| Business News |
HP challenges IBM with $12.6 billion EDS deal
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Hewlett-Packard Co has struck
a deal to buy Electronic Data Systems Corp for $12.6
billion, seeking to boost its technology services business to
better compete against market leader IBM .
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Wal-Mart profit up, but shares fall
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Wal-Mart Stores Inc , the
world's largest retailer, reported a 7 percent rise in
quarterly profit on Tuesday as discounts drew U.S. shoppers
looking for bargains on necessities like food and pharmacy
items.
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Stock futures lower on banks, Wal-Mart
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Stock index futures fell on Tuesday
after Oppenheimer & Co slashed its price targets on a number of
brokerages and on concern about Wal-Mart Stores Inc's
outlook.
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Bernanke says markets healing but still not well
(Reuters)
 Reuters - U.S. Federal Reserve
Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Tuesday that emergency Fed
liquidity measures have helped relieve strain in financial
markets, but the recovery process remains incomplete.
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Retail sales show resiliency
(Reuters)
Reuters - Total sales at U.S. retailers
weakened modestly in April, the government reported on Tuesday,
but outside the hard-pressed auto sector they showed more
resiliency than many analysts had anticipated.
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Retail sales dip for second time in 2 months
(AP)
AP - Consumers, battling soaring gasoline prices and a slumping economy, cut back further on their spending in April.
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| 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
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| Other news from Business category: |
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MILAN (Reuters) - Finmeccanica SpA has agreed to buy U.S. military contractor DRS Technologies Inc. in a $5.2 billion deal, the biggest so far in European defense contractors' bid for a slice of the growing U.S. defense market.
More
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PARIS (Reuters) - France's biggest retail bank, Credit Agricole, announced a 5.9 billion euro ($9.1 billion) rights issue to shore up its capital after new writedowns at its Calyon investment bank, hitting its shares.
More
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NEW YORK/AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Corporate Express said on Tuesday it was willing to talk to U.S. office supplies retailer Staples Inc after it raised its offer for the Dutch business products wholesaler.
More
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SEA ISLAND, Georgia (Reuters) - U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Tuesday that emergency Fed liquidity measures have helped relieve strain in financial markets, but the recovery process remains incomplete.
More
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock index futures fell on Tuesday after Oppenheimer & Co slashed its price targets on a number of brokerages and on concern about Wal-Mart Stores Inc's outlook.
More
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world's largest retailer, reported a 7 percent rise in quarterly profit on Tuesday as discounts drew U.S. shoppers looking for bargains on necessities like food and pharmacy items.
More
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - American victims of bombings and rocket attacks in Israel have sued Swiss bank UBS AG for more than $500 million, accusing the bank of helping fund the militants behind the attacks through dealings with Iran.
More
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TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Hitachi Ltd tumbled to a quarterly loss on slow TV sales and a tax writedown but said it would rebound to a profit this year, and its shares were up 5 percent.
More
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ROME (Reuters) - Italy's Finmeccanica SpA reached a $5.2 billion deal to buy DRS Technologies Inc. securing itself a bigger presence in the growing U.S. defense market which accounts for half the world's military spending.
More
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Home builder Beazer Homes USA said on Monday that it lost $10.70 per share in fiscal 2007, it released restated results for several years, and said it remains the target of several state and federal investigations.
More
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| Software News |
Study: US Corporate Software Spending Slowing
(PC World)
PC World - One in four respondents to a new US corporate IT spending survey by ChangeWave Research said their company will spend less on...
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Microsoft Faces Another Interoperability Complaint in Europe
(PC World)
PC World - Microsoft's reluctance to make its Office suite interoperable with competing products has prompted a British government agency...
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Microsoft software gives free tours of space
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Any Star Trek fan knows that space
travel is not always easy, but Microsoft Corp wants to make
traveling the "final frontier" as simple as turning on your
computer.
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SOA Software buys LogicLibrary
(InfoWorld)
InfoWorld - Matching up critical components in the SOA space, SOA Software, which provides SOA governance automation, said Monday it has acquired SOA repository and governance vendor LogicLibrary.
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Microsoft readies service packs for dev tools
(InfoWorld)
InfoWorld - Microsoft released Monday beta versions of separate service packs for the Visual Studio 2008 software development platform and the accompanying .Net Framework 3.5, a Microsoft official said in a blog.
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Google's Friend Connect To Spread Social Data
(TechWeb)
TechWeb - InformationWeek - The software is part of an emerging set of technologies like OpenID, OAuth, OpenSocial, and the data access APIs published by Facebook, Google, and MySpace.
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