Eleazar David Meléndez

British bank Barclays PLC (London: BARC) is making a grand entrance into the U.S. retail banking space, debuting an online savings account this week that pays substantially more in interest to accountholders than its closest competitors.

The initial public offering of private equity firm The Carlyle Group LP (Nasdaq: CG) opened slightly below the IPO price of $22 on Thursday before climbing as high as $22.39. Shortly before the closing bell, shares were trading at $22.02.

The European Central Bank made a show of that organization's immense political and economic force Thursday, rattling world markets with news it had not even considered lowering benchmark euro lending rates and, more provocatively, having its top banker lecture European politicians on the eve of what are expected to be decisive election in two European countries.

U.S. markets went into a sustained slide after a private data release suggested growth in the services sectors was slowing down considerably.

Activists aligned with the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York ended a day of mass street protest Tuesday by being chased out of a public plaza in Lower Manhattan by the police, in an anti-climactic conclusion to what otherwise seemed to have been a successful day for the visibility of their cause.

Dragged down by a precipitous slump in demand for civilian aircraft, U.S. factory orders dropped at the highest rate in three years during March, data released by the Commerce Department Wednesday morning showed.

Houston-based oil ang gas giant ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) has been fined $257 million to settle charges brought by the Chinese government following a massive oil spill. The company's Chinese venture partner, CNOOC Ltd., was also fined, to the tune of $76 million.

In spite of organizers providing free coffee and bagels, planned May Day demonstrations across New York convened by the loosely organized movement against social and economic inequality known as Occupy Wall Street got off to a wet, slow, sleepy start. Much like the day itself, however, the street actions began warming up into the late afternoon and, by lunchtime, seemed to be close to going into full swing.

Tuesday is May Day, the international celebration of the workers' movement that for most countries means a day off with most businesses closed. In the United States, where Labor Day is in September, May 1 is a workday like any other. But it may well be a historic date, one way or the other, for the loosely-organized movement against social and economic inequality known as Occupy Wall Street.

Manufacturing activity indexes for April released Monday showed a further slowdown across the nation in a confirmation of a statistical trend seen in other data releases last week that points to weaker growth in the second quarter.

The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA) is expected to sell 60 737 aircraft to Air Lease Corp. (NYSE: AL) in a deal with a nominal book value of about $5.5 billion, the Wall Street Journal said Monday.

A headscratcher of a report on Chinese industrial profits intensified speculation about just what exactly central bankers in that country will come up with next as the note, by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), revealed data that both supporters and detractors of monetary easing in the world's second-largest economy will find justifies their rationale.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke rattled financial markets Wednesday afternoon, as the top U.S. central banker hemmed and hawed his way through a tough round of questioning from a cadre of economic reporters.

European and U.S. stocks rose Tuesday as a negative sentiment the day before gave way to an upbeat, risk-on sentiment, despite weak economic news from the United States.

The price of various European governments' debt obligations rose on strong trading Tuesday following a sharp sell-off on the prior day, a dynamic that lowered the borrowing cost those countries must pay to finance their budget deficits and gave some confidence to interrelated equity markets.

A steep drop in European equities market dominated momentum across continents and asset classes Monday, prompting investors to unload all manner of stocks and commodities for cash.

A steady drip of bad news swelled into a river of losses for European equities Monday, as stock markets across the continent -- some already battered in previous weeks -- experienced significant declines.

A steady drip of bad news swelled into a river of losses for European equities Monday, as stock markets across the continent -- some already battered in previous weeks -- experienced significant declines.

India's richest man is using nearly all of his company's spare cash to expand the firm's petrochemical capacity, placing a solid bet that the growing consumer class in that country will continue to drive growth in the sector well into the future.

Many U.S. manufacturing firms that run Chinese plants are considering bringing those operations back home because -- in many cases -- it makes more economic sense to do so than to keep them abroad, according to a Boston Consulting Group (BCG) survey of business executives released on Friday.

In a seeming effort to profit from the latest European disaster, large investors are causing some unusual movements in the U.S. securities markets.

Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) on Thursday reported weaker first-quarter profit but still beat analyst expectations, which helped lift shares up more than 2 percent.

Global markets saw a shallow but broad selloff Wednesday, as unsettling news from Spain combined with a histrionic report by the International Monetary Fund to give investors pause regarding the situation in Europe.

The CEO of Chesapeake Energy Corp. (NYSE: CHK), the nation's second-largest natural gas producer, has received over $1.1 billion in unreported loans over three years, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) is expected to report highly disappointing financial results Thursday morning, a development that -- as has been the case in the past -- will provide plenty of schadenfreude to the company's vociferous and numerous critics.

Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS), the exalted New York house of finance that is a veritable icon of white-shoe Wall Street firms, is expected to report first-quarter financial results Thursday somewhat weaker than a year-ago, a consensus of bank analysts has noted, as the firm is unlikely to have benefited as much as peers from positive developments that lifted large-cap U.S. banks during the first quarter.

Asset markets across the world hit a collective reset button Monday, as investors moved their cash across continents to capitalize on different markets digesting the same morsel of news at different speeds.

Closely-held private equity giant The Carlyle Group will be putting a valuing itself somewhere in the vicinity of $7 billion during an upcoming initial public offering, the Wall Street Journal reported late Sunday, a conservative assesment that takes into account some very recent developments in the private equity and IPO worlds.

Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) kicked off Monday morning by announcing underwhelming first-quarter earnings that narrowly missed analyst expectations on both profit and revenue. The New York-based banking giant reported earnings of $2.93 billion, or 95 cents per share on revenues of $19.41 billion. Earnings a year ago had been reported as $3 billion, or $1 a share, on revenues of $19.73 billion. Analysts had expected earnings to be flat from year-ago results.