IBT Staff Reporter

(Corrects paragraph 2 to delete reference to worst day since May 6)

Democrats on Tuesday planned to strip out a controversial tax from their landmark financial reform bill in order to win the swing votes needed to pass it through Congress.

Cisco Systems Inc is launching a tablet computing device aimed at business customers, becoming the latest company to wade into the red-hot tablet market.

A U.S. commission is planning to focus on the ties between Goldman Sachs Group Inc and American International Group Inc, and how derivatives transactions between the two financial giants may have contributed to the financial crisis.

Democrats on Tuesday considered stripping out a controversial tax from their landmark financial-reform bill in order to win the swing votes needed to pass it in Congress.

Greek police fired teargas at rioters shouting burn parliament in Athens on Tuesday but fewer ordinary Greeks turned out for rallies in a sign of weariness with anti-austerity protests.

Investors fled the U.S. stock market on Tuesday and the S&P 500 tumbled to nearly an eight-month low in a sell-off triggered by a wave of increasing alarm over the global economic outlook.

Stocks extended losses on Tuesday and the S&P 500 index broke a key technical resistance as it fell below 1,040.78, its previous low point for 2010.

General Motors , in the year since emerging from bankruptcy, has revamped the way it operates, with sharply lower costs, stronger brands and gains in key emerging markets like China, Chief Executive Ed Whitacre told potential investors on Tuesday.

Consumer confidence dropped in June after rising for three months, adding to the view the economic recovery is slowing, while single-family home prices unexpectedly climbed in April.

Sprint Nextel Corp has been seeing shortages of its EVO high-speed phone from HTC Corp in some places due to better-than-expected demand, the company's chief executive, Dan Hesse, said on Tuesday.

U.S. software company Versata filed a complaint with European Union antitrust regulators accusing German software company SAP AG of shutting it out of the market.

Google Inc is expected to close a $3 billion, three-year revolving credit facility this week, marking its first visit to the syndicated loan market, Jacqueline Poh of Thomson Reuters LPC reports.

Shares of electric carmaker Tesla Motors Inc opened nearly 12 percent above their initial public offering price on Tuesday as investors bet that electric cars would define the future of transportation.

Google Inc is tweaking its China website in a last-ditch effort to save its search business in the world's largest Internet market after butting heads with Beijing over Web censorship.

Barnes & Noble Inc shares hit their lowest level in more than a year even as its chief executive said on Tuesday that the bookseller could dominate a quarter of the growing e-books market within a few years and generate billions of dollars in new sales.

Elon Musk, the chief executive and major investor behind Tesla Motors Inc, has sometimes taunted U.S. automakers, painting his fledgling company as everything Detroit would like to be if it could start over: cooler, greener and ensconced in a much better neighborhood.

Shares of electric carmaker Tesla Motors Inc opened nearly 12 percent above their initial public offering price on Tuesday as investors bet that electric cars would define the future of transportation.

Tesla Motors Inc's founder said his company could be profitable if it continued to make pricey sports cars, but is instead forgoing income to build a car aimed at mass-market commuters.

The planned initial public offering of General Motors Co is likely to leave the U.S. government with a minority stake while also raising new funds for the automaker

Stocks tumbled on Tuesday after a sharp drop in consumer confidence and on fresh concerns over euro-zone fiscal problems ahead of massive bank repayments to the European Central Bank this week.

A toxic combination of European banking concerns, a downward revision to Chinese growth and poor U.S. economic data battered Latin American currencies on Tuesday. Brazil's real was hit the hardest, plunging to its weakest level in about two weeks, as investors fled higher-risk assets worldwide.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc on Tuesday named Bill Simon to run its U.S. discount stores, which have struggled with sluggish sales as their core customer continues to be pressured by high unemployment.

European Central Bank officials scrambled to reassure nervous markets on Tuesday that the expiry of nearly half a trillion euros of emergency loans would not hurt the banking system, though they acknowledged some individual banks might face strain.

The euro hit an all-time low versus the Swiss franc, while the Japanese yen rallied on Tuesday as investors pulled back sharply from riskier assets. Markets are skittish about the outlook for U.S. growth after a string of lackluster reports. Fears over euro zone financing weighed on the euro and global equities.

Consumer confidence fell steeply in June after rising for three months, due to worries about the labor market because of a recent slowdown in jobs growth, according to a private sector report released on Tuesday.

Abbott Laboratories Inc is exploring the sale of its flu vaccine unit acquired as part of its purchase of Solvay's drugs unit.

World stocks, commodity prices and the euro tumbled on Tuesday as risk appetite ebbed over concerns about the repayment of 442 billion euros ($545.5 billion) to the European Central Bank. Gold inched higher and U.S. Treasuries rose, pushing two-year note yields to the lowest on record, as jitters over the euro zone debt crisis supported safe-haven demand.

Private equity firm Elevation Partners purchased $120 million in Facebook stock from private shareholders, valuing the company at $23 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter.