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Market edges up, Wall Street awaits Facebook debut
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose in early trading on Friday but were gearing up to close their worst week of the year, while Facebook's market debut could help lift battered investor sentiment. The S&P has fallen 6.7 percent so far in May, and while volatility is expected to continue, some analysts were forecasting a near-term rebound as valuations become more attractive. Investors are awaiting Facebook's debut after the world's No. 1 online social network raised about $16 billion in one of the biggest initial public offerings in U.S. history. ...
Investors eagerly await Facebook debut on Wall Street
(Reuters) - Investors are bracing for Facebook's Wall Street debut on Friday after the pioneering online social network raised about $16 billion in one of the biggest initial public offerings in U.S. history. To rapturous applause from employees, Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg rang the bell to kick off trading on the Nasdaq market at the company's Silicon Valley headquarters at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time. Zuckerberg rang the bell, with Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and Nasdaq Chief Executive Robert Greifeld on either side. ...
Banks' rising bad loans add to Spanish troubles
MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish bank bad loans rose in March to their highest in 18 years, figures from the Bank of Spain showed on Friday, underscoring the problems facing the government as it attempts to clean up the sector and get its economy back on track. The Bank of Spain said bad loans rose to 8.37 percent of the banks' outstanding loans, the highest since August 1994 and up from 8.3 percent in February, which was also revised higher. The data came as Spain was set to name independent auditors to assess how much cash its banks are likely to need to rebuild their balance sheets. ...
Europe thinks the unthinkable on Greece
BRUSSELS/LONDON (Reuters) - European officials are working on contingency plans in case Greece bombs out of the euro zone, the EU's trade commissioner said on Friday, while Berlin said it was prepared for all eventualities. European shares were on course for their steepest weekly decline since November and are now in the red for the year, spooked by the prospect of a Greek euro exit sparking a wave of contagion in the currency bloc which could engulf much larger economies such as Spain's. ...
China cries foul after U.S. sets tariffs on solar imports
(Reuters) - The United States imposed punitive tariffs on solar panel imports from China, the latest in a series of trade disputes between the world's two biggest economies and sparking accusations by Beijing of protectionism. The new tariffs of around 30 percent, much bigger than had been expected, were set on Thursday by the U.S. Commerce Department after it ruled in favor of local firms which said Chinese exporters were dumping cut-price panels on their market. ...
BMW eyes new production sites abroad: source
MUNICH (Reuters) - Premium carmaker BMW is considering new production sites around the world, with one option being Mexico, a person familiar with the situation told Reuters on Friday. German daily Handelsblatt earlier cited company sources as saying BMW was examining whether to build plants in Mexico and eastern Europe. It said Slovakia's Kosice and Hungary's Miskolc were possible candidates. BMW declined to comment. Earlier this month, it denied reports it plans to build an assembly plant in Slovakia. ...
Italy to keep debt profile outside riskier area
MILAN (Reuters) - The average lifespan of Italian debt, which has fallen during the euro zone crisis as investors favor safer short-term issues, should still be close to the current level of 6.8 years at the end of 2012, a top Italian debt official said. As the average maturity of a country's debts falls, the amount of bonds it has to sell each year rises. This makes it more exposed to a worsening in market sentiment that could push borrowing costs higher, even to unaffordable levels. ...
Euro zone market turmoil to last 12-24 months: German finance minister
PARIS (Reuters) - Market turmoil over the euro zone crisis could last another 12 to 24 months, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Friday, saying it was up to the Greeks to decide if they wanted to stay in the single currency. Schaeuble said he was confident France's new Socialist government would ratify Europe fiscal pact because policymakers were working on a strategy to improve growth, as demanded by French President Francois Hollande. "Regarding the crisis of confidence in the euro ... ...
Analysis: JPMorgan CEO gets crisis marks but war isn't over
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shooting from the hip may have got Jamie Dimon into deep trouble -- shooting straight may help to get him out of it. The JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO made the crisis over the bank's trading loss of at least $2 billion far worse because he had assured financial markets back in April that news reports about massive bets the bank's Chief Investment Office had taken were "a tempest in a teapot". It meant that when the bank disclosed the big and probably growing loss on May 10, it not only had to admit a sizable problem, but also that it had been misleading investors. ...
China second quarter GDP growth seen at 7.5 percent: government think-tank
BEIJING (Reuters) - China's annual economic growth could slow to 7.5 percent in the second quarter, largely due to curbs on the property sector and headwinds from external demand, the State Information Center, a government think-tank, said in a report published on Friday. If the GDP forecast is accurate, growth in the second three months of 2012 would be the slowest since the first quarter of 2009, when the global economy was in the grip of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The forecast is in line with the government's official 2012 growth target of 7. ...
JPMorgan's Dimon says will testify before Congress
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Jamie Dimon has agreed to testify before Congress over the bank's recent trading losses, which have ignited a political debate over whether large U.S. banks need to be reined in by regulators or new laws. U.S. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Johnson said in a statement on Thursday that his panel will invite Dimon to appear before Congress. ...
Greek contagion threat pushes global shares into red for year
LONDON (Reuters) - World shares slid and German borrowing costs hit record lows on Friday as a deepening Spanish banking crisis, uncertainty about Greece's future in the euro zone and lackluster U.S. data bolstered safe-haven assets. World stocks, as measured by the MSCI index , dropped 0.7 percent and are now below where they began the year, having relinquished all the first-quarter gains fuelled by the European Central Bank's injection of more than a trillion euros of three-year money. That rally is now a distant memory as an ugly week for stock markets looked likely to end even uglier. ...
EU, ECB working on Greece exit contingency: trade commissioner
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission and the European Central Bank are working on scenarios in case Greece has to leave the euro zone, EU trade commissioner Karel De Gucht has said. Speculation about such planning has been rife, but the comments in a newspaper interview, confirmed by a person close to De Gucht, appear to be the first time an EU official has acknowledged the existence of contingency plans being drawn up in case Greece has to drop out of the currency bloc. ...
JPMorgan's Dimon says will testify before Congress
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Jamie Dimon has agreed to testify before Congress over the bank's recent trading losses, which have ignited a political debate over whether large U.S. banks need to be reined in by regulators or new laws. U.S. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Johnson said in a statement on Thursday that his panel will invite Dimon to appear before Congress. ...
GM ad move followed failed Facebook pitch: sources
DETROIT/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Facebook may only have itself to blame for why General Motors rained on its IPO parade this week. GM announced the decision to drop Facebook paid ads on Tuesday in what was the first highly visible crack in Facebook's strategy and illustrated doubts about its perceived advantage over traditional media. GM's decision followed Facebook officials' failure to convince top marketing executives at the U.S. automaker of the benefits of Facebook's paid ads at a meeting that took place in the past few weeks, people familiar with the meeting said on Thursday. ...
Analysis: China's towering metal stockpiles cast economic shadow
QINGDAO, China (Reuters) - When metals warehouses in top consumer China are so full that workers start stockpiling iron ore in granaries and copper in car parks, you know the global economy could be in trouble. At Qingdao Port, home to one of China's largest iron ore terminals, hundreds of mounds of iron ore, each as tall as a three-storey building, spill over into an area signposted "grains storage" and almost to the street. ...
Spain beset by bank crisis, downgrades, bond pressure
MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's borrowing costs shot up at a bond auction on Thursday and its troubled banks suffered a double blow, with shares in part-nationalized Bankia diving and 16 lenders - including the euro zone's biggest - having their credit ratings cut. Official data confirmed Spain was back in recession and a newspaper reported a big outflow of deposits from Bankia, but the government said it had taken a fundamental step to strengthen Spain's credibility by agreeing big budget cuts with the country's free-spending regions. ...
Spain hires Goldman Sachs to value Bankia: report
MADRID (Reuters) - The Spanish government has hired Goldman Sachs to carry out an independent valuation of Bankia , the ailing bank taken over by the state last week, Spanish newspaper Expansion said on Friday. The U.S. bank will review Bankia's and its parent company BFA's books and determine within a month how much the state should inject to refloat the lender, which had to be rescued after its auditor, Deloitte, identified several gaps in last year's accounts. ...
MF Global clients bash fat fees, seek quick wind-down
(Reuters) - The legal team winding down MF Global's bankruptcy estate, led by former FBI director Louis Freeh, estimates the fees charged by the team and other professionals have reached nearly $25 million since the bankruptcy was filed in October. Now a customer group is planning to ask that the case be streamlined so that those professionals -- especially Freeh -- receive less and customers receive more. On Friday, a coalition of former MF Global customers plans to argue in U.S. ...
GE aims to double China JVs to around 56 in five years
HONG KONG (Reuters) - General Electric Co aims to double the number of joint ventures it has in China from the current 28 in roughly five years, its vice-chairman said on Friday. John Rice, who is based in Hong Kong and runs the company's global operations, said GE will buy more, sell more and make more in China. Rice was speaking at an American Chamber of Commerce event in the city. The largest U.S. conglomerate makes electric turbines, water-purification systems, medical equipment and other infrastructure equipment that developing nations invest in as they industrialize. ...
Nervous investors send S&P lower for fifth day
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks hit a four-month low on Thursday as rising Spanish bond yields increased investor anxiety over that country's banks and another round of weak data undermined hopes for U.S. economic recovery. Growing worries over developments in the euro zone and lackluster economic data pushed the S&P's losing streak to five consecutive days. The index, which closed at a level not seen since mid-January, has now relinquished more than half of its gains from the first quarter. ...
Gupta trial could feature big corporate stars
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Lloyd Blankfein, Warren Buffett and other well-known chieftains of corporate America might be called to testify at the insider trading trial starting on Monday of former Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Procter & Gamble Co director Rajat Gupta. Blankfein, who runs Goldman, and Buffett, who runs Berkshire Hathaway Inc , are among dozens of people that lawyers for the government and for Gupta said on Thursday might be mentioned or might testify at the trial, which is expected to last about three weeks. ...
Buffett tried to buy ResCap before bankruptcy: report
(Reuters) - Billionaire investor Warren Buffett sought to buy Residential Capital (ResCap) from Ally Financial before the U.S. auto and mortgage lender put its home-lending unit into bankruptcy, Bloomberg said, citing three persons familiar with the matter. The news agency said Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway Inc's controlling shareholder, appointed investment manager Ted Weschler for talks with Ally, quoting the persons who preferred anonymity. ...
Pepsi drops sponsorship of horse show after video of animal abuse
Soft drink maker Pepsi said on Thursday that it was dropping sponsorship of a prestigious national horse show, one day after ABC News broadcast footage of a horse in training for a show being beaten by a trainer. The Walking Horse National Celebration said that Pepsi had been a sponsor since 2010 of the nation's leading competition for Tennessee Walking Horses, a breed known for its high-stepping gait. "We have ended our sponsorship of the event," Pepsi spokesman Vincent Bozek said on Thursday without elaborating. ...
MF Global clients bash fat fees, seek quick wind-down
(Reuters) - The legal team winding down MF Global's bankruptcy estate, led by former FBI director Louis Freeh, has racked up nearly $25 million in estimated fees since its November 25 appointment. Now a customer group is planning to ask that the case be streamlined so that Freeh and his team receive less and customers receive more. On Friday, a coalition of former MF Global customers plans to argue in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan that the Chapter 11 liquidation of the MF parent entity should be converted to a so-called Chapter 7, coalition leader James Koutoulas said on Wednesday. ...
JPMorgan unit has $100 billion in securitized assets, structured debt: FT
(Reuters) - The unit at the center of JPMorgan Chase & Co's recently revealed $2 billion trading loss has built up more than $100 billion in positions in asset-backed securities and structured products, the Financial Times said on Thursday. The newspaper said this portfolio comprises the "complex, risky bonds at the centre of the financial crisis in 2008", but did not say whether any of the holdings are in unhedged positions. ...
Japan government ups economic outlook on consumption, exports
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's government took a brighter view of the economy in a report on Friday, thanks to improvements in private consumption and exports, but it warned that Europe's debt crisis and financial market swings could worsen the outlook. The upgrade, the first since August last year, comes one day after data showed Japan's economy grew faster than the United States, Germany and Britain in the first quarter as subsidies boosted sales of energy-efficient cars. ...
Canada OKs Osiris drug; first stem cell therapy
BOSTON (Reuters) - Osiris Therapeutics Inc said on Thursday that Canadian health regulators have approved its treatment for acute graft-versus host disease in children, making it the first stem cell drug to be approved for a systemic disease anywhere in the world. Osiris shares rose 14 percent to $6.00 in extended trading after the news was announced. Graft versus host disease (GvHD) is a potentially deadly complication from a bone marrow transplant, when newly implanted cells attack the patient's body. ...
Verizon data fans to pay more in service or phones
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Verizon Wireless plans to make its data-hungry customers pay a lot more, either in service fees or smartphone prices, as it tries to cut costs and boost revenue from data services. The No. 1 U.S. mobile provider said it will eliminate unlimited data plans for all customers who upgrade their cellphone at a discounted rate, potentially driving more business to its smaller rival Sprint Nextel . Only customers who pay full price for their cellphones will be able to keep unlimited data service plans for a flat monthly fee of $30 a month. ...
Leaders of UAL pilots' union call for strike vote
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pilots' union leaders at United Continental Holdings , parent of the world's biggest carrier United Airlines, called on Thursday for its members to hold a strike vote after failing to agree on a contract after two years of talks with management. The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), which represents pilots who flew for what were United and Continental Airlines before the two merged in 2010, did not set a date for a vote. ...
US stocks edge higher ahead of Facebook IPO
Excitement about Facebook's initial public offering gave U.S. stocks a small lift in morning trading on Friday.
FACEBOOK IPO LIVE: The social network goes public
It's Facebook's big day.
German privacy official warns Facebook investors
A German data protection official has warned Facebook investors that the social networking site's $38 starting share price is based on practices that breach European privacy rules.
US futures set to rebound as G-8 leaders gather
U.S. stock futures rebounded Friday as leaders of eight of the world's biggest economies began to gather outside of Washington to determine how best to limit damage from the debt crises rattling Europe.
Oil edges up to near $93 after big 2-week sell-off
Oil prices edged toward $93 a barrel Friday as financial markets stabilized after a sharp two-week sell-off caused by the latest flare-up in Europe's debt crisis and a gloomy economic outlook.
Why you shouldn't buy Facebook stock today
Even the hottest initial public stock offerings can lose steam after their first day of trading.
FACEBOOK FACE-OFF: Steer clear of the hype
EDITOR'S NOTE — Facebook begins selling stock to the public Friday in the most talked-about market debut in years. Two Associated Press business writers are debating whether the stock is a smart buy.
FACEBOOK FACE-OFF: Press the 'like' button, soon
EDITOR'S NOTE — Facebook begins selling stock to the public Friday in the most talked-about market debut in years. Two Associated Press business writers are debating whether the stock is a smart buy.
Europe woes keep markets on edge
Concerns that Europe's debt crisis could drag down parts of the continent's banking system rattled most global markets Friday, though social network Facebook's imminent IPO buoyed sentiment on Wall Street.
Report: HSBC says regulations may prompt UK exit
HSBC may decide to sell its U.K. retail banking operations, depending on the impact of yet to be announced new banking regulations, published reports say.