| Business News |
Markets await Bernanke as central bankers gather
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Federal Reserve Chairman
Ben Bernanke tackles financial stability in a key speech on
Friday but economists doubt he will provide solid clues about
future policy action to calm the credit crunch.
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Fannie and Freddie debt gains, deep share dive abates
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Investors' growing belief in the
likelihood of a federal bailout of home-funding giants Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac triggered a rally in the
debt prices of the two companies on Thursday while a steep fall
in their shares prices abated.
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Oil up 5 percent on global tensions, soft dollar
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Oil prices rose nearly 5 percent on
Thursday, the biggest percentage gain in more than two months,
driven by rising tensions between the United States and energy
behemoth Russia.
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Three big banks settle with NY state over ARS
(Reuters)
Reuters - New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo
on Thursday said Merrill Lynch & Co Inc , Deutsche Bank
(DBKGn.DE) and Goldman Sachs have agreed to settlements
regarding their auction rate security sales practices.
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FINRA probes 40 firms on auction rate securities: source
(Reuters)
Reuters - Financial industry enforcement agents
will review the auction-rate debt operations of about 40 firms
industrywide starting next week, sources familiar with the
investigation said on Thursday.
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Trends & Innovations - Wednesday
(Investor's Business Daily)
Investor's Business Daily - The proportion of working-age Americans facing medical debt rose to 72 mil or 41% last year, up from 58 mil or 34% in '05, according to a new survey by the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund. About half of those facing health debt have up to $2,000 in bills, while 12% have more than $4,000 in debt and another 12% have more than $8,000. The survey also found most of those with medical debt said they had exhausted their savings, with some also tapping into credit cards, home equity or cutting back on food or heat to cover health care costs.
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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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| TAGS: Online Report text item, United States of America, Canada |
| Other news from Business category: |
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Lehman Brothers failed to sell a large stake to Asian investors, a report said, and such failures may open the door to a hostile takeover of the investment bank, an analyst wrote.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Dow and S&P 500 rose on Thursday as surging oil prices drove up energy shares, though fresh fears of more credit losses on Wall Street kept gains modest and pushed the Nasdaq into negative territory.
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LORDSTOWN, Ohio (Reuters) - General Motors Corp is readying sales documents for its Hummer brand and has initial expressions of interest from potential buyers that it hopes to develop into formal sale talks, the automaker's CEO said on Thursday.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices rose nearly 5 percent on Thursday, the biggest percentage gain in more than two months, driven by rising tensions between the United States and energy behemoth Russia.
More
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors' growing belief in the likelihood of a federal bailout of home-funding giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac triggered a rally in the debt prices of the two companies on Thursday while a steep fall in their shares prices abated.
More
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JACKSON HOLE, Wyoming (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke tackles financial stability in a key speech on Friday but economists doubt he will provide solid clues about future policy action to calm the credit crunch.
More
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Burger King Holdings Inc , the world's second-largest hamburger chain, posted a higher-than-expected quarterly profit on Thursday and issued a fiscal 2009 forecast within Wall Street's expectations.
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CHICAGO (Reuters) - Price increases and new product sales helped H.J. Heinz Co post a bigger-than-expected rise in quarterly profit on Thursday, while earnings fell at Spam lunch meat maker Hormel Foods Corp because of increased costs at its Jennie-O tu
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LONDON (Reuters) - The outlook for Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc darkened further on Thursday as a newspaper reported that an intended asset sale had collapsed and a Citigroup analyst forecast big losses for the group.
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SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings, which has pumped billions of dollars into ailing lenders such as Merrill Lynch & Co Inc, said it may invest more in Western banks if the opportunity arose.
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| Software News |
Microsoft enlists Seinfeld for ad campaign: source
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Comedian Jerry Seinfeld will star
in a $300 million marketing campaign for Microsoft Corp aimed
at burnishing the image of its computer operating system, a
person familiar with the effort said on Thursday.
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Photosynth Stitches Photos Into a 3-D Web Canvas
(NewsFactor)
NewsFactor - Microsoft's name has never been synonymous with photography, visual imaging or innovative online applications. But its release Wednesday of Photosynth -- a hybrid software/service that allows users to create 3-D environments by stitching multiple photographs together -- suggests the company has more than a few cards up its sleeve.
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Apple tries to de-bug iPhone
(USATODAY.com)
USATODAY.com - Apple acknowledged that a software update for the iPhone partly fixes the connection snags that have caused a global firestorm for the new iPhone 3G.
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Salesforce.com stock drops on cautious outlook
(AP)
AP - Salesforce.com Inc. kept its financial guidance within the range of analyst estimates Wednesday, disappointing investors who expected a more bullish forecast from one of the Internet's most popular software services.
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Microsoft Eases Server-Virtualization Restrictions
(NewsFactor)
NewsFactor - Microsoft has elected to jettison certain licensing restrictions that previously discouraged its customers from moving the software giant's server applications within a server farm at will.
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Google Invites Security Researchers To Debug Android
(NewsFactor)
 NewsFactor - In a move that could help it avoid an iPhone 3G-like software drama, Google wants bug hunters to test its Android mobile platform. On Monday, the Android Security Team posted a message to introduce itself to the security research and vulnerability communities.
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