IBT Staff Reporter

U.S. stocks dropped on Wednesday on weaker-than-expected economic data, and energy and resource shares, led by Chevron, fell after the government reported a build-up in oil inventories, reflecting reduced demand.

Fannie Mae on Wednesday said it sold $1 billion in bills at lower interest rates compared with sales of the same maturities a week ago.

Oil and gas stocks plunged at the opening of trade today pulled lower by Valero Energy Corp.’s announcement yesterday that is expecting a net loss of 50 cents per share for the second quarter of 2009.

Luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers Inc posted a wider-than-expected quarterly loss, but said it would not give earnings outlook due to several uncertainties related to its business.

The U.S. general nominated to take charge of the war in Afghanistan pledged on Tuesday to try to minimize civilian casualties even as U.S.-led forces step up operations against insurgents.

Al Qaeda's North African wing said on Wednesday it had carried out its threat to kill a British hostage it was holding in the Sahara.

Wu'er Kaixi, one of the best known dissidents from the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing 20 years ago, tried to reach China via Macau Wednesday but was refused entry, Taiwan authorities said.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned on Wednesday that rising U.S. debt was contributing to a spike in longer-term interest rates, and said now was the time to start working on reining in deficits.

North Korea is assembling a missile that could hit U.S. soil and may test-launch it as early as this month, a newspaper reported, as a U.S. envoy on Wednesday urged Pyongyang to cease provocations and return to disarmament talks.

A second British cabinet minister announced she was resigning Wednesday, undermining Prime Minister Gordon Brown's authority and his future as leader of the increasingly out-of-favor Labor Party.

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden said U.S. President Barack Obama had planted the seeds of revenge and hatred toward the United States in the Muslim world and warned Americans to prepare for the consequences.

President Barack Obama headed for the Middle East on Tuesday hoping to start mending U.S. ties to the Islamic world in a speech that aides say will reach out to Muslims but deal with tough issues like the peace process and violent extremism.

Anglo-French property company Hammerson has sold its Les Trois Quartiers office and retail property in Paris to private equity real estate investor MGPA for 210 million euros ($300 million), both parties said on Wednesday.

President Barack Obama met Saudi King Abdullah in Riyadh on Wednesday ahead of a much-heralded speech in Cairo the U.S. leader hopes will help refurbish America's tarnished image in the Islamic world.

Australian Dollar: As expected the Reserve Bank kept interest rates on hold at 3% yesterday with the major surprise coming in the form of a much lower than expected Current Account Deficit in the first quarter of the year.

General Motors Corp and Chrysler LLC, both bankrupt, will try on Wednesday to ease congressional concern, and in some cases anger, over their plans to slash more than 2,400 dealerships.

Chinese security forces blanketed Tiananmen Square on Wednesday ahead of the 20th anniversary of the June 4 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, and a day after Twitter and other Internet services in China were blocked.

Singapore state investor Temasek sold its stake in British bank Barclays Plc several months ago at a big loss, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

French officials said on Wednesday they might never discover why an Air France aircraft crashed into the Atlantic killing 228 people and that they might not even find the plane's black boxes on the ocean floor.

Russia's market regulator has sketched out new regulations on stock floats which would effectively limit initial public offerings on foreign markets to 5 percent of the company, a draft order on the new rules showed.

HSBC Holdings Plc , which last month became one of the first foreign banks allowed to issue Chinese currency bonds in Hong Kong, said on Wednesday it is also preparing for yuan bond issuance in China.

Dutch utility Essent scrapped the sale of its waste-management unit, blaming low prices and other problems with bids for the failure of an auction that had once aimed to raise a billion euros or more.

Specialty food maker Premium Brands Income Fund said it signed a deal with Thallion Pharmaceuticals Inc to convert its company structure to a dividend-paying corporation from a trust.

The U.S. economy's recovery may have stalled after data on Wednesday showed half a million private sector jobs were lost in May and mortgage applications fell last week as rising interest rates frightened away buyers.

U.S. private employers chopped more than half a million jobs in May, signaling job conditions remain tough and dashing some hopes the economy was not deteriorating as rapidly as thought, a report on Wednesday showed.

Wall Street and European banks have long sat atop the rankings for arranging initial public offerings across Asia.

The Norwegian government said on Wednesday it would assess the impact of climate change on financial markets and urged global investors to join forces.

Canadian auto supplier Magna International aims to close a deal with General Motors over its Opel unit in September, Magna's co-Chief Executive Siegfried Wolf said Wednesday.

European stocks fell and Wall Street was set for a weaker start on Wednesday as investors turned cautious after economic optimism pushed world stocks to fresh 7-1/2 month highs and sterling to 2009 peaks earlier.