CITIGROUP

A controversial weapon could be deployed soon in the U.S. fight against the housing crisis as states and top banks near a deal in their dispute over mortgage abuses -- cutting the mortgage debt owed by homeowners.

The top pre-market NASDAQ Stock Market gainers are: Arkansas Best, Clearwire, Baidu, Brocade Communications Systems, and Spectrum Pharmaceuticals. The top pre-market NASDAQ Stock Market losers are: TGC Industries, Nanometrics, Qlik Technologies, Coinstar, and Zix Corp.

In the U.S., bank stocks performed especially superbly.

Stocks surged 3 percent on Thursday as an agreement by European leaders to help contain the region's two-year debt crisis lifted a cloud hovering over markets.

Stocks surged 3 percent in a broad rally on Thursday as a long-awaited agreement by European leaders to boost the region's bailout fund promised to remove a major headwind for the market.

Regulators are formally investigating whether Avon broke bribery laws overseas, and the cosmetics company said it was again reassessing its strategy after quarterly profit fell far short of expectations.

Stocks surged 2 percent on Thursday after European leaders reached a long-awaited agreement to boost the region's bailout fund and struck a deal with banks and insurers to accept 50 percent losses on Greek bonds.

Stock index futures pointed to a higher open on Wall Street on Thursday, with futures for the S&P 500, Dow Jones futures and Nasdaq 100 futures rising 1.5 to 1.8 percent at 5:05 a.m. EDT.

The National Security Agency, a secretive arm of the U.S. military, has begun providing Wall Street banks with intelligence on foreign hackers, a sign of growing U.S. fears of financial sabotage.

BP has turned a corner after the Gulf of Mexico disaster, its chief executive said on Tuesday, predicting the British oil firm would now return to output and cashflow growth and rejecting calls for a fundamental restructuring of the group.

Deutsche Bank posted forecast-beating third-quarter pretax profit as retail banking and asset management offset a drop in investment banking which it warned was facing its toughest conditions since 2008 and could lead to more job cuts.

Stocks rose on Monday, adding to three weeks of gains by the S&P 500, after strong earnings from Caterpillar and some proposed acquisitions boosted investor sentiment.

Stocks rose on Monday, adding to three weeks of gains for the S&P after strong earnings from Caterpillar and some proposed acquisitions boosted investor appetite for risky assets.

Stocks rose on Monday adding to three weeks of gains for the S&P after strong earnings from Caterpillar and a number of proposed acquisitions boosted investor appetite for risky assets.

Health insurer Cigna will buy HealthSpring for about $3.8 billion to jump-start its business selling Medicare plans for the elderly.

Are banks beyond repair? The largest U.S. financial companies did little to answer that question, delivering a mixed bag of quarterly results.

For the small club of companies who trade the food, fuels and metals that keep the world running, the last decade has been sensational. Driven by the rise of Brazil, China, India and other fast-growing economies, the global commodities boom has turbocharged profits at the world's biggest trading houses.

British singer Robbie Williams, who signed one of the world's biggest music deals with EMI in 2002, is to release his ninth studio album with Universal Music, the world's largest music company, next year.

Occupy Wall Street has camped out at Zucotti Park in Lower Manhattan for weeks, but it probably isn't reaching as many bankers as it could. Which could have something to do with the fact that finance is no longer the area's biggest tenant.

Swiss bank UBS AG's caretaker chief executive Sergio Ermotti has ruled out a sale or spinoff of the investment bank and is planning to shrink the investment-banking unit, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Citigroup Inc will pay $285 million to settle charges that it defrauded investors who bought toxic housing-related debt that the bank bet would fail, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Wednesday.