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Barnes & Noble Inc. (NYSE: BKS) hired a chief financial officer with extensive experience in cable broadcasting, particularly with that industry's spin-offs as well as mergers and acquisitions, the New York-based company said Monday.

The new highly anticipated iPad is sold out for pre-orders. Demand for the new tablet is off the charts, according to Apple, and shipments for current pre-orders will start shipping from March.19-three days after the tablet's retail launch.

Call us crazy, but the two most recent major economic data releases by China -- the consumer price index on Friday and the trade balance on Saturday -- indicate there could be a case to be made for monetary stimulus in the world's second-largest economy.

China's trade balance plunged $31.5 billion into the red in February as imports swamped exports to leave the largest deficit in at least a decade and fuel doubts about the extent to which frail foreign demand or seasonal distortion drove the drop.

The economic picture got considerably messier this week, as positive data on job creation battled with gasoline-price-fueled inflation concerns in economists', policymakers' and consumers' minds. Joyous declarations that the economy is finally getting better have turned into more studious critiques of how the incipient recovery is actually affecting poor, working-class and middle-class people.

Many cities across the United States are still scrambling to help their residents overcome the economic recession that officially ended more than two years ago, according to a survey released on Friday by the National League of Cities.

Leaders of China and India, two of the world's biggest economies, are responding to a decline in their nation's blistering rates of growth by focusing on virtually identical ways to stimulate bank lending and regain financial momentum.

Stocks rose on Friday, adding to their best two-day run in nearly three months, after a report showed the economy added more jobs than expected in February.

Smoking among America's youth has reached epidemic proportions, starting them on the path to a lifetime of addiction, the U.S. surgeon general's office said in its first report on youth smoking since 1994.

For U.S. consumer electronics chains Best Buy and RadioShack , selling Apple products is at best a bittersweet experience.

At just 41-years-old, Sara Blakely is the youngest woman to make Forbes Magazine Billionaire List. She ranks 1,153 of 1,226 on the list with a company that is valued by many Wall Street analysts at $1 billion. What is this company, might you ask? Spanx.

Central bankers around the world took their foot off the loose monetary policy throttle Thursday and kept benchmark interest rates steady on inflation concerns and the lack of new threats to gross domestic product growth.

Simon Property Group Inc. (NYSE:SPG), the largest U.S. mall owner, said Thursday it is acquiring a 28.7 percent interest in Klepierre, a shopping center operator based in Paris, for about $2 billion.

Two of Europe's main central banks announced Thursday they would be keeping their benchmark interbank lending rates unchanged, in an expected move that analysts see as an acknowledgement of creeping inflation and policy exhaustion.

Apple's third generation iPad - named 'New iPad' - has been unveiled finally. The new tablet boasts of Retina Display, A5x chip, 4G LTE and 5-megapixel Rear-Facing (iSight) Camera, among other things.

The top aftermarket NYSE gainers Wednesday were: Flotek Industries, Crown Castle International Corp, Community Health Systems, El Paso Corp, Global Cash Access Holdings and Hovnanian Enterprises. The top aftermarket NYSE losers were: H&R Block, Jones Group, American International Group, Standard Pacific Corp, National Retail Properties and Texas Industries.

The U.S. Justice Department is threatening to sue Apple and five major U.S. publishers for allegedly fixing the price of e-books, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Facebook Inc added 25 banks to help underwrite the company's initial public offering, meaning most of Wall Street will have a role in the share sale, according to an amended IPO filing on Wednesday.

Retailers like Children's Place Retail Stores Inc and Brown Shoe Co Inc are struggling to protect their margins as they continue to discount heavily to drive sales, resulting in weak quarterly profit reports and bleak forecasts.

HSBC announced on Wednesday an agreement to sell its insurance businesses in emerging markets for $914 million in cash, in a continuing effort to offload non-banking assets.

While customers and investors need to wait a little more before Apple introduces its update to the iPad2, here are three key items to bear in mind.