INVESTMENT

The day some gamers have been anticipating for a decade is finally almost here: the ?Diablo 3? release date. Ever since Blizzard announced a May 15th launch for the next installment in the dungeon crawler trilogy, fans have been counting down the days.

The almighty dollar was the investment of choice Monday morning, as international investors - in a classic flight to safety after various major news breaks last week - piled into greenback-denominated cash and cash equivalents.

Shareholder activist Carl Icahn is expected to disclose his acquisition of a significant piece of Oklahoma City-based natural gas company Chesapeake Energy Corp. (NYSE: CHK), which has seen shares tumble amid a federal inquiry, a securities class-action suit and near-record-low natural gas prices. Both parties have yet to publicly confirm the deal.

Deutsche Bank is as German as lederhosen, sauerkraut, beer and the Autobahn.

Steve Rattner, a former adviser to President Barack Obama, called an anti-Mitt Romney ad released by the Obama campaign Monday morning unfair for painting the presumed Republican nominee as a greedy business mogul who destroys jobs.

JPMorgan will move to limit the fallout from a shock trading loss that could reach $3 billion or more by parting company with three top executives involved in its costly failed hedging strategy, sources close to the matter said.

Financial-market participants around the world have reasons for both optimism and pessimism at the dawn of this trading week. But nobody appears to care, really. Unless the reason centers on Greece -- and, by implication, the future of the euro zone.

First JPMorgan Chase & Co. lost an estimated $2 billion in derivatives trading, and now it has lost one of CEO Jamie Dimon's top lieutenants: Ina R. Drew, JPMorgan Chase's chief investment officer and a bank employee for three decades, will step down on Monday. Matt Zames will take over for Drew, Bloomberg News reported.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao called on northeast Asia's powers to cooperate more in the face of global economic headwinds, as China, Japan and South Korea agreed at a summit on Sunday to soon launch negotiations on a three-way free trade pact.

Athens and Paris have rebelled against Berlin-inspired austerity, but Dublin has taken the harsh medicine dutifully -- and, unlike its testy European peers, grimly borne budget cuts and tax hikes with minimal protest. That may be about to change.

The top after-market NASDAQ gainers Friday were The Hackett Group, Inc., Brocade Communications Systems, Inc., Multimedia Games Holding Company, Inc., Leap Wireless International, Inc. and XOMA Corporation. The top after-market NASDAQ losers were: American Capital Mortgage Investment Corp, Brightpoint Inc., magicJack VocalTec Ltd., Energy XXI (Bermuda) Limited (EXXI) and JetBlue Airways Corporation.

Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee said he will petition to Supreme Court to keep in state custody an accused murderer facing federal charges, to avoid the death penalty, which the governor opposes.

Following Thursday's financial earthquake at JPMorgan Chase & Co., fingers are pointing to Bruno Michel Iksil, who recently boasted that he could walk on water -- suggesting the French trader's ego is as outsized as the nemesis in Melville's novel from which his nickname the White Whale originates. Whether or not Iksil's reputation will go from fearsome whale to Jonah after he's blamed for the storm and tossed overboard is not yet known.

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulators are monitoring JPMorgan Chase & Company (NYSE: JPM) following the disclosure that the bank lost $2 billion in bad hedging action carried out by the so-called Whale of London, SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro said Friday.

JP Morgan Chase and Co. (NYSE: JPM) shocked the markets Thursday by announcing it would be booking mammoth losses in the range of $3 billion this quarter as a result of a hedged bet gone bad. But what exactly was that bet?

Eduardo Saverin, a Harvard buddy of Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) CEO Mark Zuckerberg, surrendered his U.S. passport last year when he renounced citizenship, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service said.

Despite RBI's desperate efforts to prop it up, rupee declined by 18 paise to reach 53.60 against dollar in the late morning trade on Friday. However, rupee stabilized in the later sessions at 53.54/55 before closing at 53.45 and India's industrial production surprisingly declined by 3.5 percent in March, for the first time in five months, prompting the industry to seek cut in interest rates.

The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) is on an investment spree, bulking up its holdings in several major companies including Royal Dutch Shell Plc (NYSE: RDS.A), Eni SpA (NYSE: E), and Xstrata PLC (London: XTA), and the sovereign fund has already taken a holding Total SA (NYSE: TOT) and is pursuing avenues to invest in Glencore International Plc (London: GLEN), sources reported Friday.

Hundreds of Philippine protestors took to the streets outside the Chinese embassy in Manila demanding China to withdraw its ships from the region.

The companies whose shares are moving in pre-market trading on Friday are: Pluristem Therapeutics Inc, Mechel OAO, Zynga Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Citigroup Inc, Morgan Stanley and Apartment Investment and Management Co.

China's inflation rate slowed in April from the previous month, showing signs that the price pressure is gradually diminishing to make room for monetary easing.