IBT Staff Reporter

Oil jumped more than 6 percent to above $51 a barrel on Thursday after a move by the Federal Reserve to buy government bonds hit the dollar and revived expectations the U.S. economy could soon begin its recovery.

Package delivery company FedEx Corp reported a sharply lower quarterly profit due to the global economic downturn and said it was taking fresh actions to cut costs.

Stock futures signaled Wall Street would rise at the open on Thursday as rising oil prices boosted energy shares and sentiment was underpinned by optimism about the Federal Reserve's bid to lower borrowing costs.

Fedex Corp reported third quarter earnings on Thursday and said it expects further staff reductions.

USJ Co Ltd, the operator of a struggling Universal Studios theme park in Japan, said on Thursday it was being sold for $1.2 billion to a consortium led by Goldman Sachs.

From a pure antitrust perspective, China's basis for the rejection of Coca-Cola's $2.4 billion bid for Huiyuan Juice failed to stack up to international standards.

China Mobile missed forecasts with its slowest quarterly profit growth since 2005 and warned a deepening financial crisis will pressure subscriber growth as local competition gets tougher.

Stock futures pointed to a lower open on Wall Street on Thursday following a strong rally overnight after the Federal Reserve surprised investors when it said it would buy long-term Treasury bonds for the first time in four decades.

Oil rose to $50 a barrel for the first time since January on Thursday after a move by the Federal Reserve to buy government bonds hit the dollar and revived hopes the U.S. economy could soon begin its recovery.

China's rejection of Coca-Cola's bid to buy the country's top juice maker, Huiyuan, marked no retreat from government policies welcoming foreign investment, the government said on Thursday.

World shares rose on Thursday as the U.S. Federal Reserve's surprise announcement it would start large-scale buying of government debt sparked optimism that the battered U.S. economy could soon begin to recover.

The role of the U.S. dollar as the key global currency will decline after the financial crisis, and its value may also weaken due to America's current account deficit, officials at some of Asia's top think tanks said.

The U.S. dollar steadied on Thursday after suffering its biggest daily plunge since 1985, while Asian government bonds rallied on a large-scale plan by the Federal Reserve to buy long-dated U.S. Treasuries, reviving a practice not used in decades.

Sony Ericsson is betting heavily on camera phones in the United States this year, hoping high-end photography will convince consumers to buy a new phone or replace digital cameras.

Specialty apparel retailer Eddie Bauer Holdings Inc said it faced significant risk of violating its consolidated secured leverage ratio as early as the first half of fiscal 2009.

Sony Corp is making available public domain books from Google Inc to users of its electronic book reader, Sony said on Wednesday, vastly increasing the amount of available content on the device.

Citigroup Inc and Morgan Stanley will in the next few weeks announce plans to authorize or repurpose shares so they can have enough stock to compensate employees, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Some top employees of American International Group Inc's Financial Products group have agreed to return retention bonuses after mounting public outrage over the $165 million payout, the Wall Street Journal said.

The U.S. dollar nursed big losses on Thursday and Asian government bonds rallied after the Federal Reserve vowed to buy long-dated U.S. Treasuries, reviving a practice not used in decades to revive an ailing economy.

Microsoft Corp is set to publicly launch Internet Explorer 8 early on Thursday, the latest version of its market-dominating Web browser.

A top investment officer at Pimco says it is unclear what the reasoning for the Federal Reserve’s surprise decision to buy up to $300 billion in Treasuries, according to Reuters.test

Japanese electronics firm Sony Corp said on Thursday it would freeze workers' salaries this year as the company tried to recover from a record loss, and its rivals may follow in the face of a global sales slump.

Microsoft Corp is set to publicly launch Internet Explorer 8 early on Thursday, the latest version of its market-dominating web browser.

Option volume in Citigroup on Wednesday skyrocketed, as the bank's calls became more popular than the S&P 500 SPDR SPY.P exchange-traded fund, typically a top favorite among the options crowd.

NIKE Inc, the world's leading retailer of athletic footwear and apparel maker, said Wednesday its sales dropped in the third quarter of 2009.

The U.S. government's hodgepodge of financial regulatory agencies failed to take a big-picture view of risk and ignored red flags in the current economic crisis, a government report said on Wednesday.

JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Jamie Dimon received about $19.7 million in total compensation for 2008, down from about $34 million in 2007, the company revealed in materials filed with U.S. regulators ahead of its annual shareholder meeting.

On Wednesday, Oracle released an adjusted profit report of 35 cents on revenue of $5.5 billion in its fiscal third-quarter beating the Wall Street's expectations.

Luxury carmaker BMW said on Wednesday it intended to stay independent despite the decline in vehicle demand, as Ford Motor Co became the second carmaker to offer securities backed by auto loans to take advantage of a U.S. program aimed at thawing consumer credit for new vehicles.