IBT Staff Reporter

If Boeing Co. has been rocked by this week's stack of new plane deals announced by rival Airbus, it certainly isn't showing it.

Hundreds of Japanese companies have erected takeover defenses to protect themselves from hostile takeovers in recent months, but the courts may tear some of them down, breaching the walls of fortress Japan for outsiders to acquire underperforming firms.

NYSE Euronext Inc. has entered the competition for the Borsa Italiana by submitting a preliminary bid to rival the London Stock Exchange Group's offer, according to the online edition of the Wall Street Journal.

The London Stock Exchange's offer for Borsa Italiana is worth about 1.6 billion euros ($2.14 billion), sources close to the situation said on Friday, a shade above a reported rival bid from NYSE Euronext and giving Borsa heavy board representation.

The governor of the Chinese province shaken by a slave labor scandal publicly apologized on Friday, as officials described farmers, children and mentally impaired people snatched into a grim rural underworld.

Despite slow sales in the past four years, Americans believe their homes are worth more now than a year ago.

Gold held steady on Friday after falling to a one-week low the previous day, while bullion contracts in Tokyo extended losses as cautious investors digested a plan by the Japanese exchange to boost liquidity.

U.S. officials said India and Brazil were to blame for the breakdown on Thursday of trade talks that some were billing as a final chance to spur the Doha round toward completion.

Oil jumped more than a dollar to top $71 a barrel on Friday on fears a strike by Nigerian unions could intensify and disrupt shipments from the world's eighth-largest exporter.

A sustained push above 5 percent on the yield of the benchmark 10-year Treasury note could roil markets, deepen housing woes and slow the U.S. economy.

The head of U.S. Air Force intelligence and surveillance on Thursday said data available commercially through online mapping software such as Google Earth posed a danger to security but could not be rolled back.

AT&T Inc. said on Thursday it has hired 2,000 temporary store workers to handle its much-hyped introduction of the iPhone, the first cell phone from iPod music player maker Apple Inc.

U.S. farmers need rain to help them cash in on demand for ethanol, the alternative fuel made from corn.

When Kansas-based real estate investor Phil Ruffin paid $165 million for 41 acres on the famed Las Vegas Strip in 1998, his critics said he overpaid by $15 million.

For online advertisers, your name, address or age is far less important than the record of what you were looking for online.

Blackstone Group LP, the largest private equity firm to go public, said on Thursday it raised $4.13 billion in an initial public offering priced at the top of a forecast range in the biggest U.S. IPO in five years.

Consumer groups urged the Federal Reserve on Thursday to make minor changes to a proposal requiring more disclosures by credit card companies to help consumers understand various fees and interest rates.

News Corp.'s $5 billion bid for Dow Jones & Co. Inc. may have fueled a modest rally among newspaper stocks but it's unlikely to spark similar deals or push publishing sector takeover values higher, analysts say.

The dollar gained against the Swiss franc on Thursday and approached a four-and-a-half-year high against the yen as investors continued to punish low-yielding currencies in a quest for higher returns.

China’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) may rise by 3.3 percent this year, surpassing the government’s annual 3 percent target rate, according to a government report.

Stocks rebounded on Thursday after brokerage upgrades sent the semiconductor sector to a 13-month high and fresh data pointed to a growing economy.

Consumers in Japan may be feeling increasingly uneasy as the weakening yen and recent rises in the price of crude oil and raw material costs are making commodities in Japan more expensive.

Gas exploration talks between Japan and China over a disputed area in the East China Sea will be held next Tuesday, Japan's Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.

General Electric Co. and Pearson Plc said on Thursday they will not pursue a joint offer for publisher Dow Jones & Co. Inc., removing a potential challenge to a $5-billion bid by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

Oil prices eased further on Thursday, pressured by bulging U.S. crude stockpiles and expectations that a strike in Nigeria would not slow shipments from the eighth largest oil exporter.

Sony Corp. expects a steep increase in the number of game titles released for its flagship Playstation 3 game console, aiming to help the unit's slumping sales, according to a published report.

MySpace Launches Instant Messenger News Corp.'s (NSADAQ: NWS) popular social networking site, MySpace, said it officially launched a test version of its instant messaging program, dubbed MyspaceIM.

H&R Block Inc. (NYSE: HRB) reported a fourth quarter loss on Thursday, on the poor performance of its mortgage lending arm, sending shares down nearly 4 percent.

News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) may swap its popular social networking site for a stake in Yahoo! Inc. according to a published report.