Palash Ghosh

Dell Inc. (NYSE: DELL) pursuit of storage equipment maker Compellent Technologies (NYSE: CML) has featured some unusual characteristics and twists.

Nigeria has withdrawn charges against former US Vice-President Dick Cheney over a bribery scandal dating from the 1990s when Cheney was chief executive officer of Halliburton Co. (NYSE: HAL).

Shares of U.K. drugmaker AstraZeneca PLC (NYSE: AZN) are plunging after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requested further analysis of existing studies of the company’s heart drug, Brilinta, thereby further delaying its potential approval.

The new Kobe Bryant controversy relating to his contract with Turkish Airlines is a bizarre, unexpected and fascinating juxtaposition of fame, media, wealth, sports, ancient history and multi-culturalism that could only happen in Hollywood.

Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, has threatened to nationalize all British and American companies operating in his country unless Western sanctions are eliminated.

Chevron Corp. (CVX) negotiated with the Iranian government about developing Iraq-Iran cross-border oilfield, in direct violation of U.S. sanctions against Teheran, according to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in diplomatic cables leaked by WikiLeaks.

Stocks rose, likely boosted by a drop in jobless claims and an optimistic forecast by FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX), ahead of post-closing earnings reports from Research In Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM) and Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL).

The Federal Reserve is proposing a 12-cent cap on fees merchants pay to banks pay for debit card transaction processing

The PIMCO Total Return Fund (NASDAQ: PTTAX), the world’s largest bond fund, will widen its investment strategy to allow portfolio manager Bill Gross the flexibility of holding up to 10 percent of the portfolio’s assets in “equity-linked” securities, such as preferred shares or convertible stock, according to an SEC filing.

Standard & Poor’s upgraded its long-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings on the People’s Republic of China to ‘AA-’ (its fourth-highest ranking) from ‘A+’.

Flybe Group plc, Britain’s largest domestic airline and Europe’s largest regional carrier which just went public, has a famous investor – billionaire hedge-fund manager/financier George Soros has invested 7.2-million pounds sterling into the company

Although the 85-billion euro bailout package from the IMF and EU was ratified by Ireland’s parliament (by a scant six votes), the man who pushed hardest for its passage, Prime Minister Brian Cowen may be the most unpopular man in the country.

Stocks on Wall Street drifted lower, erasing an early-session rally, as the dollar jumped and traders weighed a credit downgrade warning on Spain and the U.S. Senate’s passage of the $885-billion tax cut extension bill.

In spite of a fragile U.S. economy, 2010 could end up the second most profitable year for New York City’s securities industry, with the average Wall Street bonus topping last year’s figure due to fewer workers and high earnings, according to a report by the State Comptroller of New York.

Social unrest in China has significantly increased this year, with people in small towns and rural areas particularly unhappy with their lives, according to a study by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), a Chinese think-tank.

Baby Boomers, who have already received $2.4-trillion in inheritances, are poised to inherit another $8.4-trillion from their parents and grandparents, according to a study authored by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College for the MetLife Mature Market Institute.

Investors are increasingly attracted to U.S. stocks as the fiscal/sovereign debt crisis in the euro zone deepens, according to a fund manager survey by Bank of America-Merrill Lynch (BoAML)

Homebuilder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes remained unchanged in December from the previous month, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI).

Greek unions have again staged strikes and demonstrations to protest the government’s austerity measures, including changes in labor laws and widespread cuts in wages.

Some of the so-called emerging markets have advanced to a point where they might be considered “developed” -- or not, depending on one’s views and criteria. Further complicating this picture is the arrival of “frontier” markets – countries even less developed than the emerging markets, but boasting even greater long-term growth potential.

Stocks retreated in the final hour of trading after the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged at near-zero, maintained its bond-buying program and warned about the slow pace of economic recovery in the U.S.

The economic recovery is continuing, but at a pace that is not sufficient to bring down unemployment, according to a policy statement by the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).

Full-Text: FOMC Policy Statement from Dec. 14, 2010

In the face of massive government spending cuts and rising fees, public universities in the U.K. may be doomed, according to Ekklesia, a Christian-based think tank.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimated that airlines will earn net profit of $15.1-billion this year – a 70 percent jump from its previous forecast made only three months ago when it forecast profits of $8.9-billion. But the group warned that net profit margins in the airline industry are pathetic

Allied Irish Bank (NYSE: AIB) has bowed to government pressure and cancelled plans to shell out back-dated bonuses totaling 40-million euros to its executives. The bank’s board decided to abandon the payments after Ireland’s finance minister Brian Lenihan intervened by threatening to withhold state funding for the troubled lender.

The finance minister of debt-troubled Portugal is in Beijing, China to try to convince Chinese government authorities to purchase Portuguese government bonds.

A late-day sell-off, ahead of the U.S. Senate vote on the compromised tax bill, pushed the major equity indices to session lows, resulting in a mixed performance for stocks.

The government of Bolivia has passed a new pension law that reduces the retirement age for most men to 58 from 65, in stark contrast to many other countries which are seeking to hike the retirement age in order to deal with climbing life expectancy rates.