but the small improvement in growth will do little to alter analysts' view that the country still faces an uphill task managing its debt.

AOL Inc. announced its acquisition of New York-based content marketing platform startup Pictela to bolster its advertising offering. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Pictela is a platform for distributing videos, photos and applications across the Web in real time.

Futures on major U.S. stock indices remained-range bound on Thursday ahead of economic data, including key weekly U.S. jobs data from the government.

The companies which are expected to see active trade in Thursday are Oracle, Accenture, Research In Motion, Danaher, FedEx and General Mills.

EUR/USD probably freed itself from a falling channel and entered a slightly progressing uptrend, inside which the pair is now poised for a rebound.

Euro area annual inflation was 1.9 percent in November, unchanged compared with the last month and within the European Central Bank's target, the European Union's statistics office Eurostat said on Thursday. On a monthly basis, inflation rose 0.1 percent in November.

British retail sales rose in November for a second consecutive month as consumer spending picked up ahead of a hike in value added tax (VAT) next year.

Oracle Corp., one of the world's biggest enterprise software makers, is expected to report better-than-expected numbers, when it reports second quarter results today after the market closes.

The top after-market NASDAQ stock market losers are: SciClone Pharmaceuticals, Tower Bancorp, Capitol Federal Financial, Orthofix International, Pulaski Financial, Energy Recovery, Energy Conversion Devices, China Ritar Power, EZchip Semiconductor, and Hercules Offshore.

The top after-market NASDAQ stock market gainers are: CyberDefender, Lattice Semiconductor, Enzon Pharmaceuticals, Cogo Group, Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, LJ International, Nordson, Herman Miller, Sangamo Biosciences, and Motricity.

Stocks on Wall Street drifted lower, erasing an early-session rally, as the dollar jumped and traders weighed a credit downgrade warning on Spain and the U.S. Senate’s passage of the $885-billion tax cut extension bill.

Economists at Morgan Stanley think Latin American currencies will continue to appreciate in 2011 because of economic growth, interest rate differentials versus the U.S. dollar, and the expected positive performance of commodities.

The Brookings Institutions' MetroMonitor, which tracks America's 100 largest metropolitan areas, found a sharp reversal of the job growth that was occurring earlier in the year.