IBT Staff Reporter

Oil rallied above $36 a barrel on Thursday ahead of key United States inventory data, while the dollar's weakness and a recovery in global stock markets offered support to oil prices.

World stocks rose from the previous day's three-month low on Thursday, while the dollar and government bonds fell, as some European corporate quarterly results were better than the most pessimistic expectations. Nestle the world's biggest food group, beat forecasts with underlying sales growth of 8.3 percent in 2008 and it was cautiously upbeat for 2009. BNP Paribas

Nestle reported strong underlying 2008 sales growth of 8.3 percent and said it was cautiously upbeat for 2009, unlike some rivals, and would push cheaper products to cope with the downturn.

Dow Jones futures rose 1.0 percent by 5:00 a.m. EST, S&P 500 futures rose 1.2 percent and Nasdaq futures rose 0.9 percent, indicating that Wall Street stocks could open higher on Thursday. Eyes will be on the fallout of UBS's $780 million settlement under which the Swiss bank admitted to helping U.S. taxpayers hide accounts from the IRS. Some UBS customers could face scrutiny...

Oil prices rose above $35 a barrel on Thursday ahead of United States data expected to show crude inventories in the top energy consumer hit an 11-year high amid a worsening recession. Oil stocks in the U.S. have risen by 20 percent since September as the downturn has crushed consumption, and helped pull crude prices more than $110 off their peaks last summer. A day ahead of expiry, U.S. crude f...

Shares in Swiss banking giant UBS AG rose 3 percent on Thursday after it agreed to pay $780 million and identify certain American clients to settle criminal fraud charges in the United States. The settlement, announced on Wednesday, further cracks Switzerland's trademark bank account secrecy and could have wide implications for the $7 trillion-offshore banking industry by making it harder to try...

A healthy U.S. auto industry is vital for a sound U.S. economy and by extension for Japanese carmakers, a Tokyo-based auto lobby said, giving a tacit nod to the latest request for federal aid from ailing rivals in Detroit.

Oil prices were steady below $35 a barrel on Thursday, ahead of U.S. data expected to show crude inventories in the top energy consumer have hit an 11-year high amid the worsening recession. Oil stocks in the United States have already risen by 20 percent since September as the economic downturn crushed consumption, which helped pull crude prices more than $110 off their peaks last summer. A day...

Japan's Nikkei average rose 0.3 percent on Thursday, a day after closing at its lowest point in nearly four months, as blue-chip exporters gained on the dollar's first move above 93 yen in six weeks. The Nikkei gained 23.21 points to 7,557.65, capping three days of losses in which it fell about 3 percent. On Wednesday, the benchmark booked its lowest close since October 27. The broader Topix &...

Japan's Nikkei average rose 0.4 percent on Thursday, a day after closing at its lowest in nearly four months, as blue-chip exporters gained on the dollar's climb above 93 yen for the first time in six weeks. Astellas Pharma rose after Nikko Citigroup raised its rating on the stock to buy/medium risk from hold/medium risk, saying the drugmaker's upwardly revised targets for the year to ...

People scrambled on Wednesday to get back their money from firms linked to Texas billionaire Allen Stanford, as fallout from U.S. fraud charges against him spread from the United States and the Caribbean to Latin America and Europe.

EUR/USDToday’s support: - 1.2506(main), where correction is possible. Break would give 1.2480, where correction also may be. Then follows 1.2465. Break of the latter would result in

Japan's Nikkei stock average rose 0.5 percent on Thursday, a day after closing at its lowest in nearly four months, with exporters leading the market higher after the dollar climbed above 93 yen for the first time in six weeks. The weaker yen boosted tech shares such as Kyocera Corp as well, while automakers such as Honda Motor Co gained on short covering. But inve...

Oil prices were steady below $35 a barrel on Thursday ahead of U.S. data expected to show crude inventories in the top energy consumer have hit an 11-year high amid the worsening recession. Oil stocks in the United States have already risen by 20 percent since September as the economic downturn crushed consumption, which helped pull crude prices more than $110 off their peaks last summer. A day ...

General Motors Corp is battling to survive collapsing auto demand, tight credit and uncertain prospects for recovery in its biggest markets.

Swiss banking giant UBS AG has agreed to pay $780 million and identify certain U.S. clients in a deal to resolve criminal fraud charges that it assisted rich Americans to evade taxes. The settlement announced on Wednesday further cracks Switzerland's trademark bank account secrecy and could expose some UBS customers to Internal Revenue Service scrutiny and law enfor...

After more than a decade of hype about the Internet being the next great stage for mass entertainment, it remains dominated by amateurs with most Hollywood stars watching from the wings.

Tanzania plans to build a 400 megawatt (MW) coal-fired power plant by 2012 at a cost of $1.2 billion

A U.S. federal court denied class action status to a lawsuit accusing Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) of misleading buyers about which computers could run expanded features that were part of the Windows Vista operating system.

Remember the Alamo? Well, along with that veteran icon of downtown San Antonio are several other historical and captivating missions in nearby San Antonio...

A truly memorable restaurant experience goes beyond the plate. From a church converted into a Creole restaurant and a century-old boat with multi-leveled...

besieged his banks and companies to try to redeem funds or seek information about their savings. After the shock generated by the alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme fraud by Wall Street veteran Bernard Madoff, regulators sought to calm public fears about another major financial scandal at a time of global recession and banking failures. In Colombia, a local affiliate of Stanford halted its activi...

The U.S. has allocated $43 billion from the $787 billion economic stimulus package to boost clean and efficient energy.

Swiss bank UBS AG will pay $780 million and hand over the names of some U.S. customers in an agreement to resolve criminal charges that it defrauded U.S. tax authorities.

have kept it relatively resilient to the economic downturn, it is still vulnerable to sharp cutbacks in corporate spending on technology. The big disappointment, not surprisingly, is the shortfall in revenue, said Pacific Crest Securities analyst Brent Bracelin. Their hardware businesses, both servers and storage, are under intense scrutiny. Budgets are being cut and that showed up in the ...

Brazil's central bank said on Wednesday it has approved a planned merger between Itau, one of the country's largest private banks, and its smaller rival Unibanco .

Hewlett-Packard Co reported worse-than-expected quarterly revenues and issued an earnings forecast for the current quarter that was below Wall Street's expectations. The technology bellwether said on Wednesday its net profit for its fiscal first quarter ended January 31 fell to $1.85 billion, or 75 cents a share, from $2.13 billion, or 80 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Exc...

Copying a few pages from the playbook of Apple Inc's iPhone strategy, which brings many of the powers of the Internet to mobile phones, is no way to beat the computer interloper at its game.

Russia and Georgia have agreed on a mechanism to try to prevent any flareups around the breakaway South Ossetia region from turning into full-scale clashes, international mediators said on Wednesday.