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LONDON (MarketWatch) — The IntercontinentalExchange is probing trades in U.S. dollar index futures that briefly showed a massive 9% jump on Friday morning.
The lead contract surged as high as 82.18, up from a 75.38 close on Thursday. Such a move was improbable given that in spot markets, the dollar’s moves against major […]

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MOSCOW — A 37-year-old Russian lawyer for an international investment fund, Hermitage Capital Management, died in a pretrial detention center on Monday, nearly a year after he was arrested in an escalating feud between the Russian authorities and the company, Russia’s Interior Ministry announced on Tuesday.
The lawyer, Sergei L. Magnitsky, who was in charge […]

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BEIJING, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) — China should keep home prices from long time “abnormal increases” and divert profits made from home price hikes to the public through taxation, a senior property official said here Friday.
Dong Zuoji, director of land planning department of the Ministry of Land and Resources, said home prices would continue to […]

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration's pay czar said on Thursday his compensation rulings will allow General Motors Co and Chrysler Group to retain talent but is willing to consider "lateral" offers to hire new executives.
Kenneth Feinberg, the U.S. Treasury's special master for executive pay at seven companies with massive taxpayer bailouts, told a […]

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Jeffry M. Picower, a longtime investor in Bernard L. Madoff’s fraud scheme who died in his Palm Beach swimming pool last month, left an estate with assets far in excess of $1 billion — and that could be a spot of good news for Mr. Madoff’s victims.
Although Mr. Picower’s will, which is expected to be […]

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Stocks showed modest gains on the first day of trading since the market took one of its steepest plunges in months. Signs that manufacturing in the United States was on a path to recovery helped buoy shares.
At the close of the markets on Monday, the skittishness of investors over the health of the economy, […]

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In the latest of the great newspaper wars of London, two lions of Fleet Street, Rupert Murdoch and Jonathan Harmsworth (the fourth Viscount Rothermere), have been outflanked by a former Soviet K.G.B. officer, Aleksandr Lebedev.
London Lite, a free newspaper published by Mr. Harmsworth’s Daily Mail & General Trust, signaled its intention last week to shut […]

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WARREN, Ohio — Bruce Gump and his neighbors feared for their retirement checks when the federal government took over the pension plans at Delphi, the big auto parts maker where they once worked.
But four months later, Mr. Gump finds himself in a far more perilous condition than his neighbors.
On his street, he […]

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Stocks fluctuated in early trading Thursday as investors sorted through a disappointing reading on the labor market and another pile of earnings reports.
The market is trying to rebound a day after a late-session sell off pushed major indexes lower. Lingering concerns over whether investors had been overly optimistic about an economic rebound in pushing the […]

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BRUSSELS — The European Union and South Korea took a major step Thursday toward a free trade deal aimed at generating billions of euros in new trade flows.
With the global trade talks deadlocked and amid concerns over a rise in protectionism, analysts said that the deal could send a powerful signal to other nations, […]

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(Reuters) – Major U.S. banks and securities firms are on track to pay employees about $140 billion in total compensation and benefits this year, the Wall Street Journal said, citing an analysis of securities filings for the first half of 2009 and revenue estimates through the end of the year.
The paper said employees at […]

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HONG KONG — American International Group, the U.S. insurance giant that received a massive government bailout to avert a collapse last year, announced on Tuesday that it had agreed to sell its Taiwan life insurance unit to a Hong Kong investor group for $2.15 billion.
The sale of Nan Shan is the largest so far […]

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LAW enforcement policy in the United States rests implicitly on the “rational actor” model of traditional economics, which holds that people take only those actions whose benefits exceed their costs.
This model says that crime will be deterred if the expected punishment is strong enough — a prediction that has not been borne out in […]

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Stocks fell on Wednesday after a surprising contraction in an index of Midwest business activity, but buying of technology bellwethers like Cisco Systems Inc at the end of a strong quarter limited losses.
The top drags in Wednesday's session were some of the quarter's best performers, including industrials, materials and banks.
[…]

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NEW YORK – A surprise drop in consumer confidence tripped up investors Tuesday, a day after a round of corporate takeovers set off a steep market rally.
Stocks slid after the Conference Board said its consumer confidence index fell in September. Economists had been expecting a reading of 57; instead it came in at 53.1.
The private […]

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks fell on Thursday, with each of the major indexes sliding into negative territory after an unexpected fall in sales of previously owned U.S. homes in August.
* The National Association of Realtors said sales fell 2.7 percent to an annual rate of 5.10 million units, from 5.24 million units […]

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WASHINGTON — As a senior House Democrat announced an ambitious schedule to complete legislation overhauling the nation’s financial system, the Obama administration on Wednesday abandoned a symbolically significant provision in the face of widespread political and industry opposition.
At a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner announced that the […]

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WASHINGTON/BERLIN (Reuters) – World leaders will probably agree next week to work together when the time comes to end their massive economic stimulus programs and they were also moving on Friday toward a stiffer line on bankers' pay.
A week ahead of the Sept 24-25 summit of the leaders of Group of 20 nations to […]

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BEIJING, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) — The first seven companies applying for listing on the Growth Enterprise Market (GEM), a Nasdaq-alike market in China, have got green lights from the country’s securities regulator on Thursday.
They are in the fields of software, medical equipment and medicines. They planned to raise 2.27 billion yuan (332.65 million U.S. […]

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures fell on Monday as a decision by the United States to impose special duties on Chinese tires sparked investor concerns about a possible trade dispute.
* The decision by U.S. President Barack Obama could open the door to a host of trade complaints against Chinese products, creating […]

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