Category: Business

NEW YORK The United States "absolutely must" complete unfinished work ending the too-big-to-fail bank problem that helped plunge the global economy into recession eight years ago, an influential Federal Reserve policymaker said on Saturday.In remarks that appeared to pre-empt President-elect Donald Trump, who has promised to roll back Wall Street regulations, New York Fed President William Dudley said much progress has been made making the financial system "less prone to panics.""Still," he said in prepared remarks, "there is more to

By Sinead Carew and Chuck Mikolajczak | NEW YORK NEW YORK The rally in regional U.S. bank stocks that followed last month's election of Donald Trump may not be over, but investors may have to wait for policy to take shape for the massive move to extend further.The S&P 600 index of small-cap banks has surged more than 20 percent since

BEIJING The chairman of China's securities regulator condemned "barbaric" leveraged company buy-outs by some asset managers using illegal funds, according to a statement posted on the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) website on Saturday. "You've ultimately become a robber in the industry, and that is unacceptable," CSRC chairman Liu Shiyu said during his strong-worded speech at a meeting held by the Asset Management Association of China.Liu said China's capital markets had seen a series of "abnormal phenomena" lately, challenging the

By Nate Raymond | NEW YORK NEW YORK Airbnb Inc and New York City said on Friday they had resolved a lawsuit brought by the company challenging a law it argued could expose it to significant penalties for advertising short-term apartment rentals.Airbnb filed the suit in October after New York state enacted a law imposing fines of up to $7,500 on

The U.S. Transportation Department said on Friday it granted flying rights to Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA's (NWC.OL) Irish unit, setting the stage for a new battle among airlines for leisure travelers across the Atlantic.The order finalized a tentative ruling the department made in April and came days after the European Commission formally filed for arbitration over Norwegian's request, which had languished for three years.U.S. airlines and unions have said the subsidiary, Norwegian Air International, would undermine U.S. wages and working

Starbucks Chief Executive Howard Schultz's decision to step down is unlikely to hamper growth at the world's biggest coffee chain as his successor Kevin Johnson is well suited to take the helm, analysts said. Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O) said on Thursday that Schultz would step down as CEO on April 3 to focus on new high-end coffee shops, handing the top job to Chief Operating Officer Johnson, a long-time technology executive.The company's shares were down 2.5 percent at

By Lucia Mutikani | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. employers boosted hiring in November and the unemployment rate dropped to a more than nine-year low of 4.6 percent, making it almost certain that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates later this month.Nonfarm payrolls increased by 178,000 jobs last month after increasing by 142,000 in October, the Labor Department said on Friday. The

By Matthias Inverardi and Harro Ten Wolde | FRANKFURT FRANKFURT Aixtron (AIXGn.DE) will have to take action to balance income and costs, including potential job cuts, if U.S. President Barack Obama blocks its takeover by China's Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund (FGC).Shares in the German semiconductor equipment maker fell more than 5 percent on Friday following a report by Bloomberg, citing

By Anshuman Daga and Marius Zaharia | SINGAPORE SINGAPORE Singapore's central bank imposed penalties on the local units of U.K.-based Standard Chartered (STAN.L) and private bank Coutts for money laundering breaches related to Malaysia's scandal-tainted 1MDB fund and said it was nearing the end of its probes.The penalties - of S$5.2 million ($3.65 million) and S$2.4 million, respectively - were the

By Roslan Khasawneh | SINGAPORE SINGAPORE Oil prices slipped on Friday as some investors opted to cash out after Brent touched 16-month a high on Thursday, with optimism over this week's OPEC-Russia accord on cutting output giving way to questions on the "sticking point" of implementing the deal.International Brent crude oil futures LCOc1 were trading at $53.36 per barrel at 0446

By Alicia Powell | NEW YORK NEW YORK From a whimsical enchanted winter forest-scape to candy-laden backdrops for festive fashion, New York department stores have spent a year conjuring up eye-catching holiday window displays. "Right when they start coming down, we start thinking about what's going to be the vision for next year?" said Roe Palermo, divisional vice president, store visual

NEW YORK A sharp decline in technology stocks pulled both the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 indexes into the red on Thursday, while gains in bank and energy shares helped push the Dow to a record high close.Based on the latest available data, the Dow Jones industrial average .DJI was up 68.49 points, or 0.36 percent, to 19,192.07, the S&P 500 .SPX had lost 7.72 points, or 0.35 percent, to 2,191.09 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC had dropped 72.57 points,

By Kristina Cooke | MENLO PARK, Calif. MENLO PARK, Calif. Facebook Inc (FB.O) is working on automatically flagging offensive material in live video streams, building on a growing effort to use artificial intelligence to monitor content, said Joaquin Candela, the company’s director of applied machine learning.The social media company has been embroiled in a number of content moderation controversies this year,

By Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen | COPENHAGEN COPENHAGEN Maersk Line, the world's biggest shipping company, is to buy smaller rival Hamburg Süd, joining a wave of M&A in the industry just over two months after the Danish company revealed plans to bolster its transport operations.The deal, announced by parent A.P. Moller-Maersk (MAERSKb.CO) on Thursday, is the group's first full takeover in more than

By Saikat Chatterjee | HONG KONG HONG KONG China's factories notched their strongest growth in activity in two years and Japanese firms' order books rose in November, masking concern about the protectionist leanings of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and an OPEC-induced oil price rally.Factory surveys produced stronger purchasing manager index (PMI) numbers in China, Taiwan and Vietnam, and while activity in

By Henning Gloystein | SINGAPORE SINGAPORE Oil prices shot up more than 12 percent, smashing trading volume records, after producer club OPEC and Russia cut a deal to reduce output to drain a global supply glut, but analysts warned prices could recede as other producers stand by to fill the gap.The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)agreed on Wednesday its

By Jonathan Stempel and Nate Raymond | NEW YORK NEW YORK Billionaire Steven A. Cohen's former hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors LP will pay $135 million to settle a lawsuit by investors in the drugmaker Elan Corp, who said they lost money because of insider trading by one of his portfolio managers.The preliminary class-action settlement with SAC, now known as Point72

By Devika Krishna Kumar and Jessica Resnick-Ault | NEW YORK NEW YORK Oil's blistering rally of up to 10 percent to $50 a barrel on Wednesday should continue into next week, analysts and fund managers said, after the world's top producers announced a historic deal to rein in output. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries reached its first deal

Shares of Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) on Wednesday climbed to their highest levels since the financial crisis, as the bank benefited from a post U.S. presidential election rally. The stock reached $220.77 in late morning trading, returning to a point not seen since December 2007.

WASHINGTON President-elect Donald Trump's pick for U.S. Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, said on Wednesday the administration would target tax reform and trade pact overhauls as top priorities as they seek to achieve 3 percent to 4 percent economic growth.Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross, Trump's nominee for commerce secretary, outlined their agenda, including what Mnuchin called the largest tax overhaul since the Ronald Reagan administration, in an interview on CNBC. Both men confirmed they had been tapped for the jobs."We think by

By Rania El Gamal and Alex Lawler | VIENNA VIENNA OPEC began on Wednesday debating a deal to curtail oil production and prop up the price of crude, with Iran and Iraq resisting pressure from Saudi Arabia to participate fully in any action.Ministers from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries started an informal meeting at 0700 GMT at the Vienna

COLOGNE, Germany Ford (F.N) wants to raise profitability in Europe by adding higher-margin versions of the Fiesta subcompact, its best-selling regional model, the carmaker's top European executive said.High-volume carmakers such as Ford have for several years been squeezed in a downmarket expansion by luxury rivals including Daimler's (DAIGn.DE) Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen's (VOWG_p.DE) Audi.But Ford, which already targets premium buyers with higher-end versions of some of its larger cars under the Vignale label, now wants to take further advantage of

By Lawrence Delevingne | NEW YORK NEW YORK At least four U.S. agencies are investigating former officials of a now-bankrupt oil and gas company once majority owned by troubled hedge fund manager Platinum Partners, according to a legal filing submitted last week.In a motion filed with federal bankruptcy court on Nov. 23, a group of 10 directors, officers and employees of

By Pamela Barbaglia and Anjuli Davies | LONDON LONDON U.S. healthcare company Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) is raising its offer for Swiss biotech group Actelion (ATLN.S) in an attempt to win it over for a buyout, a source familiar with the situation said on Tuesday.Actelion shares closed up 10 percent at 209 Swiss francs, rebounding from negative territory.The source said Johnson

By Alexander Winning | MOSCOW MOSCOW Russia's former Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev privately argued to colleagues in government that the state should give up control over oil giant Rosneft, before he was arrested two weeks ago in a sting inside the company's offices, according to two sources. A source familiar with Ulyukayev's thinking, speaking before Ulyukayev was arrested

By Christopher Johnson | LONDON LONDON Oil prices slipped on Tuesday on signs that leading oil exporters were struggling to agree a deal to cut production to reduce global oversupply.The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will meet in Vienna on Wednesday aiming to implement an agreement outlined in September to cut output by around 1 million barrels per day (bpd),

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SYDNEY Three of Australia's four biggest banks will be barred from collectively bargaining with Apple Inc (AAPL.O) in relation to its mobile digital payments system, under a draft decision released by the antitrust regulator on Tuesday.The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said letting banks collectively offer their own integrated digital wallets in Apple iPhones, in competition with Apple's Apple Pay system, would reduce each bank's ability to negotiate with the U.S. firm."While the ACCC accepts that the opportunity for the

By Nandita Bose and Sayantani Ghosh U.S. shoppers snapped up Cyber Monday deals on what is usually the single biggest day for internet shopping, after stellar online sales over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.Sales on Cyber Monday were expected to finish up 9.4 percent at $3.36 billion compared with last year, according to Adobe Digital Insights. As of 10 a.m. EST on

Time Inc (TIME.N), the publisher of Time, People and Fortune magazines, has rejected a takeover bid from billionaire investor Edgar Bronfman Jr., the New York Post reported on Monday.Bronfman offered $18 per share, the Post reported, representing a premium of 30.4 percent to Time Inc's Friday close and valuing the publisher at $1.78 billion. Time Inc's shares jumped 18 percent to $16.05 on Monday.Bronfman, who is a managing partner of private equity firm Accretive LLC, made the bid along with

SEOUL South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS) will consider splitting itself into two as proposed by U.S. activist hedge fund Elliott Management, Seoul Economic Daily reported on Monday citing an unnamed source.A split would allow the heirs of the founding Lee family to strengthen their grip on the global smartphone leader, the crown jewel of the Samsung Group business empire. Elliott proposed a split in October to boost shareholder value. Samsung's board of directors will meet on

TOKYO Oil prices tumbled on Monday on fears that producer countries may fail to agree an output cut, pressuring U.S. stocks and the dollar as traders reversed their "Trumpflation" trade as weak oil prices would reduce pressure on U.S. interest rates to rise.That gave some relief to Asian shares, which had underperformed on worries about capital flight to higher-yielding U.S markets in the weeks since Donald Trump's Nov.8 election win.MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS rose 0.5

By Henning Gloystein | SINGAPORE SINGAPORE Oil prices fell over 1 percent on Monday, extending declines from last Friday as doubts re-emerged over the ability of major producers to cut output at a planned meeting on Wednesday aimed at reining in global oversupply.Brent crude futures LCOc1 were trading at $46.40 per barrel at 0035 GMT (7.35 a.m. ET), down 84 cents,

By Tom Westbrook | SYDNEY SYDNEY The ability of Australian telecoms company Telstra Corporation (TLS.AX) to offset the fall in its traditional revenue streams by diversifying into a range of technology and other businesses is in doubt. So far, Telstra's funding of 44 startups since 2013, the A$235 million ($175 million) spent acquiring 18 health-related companies, the purchase of more than