IBT Staff Reporter

The pace of existing home sales in the United States was off slightly in May to a 5.99 million-unit annual rate, the National Association of Realtors said in a report on Monday that showed continued weakness in the housing sector.

U.S. stocks were little changed on Monday as a sharp drop in oil futures weighed on the energy sector but helped the broader market.

The yen rebounded against major currencies on Monday as some investors bet that its recent decline was too far, too fast.

Boeing Co. has raised prices on its commercial planes by almost 6 percent on average, as the cost of its raw materials increases.

The LSE is confident in its $2.2 billion bid for Borsa Italiana, despite some objections.

Walgreen Co., one of the largest U.S. drugstore chains, posted a higher quarterly profit on Monday, boosted by new stores and an inventory credit.

Despite billions of dollars worth of orders, most aerospace companies saw their shares fall during the Paris air show last week amid exchange rate concerns and the fact that stocks had already risen ahead of the event.

Oil prices fell by more than $1 to near $70 on Monday after Royal Dutch Shell said it was preparing to resume exports from a Nigerian oilfield abandoned over a year ago because of militant attacks.

Nintendo Co Ltd zipped past Sony Corp. in market value on Monday and became one of Japan's top 10 issues for the first time ever as it elbowed the PlayStation maker out of its decade-long dominance in the game industry.

Indian fund managers and brokerages face a severe shortage of analysts as talent is snapped up by big-spending foreign firms lured by a four-year bull run in the local stock market.

Japan's Honda Motor Co. has denied it is looking to buy Harley-Davidson Inc., rumors of which had sent the U.S. motorcycle maker's shares surging in New York on Friday.

Fears of rising borrowing costs hit global stocks on Monday with investors nervous about higher government interest rates and a blow-out in credit spreads.

GLG Partners, one of Europe's largest hedge fund firms, has lined up a U.S. stock market listing to help it expand and hire top managers, using a reverse acquisition with a shell company that values it at $3.4 billion.

Dow Jones & Co. Inc. and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. are close to a pact that would protect the journalistic independence of The Wall Street Journal if News Corp. acquired the media company, according to newspaper reports on Sunday.

Japanese and U.S. experts will meet on Wednesday and Thursday to discuss technical issues relating to American beef trade, Japan's Farm Ministry said in a news release on Monday.

Bankrupt auto parts maker Delphi Corp. will retain and operate four plants under a tentative agreement with the United Auto Workers, according to a document posted on a Web site run by union members.

Plaxo, which makes software for PC users to keep address books up-to-date, said on Sunday it is helping millions of members open up their online datebooks to build social networks like MySpace or Facebook.

Asian stock markets mostly fell on Monday following a steep slide on Wall Street, but investors bought some Japanese exporters such as Canon Inc. on the back of a downtrodden yen.

'Evan Almighty' did not live up to its name at the weekend box office in North America.

Yahoo Inc. is merging the two main parts of its U.S. advertising business after veteran sales executive Wenda Harris Millard resigned, the latest in a string of executive departures.

Sweating, panting and some groaning, 400 Japanese worked out on Sunday with U.S. fitness guru Billy Blanks, whose military-style exercises have become a huge hit in a country where waistlines are bulging.

Goldman Sachs is selling its 30.48 percent stake in South Korean cable TV operator C&M, valued at $970 million, a newspaper said on Monday, in the latest sale of Korean assets by foreign investment firms.

Utah mining prospector Kyle Kimmerle has more than a hunch that uranium will make him rich. It is a conviction so strong he has bet his house on it.

Moscow next week introduces a city-wide label to identify GM-free foods, a move ecologists hail as ground-breaking but which foreign producers say is complex and costly.

In its heyday, Hong Kong's famous Bird Garden market bustled with shoppers bargaining in Cantonese for exotic birds for sale as pets or for Buddhist rituals.

A consortium led by Pallinghurst Resources has raised its takeover offer for Australian mining firm Consolidated Minerals Ltd., valuing it at A$642 million ($544 million) and winning the support of Consolidated's board.

Doctors backed away on Sunday from a controversial proposal to designate video game addiction as a mental disorder akin to alcoholism, saying psychiatrists should study the issue more.

U.S. private equity fund Lone Star is in talks with several strategic investors to sell Korea Exchange Bank (KEB), Lone Star chairman John Grayken said in an interview with a local newspaper on Monday.

Shares of investment firm State Street fell after investors balked at the $4.5 billion price tag it paid for a smaller rival in February, but weakness in the shares now gives investors the chance get a piece of the firm when it is poised to benefit from expanding global securities markets, Barron's reported on Sunday.