NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock index futures edged lower on Tuesday after Japan's sovereign rating was cut by Fitch as a political stalemate dimmed chances the country could curb its snowballing debt. Fitch lowered Japan's long-term foreign currency rating to A plus from AA. It cut the local currency rating to A plus from AA minus. Both were cut with a negative outlook. The United States and Japan are leading a fragile economic recovery among developed countries that could be blown off course if the euro zone fails to contain the damage from its problem debtor states, the OECD said on Tuesday. ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta "threw away his duties" by divulging bank secrets to hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam, a U.S. prosecutor said at the start of Gupta's insider-trading trial on Monday. The defense punched back that the government had no direct evidence. Gupta, 63, once a boldface name in business and charity circles, is the most prominent corporate executive charged in a U.S. government crackdown on insider trading in recent years. ...
(Reuters) - In the run-up to Facebook's $16 billion IPO, Morgan Stanley, the lead underwriter on the deal, unexpectedly delivered some negative news to major clients: The bank's consumer Internet analyst, Scott Devitt, was reducing his revenue forecasts for the company. The sudden caution very close to the huge initial public offering, and while an investor roadshow was underway, was a big shock to some, said two investors who were advised of the revised forecast. ...
TOKYO (Reuters) - Fitch cut Japan's sovereign credit status on Tuesday to the lowest level among global ratings agencies as a political stalemate dims the chance that the country can curb its snowballing debt. Fitch Ratings cut Japan's long-term foreign currency rating by two levels from AA to A plus, the fifth highest investment grade. It cut the more important local currency rating by one notch from AA minus to A plus. Both were given a negative outlook. ...
LONDON (Reuters) - Mobile operator Vodafone made a writedown of 4 billion pounds ($6.3 billion) and cut its medium-term sales target as the debt crisis squeezed customers in southern Europe, forcing them to save money on phone calls. Vodafone posted full-year results in line with forecasts and stood out from its peers by promising another strong dividend as strength in emerging markets and Germany, Britain and Turkey offset a slump in spending in Spain and Italy. ...
LONDON (Reuters) - Commodities trader Glencore has taken majority control of its fast-growing Mutanda copper operation in Congo with deals worth $480 million, marking the first step in a planned merger of the mine with its nearby Kansuki concession. Mutanda, in central Africa's copper belt, is one of Glencore's main growth assets and a key operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo alongside its Katanga asset, largely thanks to its high ore grades and low expansion costs. ...
(Reuters) - Citigroup said it has a cautious view on the U.S. small-and mid-cap companies on concerns over earnings pressure in the second half amid the euro zone crisis and the political uncertainty in the United States. Analyst Scott Chronert downgraded the small and mid-cap technology sector to "market weight", saying expectations for margin improvement for the group may be tough to meet even as valuations remain attractive. Chronert upgraded the health care and utilities sectors to "overweight" on valuation. ...
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain must do more to bolster demand and the Bank of England should purchase more assets or even cut its main interest rate - already at a record low - to prevent years of sluggish growth, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday. Britain has not fully recovered from the slump caused by the 2007-2009 financial crisis, and the economy fell back into recession around the turn of the year. "Growth is too slow and unemployment, including youth unemployment, is too high," IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said at a news conference. ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Best Buy Co Inc reported better-than-expected quarterly sales and maintained its outlook for the year, sending its shares up on Tuesday. The world's largest consumer electronics chain said its sales rose 2.1 percent to $11.61 billion, beating the analysts' average estimate of $11.52 billion. Net earnings fell to $161 million, or 47 cents a share, for the quarter ended May 5, from $255 million, or 64 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding items, it earned 72 cents a share. The company maintained its fiscal 2013 outlook, seeing earnings of $3.50 to $3. ...
HONG KONG/BEIJING (Reuters) - Nissan Motor Co Ltd said it aims to triple global sales of its premium Infiniti brand by 2016 and take 10 percent of China's luxury vehicle market, challenging leaders like Audi AG and Mercedes Benz maker Daimler AG. Infiniti on Tuesday became the first global car brand to open a headquarters in Hong Kong, but it is viewed as a latecomer to China with production there planned to start in 2014. Infiniti currently has about 3 percent of China's luxury vehicle market. ...
(Reuters) - Apple has maintained its place as the world's most valuable brand over the past year, leading a group of technology-related companies that dominate the top 10, according to a study published on Tuesday. The iPhone and iPad maker has boosted its brand value by 19 percent in the past year to $183 billion, or 37 percent of its market capitalization, according to the annual BrandZ study by leading brands and market-research agency Millward Brown. ...
(Reuters) - Federal prosecutors on Monday announced insider trading charges against a former Yahoo employee and a fund manager for illegally sharing and trading on secret company information. The pair pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court on Monday, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office said in a press release. They were also charged by U.S. securities regulators in a parallel civil proceeding. The SEC said it is pursuing a civil settlement with the two. ...
LONDON (Reuters) - Tesco boss Philip Clarke has opted not to take an annual bonus of about 372,000 pounds ($588,000) following a poor performance by the world's third-biggest retailer in its main British market. Shares in Tesco, which issued a shock profit warning in January, have lost almost a quarter of their value this year and the company is now investing about 1 billion pounds in a bid to stem a declining market share in Britain. ...
(Reuters) - Former MF Global Holdings Ltd chief Jon Corzine received more than $8 million in pay and stock options from the futures brokerage in the year before it went bankrupt. Corzine's pay along with that of other former MF Global executives was listed in a court document filed on Friday by Louis Freeh, the trustee unwinding the company's bankrupt estate. Corzine, a former Goldman Sachs chief and New Jersey governor, was paid $3 million in cash, the filing showed, as well as $5.35 million in stock options, which are likely now worthless. ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Seventeen more partners at Dewey & LeBoeuf announced their departure on Monday, as the failing law firm considered filing for bankruptcy. Rival law firm Proskauer Rose said it was bringing in four partners, including Ralph Ferrara, a vice chairman at Dewey and former general counsel of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Duane Morris, another law firm, said it was hiring 16 lawyers from Dewey, including six of its partners. ...
BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China will fast track approvals for infrastructure investment to combat a slowdown in the economy, a state-backed newspaper reported on Tuesday, showing how Premier Wen Jiabao's call for policies to support growth is being put into action. The pace of investment in the likes of roads, bridges and real estate is running at its weakest in nearly a decade, April data showed, suggesting the world's second-biggest economy is heading for a sixth straight quarter of slowing growth. ...
(Reuters) - Jailed former Enron Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Skilling is seeking a new trial citing "newly discovered evidence," according to court documents. Skilling was convicted in 2006 on charges including conspiracy and securities fraud in relation to the 2001 collapse of the one-time energy trading giant Enron. The 58-year-old is now serving a 24-year jail term. Skilling attorney Daniel Petrocelli has asked a judge for more time to file a "motion for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence", according to court filings last week in Houston federal court. ...
(Reuters) - Facebook shares sank 11 percent in the first day of trading without the full support of the company's underwriters, leaving some investors down almost 25 percent from where they were Friday and driving others to switch back to more established stocks. Facebook's debut was beset by problems, so much so that Nasdaq said on Monday it was changing its IPO procedures. That may comfort companies considering a listing, but does it little for Facebook, whose lead underwriter, Morgan Stanley, had to step in and defend the $38 offering price on the open market. ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose more than 1 percent on Monday, with the S&P 500 snapping a six-day losing streak in a rebound from equities' biggest weekly drop in almost six months, but Facebook slumped in its second session after a disappointing debut. Tech shares were among the day's biggest gainers, with an S&P sector index surging 2.8 percent on the strength of Apple Inc . Shares of Apple climbed 5.8 percent to $561.28, leading the Nasdaq to its biggest one-day percentage gain since December 2011. ...
(Reuters) - Facebook shares sank 11 percent in the first day of trading without the full support of the company's underwriters, leaving some investors down almost 25 percent from where they were Friday and driving others to switch back to more established stocks. Facebook's debut was beset by problems, so much so that Nasdaq said on Monday it was changing its IPO procedures. That may comfort companies considering a listing, but does it little for Facebook, whose lead underwriter, Morgan Stanley, had to step in and defend the $38 offering price on the open market. ...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook's lackluster initial public offering performance is a black eye for many on Wall Street and could have ramifications for similar upcoming deals such as an offering by Twitter, but venture capitalists in Silicon Valley are keen to shrug off Facebook's stumble - at least for now. ...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers investigating Wal-Mart Stores Inc for alleged bribery in Mexico are frustrated by the lack of cooperation they have received from the company, a committee staffer familiar with the investigation said. Attorneys for Wal-Mart briefed the committee earlier on Monday about the company's anti-corruption compliance program, the person said. But Wal-Mart has not committed to briefing the panel on the substantive allegations raised by a New York Times report, a key request of the committee, said the staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. ...
SHANGHAI/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc will sell as much as half of its 40 percent stake in Chinese e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba Group for $7.1 billion, ending years of fractious talks over how to extract value from its most prized asset. Yahoo also increased its stock buyback authorization by $5 billion to $5.5 billion as a result of the deal but said it might instead opt to distribute some of the proceeds through a dividend. The sale, announced on Monday, gives Yahoo $6.3 billion in cash and up to $800 million of new Alibaba preferred stock. After taxes, Yahoo will clear $4.2 billion. ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon took another step that showed humility and caution in the wake of a stunning $2 billion loss, or more, on derivatives by announcing on Monday that the company will quit spending capital on stock buybacks. The company will suspend for now a $15 billion share repurchase plan that Federal Reserve regulators had just approved in March after running stress tests on the bank's capital, Dimon said at an investor conference. ...
TOKYO (Reuters) - Scandal-tainted Olympus Corp has decided it will not seek alliances to beef up its capital for now and will try to rebuild on its own, the Mainichi newspaper reported on Tuesday. The Japanese endoscope and camera maker, struggling to recover from a $1.7 billion accounting fraud, saw its equity ratio plunge to 4.6 percent as of end-March 2012 from 11 percent a year earlier. Olympus President Hiroyuki Sasa said earlier this month that the company would consider all options to boost capital, including equity tie-ups and third-party share allocations. ...
(Reuters) - Bank of America Corp is "very comfortable" with the composition of its corporate investment portfolio, which is invested mostly in government-guaranteed mortgage bonds and U.S. Treasuries, Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan said at an investor conference on Monday. Moynihan was asked about the bank's investments following JPMorgan Chase & Co's disclosure this month that it lost at least $2 billion on a trading strategy by its Corporate Investment Office. ...
(Reuters) - The U.S. government has filed three lawsuits against a group of large banks over losses on soured mortgage debt purchased by two small Illinois banks that failed in 2009. Acting as receiver for Citizens National Bank and Strategic Capital Bank, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp sued a number of banks including Bank of America Corp , Citigroup Inc , Deutsche Bank AG and JPMorgan Chase & Co . ...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - BP Plc appears to be well on its way to concluding an estimated $7.8 billion settlement to resolve most of its civil liability from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. But a potential landmine lurks in the settlement documents: under certain circumstances, the company can invoke a little-noticed provision that allows it to walk away from the deal. The potential landmine is opt-outs. In a settlement of a class action, class members can reject the deal and decide to go it alone. ...
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - After a three-week selloff in financial markets, measures of risk show investors in Asia are assuming a return to stability, and with a level of confidence that could be horribly misplaced. Asset classes from commodities to equities are moving in lockstep to a degree not seen since March 2010, while currencies such as the yen and defensive stocks such as utilities have unusually joined the rout. But measures of volatility remain low and credit curves flat. Scarcely any foreign money has left the region, suggesting that investors continue to price in a benign environment. ...
(Reuters) - Diversified industrial manufacturer Eaton Corp struck a deal to buy electrical equipment maker Cooper Industries Plc for $11.8 billion in cash and stock and said it would shift its incorporation to Ireland to save on taxes. The deal, Eaton's biggest ever, will allow the company to offer a broader range of electrical products, such as lighting and wiring devices, to markets ranging from mining to oil and gas and utilities, and help it expand in emerging markets while cutting costs, Eaton said. The deal was the biggest of several announced on Monday. ...
Teachers and students from every level of Spain's education system went on strike Tuesday to protest wide-ranging government spending cuts, erecting makeshift tombs at university campuses to symbolize what they claim will be the death of the country's schooling system.
Best Buy Co.'s fiscal first-quarter profit dropped 26 percent on restructuring charges as the struggling electronics retailer began implementing its turnaround plan. Its adjusted earnings and revenue both topped Wall Street's expectations.
Aer Lingus welcomed a court victory Tuesday that permits British authorities to keep investigating Ryanair over its ownership of a 30 percent stake in Aer Lingus, a sore point between Ireland's two major carriers.
The 17-country eurozone risks falling into a "severe recession," the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development warned on Tuesday, as it called on governments and Europe's central bank to act quickly to keep the slowdown from dragging down the global economy.
Taking a tough stand against dissent, President Vladimir Putin ignored public opposition and hired some Russia's most unpopular former ministers Tuesday and Russian lawmakers debated a draconian bill that raises fines for joining unsanctioned protests 200-fold.
A high ranking German official has reiterated ahead of a European Union summit that Chancellor Angela Merkel's government remains staunchly opposed to the idea of jointly-issued bonds from the 17-nation eurozone.
Despite some remaining differences, a deal has been reached with Iran that will allow the U.N. nuclear agency to restart a long-stalled probe into suspicions that Tehran has secretly worked on developing nuclear arms, the U.N. nuclear chief said Tuesday.
Stocks advanced Tuesday ahead of a summit of European leaders that's expected to be dominated by calls to boost economic growth across the continent, though ongoing worries over the upcoming Greek election kept the rally in check.
The International Monetary Fund has issued a tough assessment of U.K. economic policy, urging the coalition government and Bank of England to do more to boost demand in the economy.
View Channel
