MANUFACTURING

Private sector activity in the euro zone shrank at its fastest pace in 28 months in October as the debt crisis sapped new business and soured sentiment in an economy looking like it is heading into a slump, survey data showed on Friday.

Canada's economy unexpectedly ditched in October almost all the jobs gained the month before as a sluggish economy led to layoffs in manufacturing and construction, according to Statistics Canada on Friday.

U.S. employment growth was likely too weak in October to pull down the nation's lofty jobless rate, though it may have been strong enough to suggest some economic momentum is building.

Barclays Capital said Apple Inc.'s capital expenditure (capex) projection is really the only major figure it forecasts for investors on an annual basis in every 10Q and 10K filings. The brokerage said capex guidance of $8 billion could mean something for iCloud and revenue.

Stock index futures edged higher in choppy trade on Thursday on talk the Greek government might collapse, thus avoiding a referendum on a bailout plan and easing concerns about an imminent bailout.

Stock index futures pointed to a slightly higher opening for equities on Wall Street on Thursday, with futures for the S&P 500, for the Dow Jones and for the Nasdaq 100 up 0.1 to 0.2 percent.

China's people have a clear message for their government -- don't even think of saving Europe.

Mario Draghi faces a storm at his first policy meeting as European Central Bank president on Thursday but is unlikely to be pushed into a dramatic ramping up the bank's response to the escalating euro zone crisis.

The top after-market NASDAQ Stock Market gainers are: Novatel Wireless, Wright Medical Group, Anika Therapeutics, Mercadolibre, THQ, Huron Consulting Group, and Qualcomm. The top after-market NASDAQ Stock Market losers are: Dendreon, ValueVision Media, WebMD Health, Nutrisystem, and Big 5 Sporting Goods.

Severe flooding in Thailand, which has taken the lives of almost 400 people and nearly obliterated its rice crop export, has resulted in a laptop shortage that will undoubtedly cause prices of electronics to rise, just in time for the holiday shopping season.

Corporations are booking huge third-quarter profits and sitting on gargantuan piles of cash -- and nothing could be less important.

The Federal Reserve looks set to take a breather from monetary stimulus measures on Wednesday, even if financial market turbulence heightens the chances of action later.

The U.S. job market continues to register incremental progress, as the private sector added 110,000 jobs in October, ADP said, with job gains concentrated in the services sector and in small/medium companies.

The U.S. unemployment rate for September was 9.1 percent, but the full story of who works in America isn't told through the numbers alone.

While Apple Inc.'s iPhone 4S is marching towards a huge success from around the world, analysts are expecting a 4G LTE iPhone 5 to come in 2012.

Gold firmed on Wednesday, helped by safe-haven demand as the Eurozone troubles deepened and business surveys showed the severe impact the crisis had on manufacturing in the region.

Despite the widely criticized government loans given out to clean energy firms like Solyndra, the U.S. still has a chance to take the lead in the green sector, Jesse Jenkins reported on Forbes.com.

Gold prices fell sharply Tuesday but regained much of the lost ground to close down 0.8 percent on reports that retail investors are increasing their exposure to gold-back exchange-traded products.

South African stocks ended sharply lower on Tuesday, extending the decline to two days as investors worldwide offloaded risky assets after Greece's shock move to hold a referendum on a rescue deal.

To say that the bankruptcy filing of MF Global and a Greek referendum on its bailout package have unnerved institutional investors would be an understatement. Where's the Dow headed in the next 3-6 months?

Multiple Fortune 100 companies were the victims of a coordinated series of cyber attacks dubbed Nitro, says security firm Symantec Corp. At least 48 firms - all of which are involved in the chemical and defense industries - were subject to the attack, which has been traced back to a computer system owned by a man in his twenties working out of northern China.