World stocks bounced back on Wednesday, driven by optimism about potential gains in the coming quarter and setting aside lingering concerns about Japan's nuclear crisis and turmoil in the Arab world.
Russian Internet investment group Digital Sky Technologies, an investor in social network company Facebook, has joined a group of investors funding hundreds of millions of dollars to 360buy.com, China's largest online retailer, the Financial Times reported.
Few creditors of Lehman Brothers Holdings want the court to consider their alternate restructuring plan when the bankrupt investment bank's own proposal comes up for voting in June, court documents show.
Consumers turned gloomy in March as rising energy prices ignited fears of inflation, a change in mood that could dent global economic growth.
U.S. apparel brand Gap Inc opened an online store on China's biggest e-commerce platform Taobao on Wednesday, in an effort to lure savvy Chinese shoppers outside wealthy cities.
Asian stocks rallied on Wednesday as investors snapped up riskier assets on attractive valuations, while Japanese exporters were helped by the yen's weakness on expectations of interest rate rises in Europe and the United States.
The Federal Reserve will not meet an April 21 deadline for issuing a final rule cracking down on the fees banks charge merchants when a debit card is used, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said in a letter to U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday.
Google aims to give away thousands of websites to small Canadian businesses to encourage them to establish an online presence, the search engine's Canadian head said on Tuesday.
(Corrects quote from McWilton to creeping socialism from misheard frigging socialism)
The economic recession that began in 2007 was uniformly damaging to U.S. states, sparing just one or two from its effects, but the recovery is promising to be uneven across the country.
A former portfolio manager at Raj Rajaratnam's Galleon Group described pressure at the hedge fund to get an edge in trading and said he gave inside tips from a Morgan Stanley investment banker to his boss.
Opponents of a U.S. government crackdown on debit card processing fees called for delaying its implementation on Tuesday, with one top MasterCard executive equating the proposal with creeping socialism.
(Corrects quote from McWilton to creeping socialism from misheard frigging socialism)
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, who returned this week to the company after a two-year absence, wants to make the microblogging site more approachable to the masses, he said on Tuesday.
Strength in energy lifted U.S. stocks on Tuesday as investors concentrated on adding to winning positions as the quarter winds down, but uncertainty kept trading volume light.
A former portfolio manager at Raj Rajaratnam's Galleon Group described pressure at the hedge fund to get an edge in trading and said he gave inside tips from a Morgan Stanley investment banker to his boss.
General Electric Co reached a $3.2 billion cash deal to acquire a French maker of high-efficiency motors used in the oil and gas sector, pouring more money into its most profitable division.
Standard & Poor's downgraded Greece and Portugal on Tuesday, citing risks that the countries' debts to a new European bailout fund would be repaid before bond investors, sending their borrowing costs sharply higher.
U.S. lenders would have to offer mortgages with at least a 20 percent down payment if they want to repackage the loan to sell to other investors without keeping some of the risk on their books, according to a proposal U.S. bank regulators endorsed on Tuesday.
Standard & Poor's downgraded Greece's debt deeper into junk status on Tuesday, saying that a bailout scheme agreed by euro zone leaders last week increased the likelihood of debt restructuring.
U.S. stocks advanced on Tuesday, boosted by strength in retail and tech stocks, but volume remained light as investors awaited a clearer picture of corporate earnings and the labor market.
U.S. lenders would have to offer mortgages with at least a 20 percent down payment if they want to repackage the loan to sell to other investors without keeping some of the risk on their books, according to a proposal regulators are considering on Tuesday.
General Electric Co reached a $3.2 billion cash deal to acquire a French maker of high-efficiency motors used in the oil and gas sector, pouring more money into its most profitable division.
A former portfolio manager at Raj Rajaratnam's Galleon Group described pressure at the hedge fund to get an edge in stock trades and said he passed on secret details about companies to his boss.
U.S. consumer confidence fell in March after hitting a three-year high in the prior month as expectations about jobs and income growth worsened, according to a private sector report released on Tuesday.
U.S. stocks rose on Tuesday in a light volume session, erasing initial declines as investors moved into sectors that lost ground after Japan's earthquake as the quarter draws to a close.
U.S. auto sales in March are expected to rise about 12 percent from last year's depressed levels, but high gasoline prices and production problems caused by the Japanese earthquake could slow a recovery, analysts and investors said.
Consumer confidence fell in March a month after hitting a three-year high as expectations about jobs and income growth worsened, according to a private sector report released on Tuesday.
U.S. stocks rose on Tuesday on strength in large-cap tech shares, but continuing global crises kept investors cautious before the quarter's end.
General Electric Co reached a $3.2 billion agreement to acquire a French maker of automation systems used in the oil and gas sector, marking GE's latest in a series of deals in the energy industry.
