| Business News |
Wall Street tumbles, led by financials
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Stocks tumbled more than 2 percent on
Thursday after a report showing yet another drop in U.S. home
sales prompted investors to take profits in financial shares,
which had rallied over the past week.
|
Microsoft CEO backs Web spending, "done" with Yahoo
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Chief Executive Steve
Ballmer on Thursday defended Microsoft Corp's need to
make heavy investments in its Internet businesses but said the
company was "done," for now, with pursuing Yahoo Inc .
|
Wachovia CFO Wurtz to leave
(Reuters)
Reuters - Wachovia Corp , which posted a
record $8.86 billion second-quarter loss Tuesday, said Chief
Financial Officer Thomas Wurtz will resign from the
fourth-largest U.S. bank after a successor is named.
|
Home sales at 10-year low, jobless claims jump
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Jobless claims jumped and the pace
of existing home sales tumbled to a 10-year low as slowing
growth hit hiring and a glut of unsold houses weighed on real
estate, data released on Thursday showed.
|
Morgan Stanley aggressively recruiting brokers
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Morgan Stanley said on Thursday
it is poaching brokers from Merrill Lynch and other
rivals, accelerating the expansion of its global wealth
management business during a period of turbulence on Wall
Street.
|
Jobless claims jump as housing market gets weaker
(AP)
 AP - Two cornerstones of the economy — jobs and housing — sank to new depths Thursday, with unemployment claims bolting higher and home prices recording one of their steepest drops on record.
|
|
| Bank and economic woes hit Wall St; Oracle dives late - 27, Mar 2008 |
By Ellis Mnyandu
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks dropped on Wednesday as financial shares slid when concerns resurfaced that bank profits will take much longer than expected to recover from the housing slump.
Surging oil prices and data showing a tumble in orders for U.S.-made manufactured goods revived concerns that the economy is already in recession.
Bank stocks tumbled across the board when a prominent analyst lowered her first-quarter profit forecasts for Citigroup, Bank of America Corp (BAC.N), JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), and Wachovia Corp (WB.N). The S&P financial index fell 3.5 percent, marking its biggest setback after rising more than 10 percent in the last two weeks.
Oppenheimer & Co analyst Meredith Whitney said bank profits would not start growing any time soon because of fallout from what she called the worst credit cycle in generations.
Financials are down "on the combination of Citigroup, Meredith Whitney coming out with talk of more potential write-downs and a lot of profit-taking. Financials moved big the last two weeks," said Matt McCall, president of Penn Financial Group in Denver, Colorado.
The other backdrop for the drop in Citigroup's stock was news that the largest U.S. bank by assets has agreed to pay Enron creditors $1.66 billion to settle a lawsuit over its responsibility in the energy trading company's downfall.
The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI finished down 109.74 points, or 0.88 percent, at 12,422.86. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index .SPX dropped 11.86 points, or 0.88 percent, to end at 1,341.13 -- marking the broader market's first decline in four days. The Nasdaq Composite Index slumped 16.69 points, or 0.71 percent, to close at 2,324.36.
After the bell, there was unnerving news from the technology front as Oracle Corp (ORCL.O), a major software maker, posted quarterly revenue that missed Wall Street's forecasts. Oracle shares slid 8.3 percent to $19.20 after the bell from their Nasdaq close at $20.94.
(c) 2008 Reuters
|
| Other news from Business category: |
-
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday urged Congress to give his agency authority to oversee investment banks, even as a top Federal Reserve official said the central bank needed similar powers to do it
More
-
DETROIT (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co posted a record $8.7 billion quarterly loss on Thursday as it wrote down the value of slumping truck and SUV operations and revamped plans in a bid to break its reliance on the gas-guzzlers that have been its franchise ve
More
-
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo
filed a civil lawsuit on Thursday against UBS AG ,
accusing the Swiss bank of deceptively steering customers into
auction-rate securities that this year became impossible to
sell amid the cre
More
-
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Jobless claims jumped and the pace of existing home sales tumbled to a 10-year low as slowing growth hit hiring and a glut of unsold houses weighed on real estate, data released on Thursday showed.
More
-
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wachovia Corp , which posted a record $8.86 billion second-quarter loss Tuesday, said Chief Financial Officer Thomas Wurtz will resign from the fourth-largest U.S. bank after a successor is named.
More
-
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks tumbled more than 2 percent on Thursday after a report showing yet another drop in U.S. home sales prompted investors to take profits in financial shares, which had rallied over the past week.
More
-
BOSTON (Reuters) - Diversified manufacturer 3M Co reported a 3 percent rise in quarterly earnings on Thursday, topping the average Wall Street forecast, as strong international demand more than offset a slowing U.S. economy.
More
-
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Cutting the cost of mortgages via the U.S housing bill and rescue package for mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is the best way to help the ailing housing market recover, the manager of the world's biggest bond fund
More
-
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors snapped up shares of mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before Wall Street opened on Thursday, a day after the House of Representatives passed a massive rescue package to shore up the struggling housing marke
More
-
HELSINKI (Reuters) - Nokia , the world's top cellphone maker, has ended three years of legal battles with wireless chip developer Qualcomm and signed a patent agreement that boosted both companies' shares.
More
|
|
|
