MARKETS / FINANCE

Western investment banks are keen to underwrite more IPOs on China's Shenzhen exchange this year as a surging economy turns the once insignificant market into a fundraising hotbed.

She did it for love, a designer handbag and shoes. Bonnie Hoxie, a former Walt Disney Co (DIS.N) executive's secretary, told a federal judge on Tuesday she was blindsided by love and did not make the correct choices in giving confidential company information to her then-boyfriend a year ago.

Most Americans oppose laws that would take away the collective bargaining power of public employee unions, as in a proposal in Wisconsin that has sparked mass protests, as well as Ohio and other states, according to a USA Today/Gallup Poll released on Wednesday.

The head of General Motors Co's (GM.N) Brazilian unit, Denise Johnson, has stepped down after just eight months on the job, the company said. Johnson's resignation, announced on Tuesday, comes amid a decline in GM's market share in Brazil.

Althea Norwood Roberts gives employers three months to turn her temporary job into a permanent one. Then she looks elsewhere. That's as long as a company needs to see if she's a good fit, the 35-year old single mother from California believes.

Obama, with much of his Cabinet in tow, visited Ohio on Tuesday to try to reach out to U.S. entrepreneurs amid complaints from some small business owners that his policies inhibit growth. We're here to hear from you directly. We want your stories, your successes, your failures,

Hundreds of people rallied in Boise and ten other Idaho cities on Monday to protest a plan by the state's schools chief to lay off hundreds of teachers and curtail their collective bargaining. Russ Chinske, head of the teachers union in the central Idaho town of Salmon, said it was wrong to strip teachers

Medtronic Inc (MDT.N) cut its full-year earnings forecast, hampered by weakness in key medical device markets, and said it would eliminate up to 2,000 jobs, sending its shares down 2 percent. The world's largest medical device maker has struggled with slow sales as patients postponed treatments in the global

A majority of Swedish banks and financial firms are in breach of rules on bonuses, the Nordic country's market watchdog said on Monday. A study by Sweden's Financial Supervisory Authority (FI) showed the bonus systems at more than half of the 41 financial institutions examined did not live up to rules

Spain's new immigration bill will adjust the inflow of migrant workers to the demands of the job market in the new economic cycle, Secretary of State for Immigration Anna Terron said. The demise of an economic model based on a decade-long construction and property boom which attracted a wave of South American

Demand for gold and silver will remain high in 2011 owing to growth in physical demand and continued investor appetite, according to a Daily Markets analysis. It says the outlook for the precious metals remains bullish.

Public sector workers in West Virginia, in support of public employee protests in Wisconsin, will rally to demand better pay and improved working conditions, a union spokesman said on Sunday. Union members will demonstrate on Monday in the state capital and wear red bandannas to support Wisconsin workers

Businesses live and breathe by email. It's no longer uncommon to work regularly with people you've never met, with the interactions carried out entirely through calls and email. Whether you think this is good or bad, it's here to stay, and how you compose an email speaks to your professionalism, reliability,

Apple Inc. is expected to release a new cheaper version of the iPhone during 2011 to deal with growing smartphone competition.

President Barack Obama touted his agenda to foster innovation as a means of spurring job creation and boosting U.S. global competitiveness during a high-tech visit to

Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc (CMG.N) fired about 450 workers in Minnesota after an audit by U.S. immigration officials flagged questionable worker eligibility documents, the company said in a regulatory filing on Thursday. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) audited the company's Minnesota restaurants, which led to the dismissals mentioned above.

North Carolina's Democratic governor on Thursday proposed eliminating more than 10,000 government jobs and cutting corporate taxes as part of a $19.9 billion state budget. The spending plan Governor Beverly Perdue sent to the Republican-controlled General Assembly in Raleigh is nearly $1 billion higher than the current year's spending plan

BP had workers on the doomed Deepwater Horizon rig who could have prevented the missteps that led to the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill, but they were not consulted, the White House oil spill commission said on Thursday. In an expanded report on the causes of the BP drilling disaster that killed 11 workers and ravaged the U.S. Gulf coast last summer, the commission released new details about the events that preceded the BP accident.

Michigan Governor Rich Snyder on Thursday unveiled a plan that includes $1.8 billion in budget cuts and seeks to replace the state's business tax with a flat 6 percent corporate income tax.

Intel Corp Chief Executive Paul Otellini will be named to a panel of experts advising President Barack Obama on jobs, the White House said on Friday. Otellini will join the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, created in January to focus on lifting hiring and promoting growth.

The debate over overhauling the U.S. corporate tax system will have to include whether to cut taxes on profits earned abroad, a Treasury Department official said on Thursday. Michael Mundaca, assistant Treasury secretary for tax policy, a White House point man on revamping the corporate tax code, also said that corporate tax reform could be done before individual tax reform.

You can't really blame financial hacks for getting things so wrong, so often. Because every financial decision you now make is a speculation on interest rates. And so pretty much every story a financial journalist might choose to write must start and end with the same speculation, built on the inaction of each monthly central-bank vote.

The price of large, wholesale Gold Bars continued rising for US investors on Thursday, ending London trade at a 5-week high of $1383 per ounce as world stock markets held flat and the Dollar slipped on the currency market.

When a New Jersey family with an autistic child walks into the state office seeking help, Norlande Perpignan is often the first person they see. A clerk making $41,082 a year at the Division of Developmental Disabilities, Perpignan, 40, is also on the front lines of a national debate about public spending, taxes and a fiscal crisis facing local governments.

Britain is to examine why so many people end up on long-term sick leave, fuelling a 192 billion pound annual bill for welfare, Prime Minister David Cameron announced on Thursday. The government is already preparing to reassess the circumstances of 1.5 million people off work on long-term incapacity benefits to see if they are fit enough to return to employment.

There is much said about the need for a clear financial plan to maximize savings for retirement, college and other goals. But before you create that plan, you'll want guidelines to help you write it. It's like this: If your plan is a road map, you need to know where you want to go first, right?

New York City will have to lay off more than 4,000 public school teachers even though its revenue has leaped about $2 billion since forecasts made last November, a mayoral aide said on Wednesday. New York City has around 75,000 teachers but the headcount must be reduced because Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo wants to cut state aid by $2.1 billion, the aide said.

Gold rose for a fourth day in a row on Thursday in its strongest run since September, helped by safe-haven demand as unrest spread across the Middle East, while the dollar remained under mild pressure.

New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week, according to a government report on Thursday that still pointed at gradual labor market recovery. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 25,000 to a seasonally adjusted 410,000, the Labor Department said, partially reversing the prior week's hefty decline.