NUUK (Reuters) – Greenland’s prime minister warned the European Union he could scrap a preliminary deal intended to safeguard the bloc’s access to his country’s huge mineral resources, saying Brussels has failed to follow through. “I don’t understand the behav... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Americans are saving more in their workplace retirement plans than a few years ago, and Shlomo Benartzi is one of the people whom they can thank. Benartzi, professor and co-chair of the behavioral decision-making group at the UCLA Anderson... More »
(The writer is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own. For more from Mark Miller, see link.reuters.com/qyk97s) By Mark Miller CHICAGO (Reuters) – Are employers stingier with their 401(k) matching contributions when they automate the enrollment... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – France, Spain and Italy dragged the euro zone into a deeper downturn in February, according to business surveys that showed the chasm between these countries and prosperous Germany widening yet again. While British services companies had a s... More »
ROCKAWAY BEACH, New York (Reuters) – Families whose homes were damaged by superstorm Sandy have one more insult they can add to their list of injuries: Unless they are careful, their children’s student aid packages might get nicked. There are two reasons for t... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Home prices rose at the beginning of the year, another sign the recovery in the housing market is gaining traction, data from CoreLogic showed on Tuesday. CoreLogic’s home price index rose 0.7 percent in January from the previous month and... More »
GENEVA (Reuters) – Ford Motor Co (F.N ) will import its EcoSport compact crossover from India for the European market, where the vehicle will compete in a growing, but increasingly crowded segment, a top executive said on Tuesday. The EcoSport, showcased at th... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Spain’s Amancio Ortega, the co-founder of the Inditex fashion group, leapt over Warren Buffett and France’s Bernard Arnault to become the world’s third richest person on Forbes’ 2013 annual ranking of billionaires, with an estimated net wo... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Mark Steber can’t file his taxes. This is especially annoying for a man who is chief tax officer for Jackson Hewitt Tax Service Inc, the second-largest tax preparer in the United States. Steber uses his own company’s software and usually f... More »
(Reuters) – What can’t go on forever may be starting to stop in China. China on Monday unveiled steps to curb runaway housing price inflation, including measures to make speculation less profitable and loans more expensive. That sent stock markets down around ... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Forbes’s 2013 list of the world’s richest people includes 1,426 billionaires, a record number, with a total net worth of $5.4 trillion, up from $4.6 trillion in the previous ranking. Following are key facts from the ranking. There are 210 ... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Interest rates at 8 times the national average! Absolutely no overdraft fees! No minimums! Free checks! Get your ATM fees reimbursed! With nearly half of the $10 trillion in bank deposits in the U.S. concentrated in the top five banks, it ... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The recovery in the state pension system suffered a setback in 2012 as the huge funding shortfall in a large swath of state pensions swelled more than 20 percent, interrupting two years of improvement following the devastation of the finan... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – When the financial crisis began to spread five years ago, British coffee machine-maker Fracino raced to get ahead of it. From the firm’s base in Birmingham, it carved out new markets in the Middle East, Asia and even Italy for its cappuccino... More »
ATHENS (Reuters) – Officials from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund return to Athens on Sunday to assess Greece’s performance under a bailout plan as the government plays down the prospect of public sector job cuts. The heads of the “troik... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A federal jury on Thursday found sports programmer ESPN liable for only one breach-of-contract claim made by Dish Network Corp and awarded Dish $4.86 million, a mere fraction of the more than $152 million it had sought. In a unanimous verd... More »
DUBLIN (Reuters) – European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said on Thursday he was confident that Italy’s next government would honor its commitments and would not derail growing confidence in the euro zone. Investors are nervous over whether the pol... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – London Mayor Boris Johnson lashed out at a European Union cap on bankers’ bonuses on Thursday, warning that the move will shunt banking business away from the City of London and towards Zurich, Singapore and New York. Bankers in Europe face ... More »
(Reuters) – A veteran Florida-based adviser from Bank of America Corp’s Merrill Lynch has moved to rival brokerage Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, joining the firm’s Miami office. Adviser Victor Camara, who had been at Merrill for more than a decade, joined ... More »
(James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.) By James Saft (Reuters) – In case you were wondering, Jamie Dimon has thoughtfully explained why he’s richer than you and all the analysts covering J.P Morgan. It isn’t, as I thought, our... More »
ROME (Reuters) – An Italian political crisis that has rattled the euro zone deepened on Wednesday when two party leaders ruled out the most likely options to form a government and avoid a new election. Populist leader Beppe Grillo slammed the door on overtures... More »
MUNICH (Reuters) – Financial markets in the euro zone are still not functioning well, with firms and consumers having difficulties obtaining bank loans in some countries, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said on Wednesday. The ECB is experiencing p... More »
BERLIN/DUBLIN (Reuters) – Euro zone governments are discussing ways to help Portugal and Ireland return to the capital markets swiftly and have voiced a preference for delaying the repayment of bailout loans by the two states, sources familiar with discussions... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – It’s all go at Peter Stratford’s Aston Martin dealership in London. “There is more money than there was before,” he said, pointing to a recent 1 million pound ($1.5 million) sale. “Aston Martin prices have gone through the roof in the last c... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – There may be no such thing as a sure bet on Wall Street, but junk bonds have come pretty close over the past four years. Now the high-yield market feels frothy enough to a number of the biggest bond market players that they are shying away... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – Private equity investors hoping for outsized profits are facing an awkward truth – investment returns have shrunk and are unlikely to go back to their peak levels. At private equity’s annual global gathering in Berlin this week, investors ac... More »
MADRID (Reuters) – Spain is at odds with the European Commission over how much shareholders will lose in a rescue of nationalized lender Bankia (BKIA.MC ), sources familiar with the talks said, delaying the next phase of its bailout. The discussions over a few... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Home sales and prices are rising briskly in those neighborhoods where the well-heeled like to plant their mailboxes: along Chicago’s north shore, in the San Francisco Bay area and in the haute Hamptons. Sales of properties worth between ... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – After years of changes and political arm-twisting, the federal estate tax rules became clear and stable with the year-end fiscal cliff deal. They are now set permanently into the tax code – at least until the tax code changes again. The am... More »
ANKARA (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday she was in favor of reviving Turkey’s stalled talks on its relationship with the European Union but a dispute over the divided island of Cyprus remained a stumbling block. Speaking during a two-... More »
(Reuters) – Cypriots voted on Sunday for a president who must negotiate a financial rescue to keep the island nation from a bankruptcy that would reignite the euro zone debt crisis. Here are some of the options: BAILOUT LOAN While Cyprus’s financial needs are ... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Global equity markets rebounded on Friday, recovering some of the previous session’s sharp losses, but the euro hit a six-week low against the dollar on renewed doubts about the health of the euro zone’s financial system. Wall Street ended... More »
(Reuters) – Bank of New York Mellon Co has agreed to pay $114 million to settle claims over its role as trustee for debt issued by Medical Capital Holdings Inc, a medical receivables financing company that collapsed in 2009 amid fraud allegations. Investors ac... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Federal tax refunds are arriving later than expected for some lower-income Americans due in part to closer scrutiny of earned income tax credit claims by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, the IRS said on Friday. IRS employees have been ... More »
(Reuters) – People who lost money by investing in funds that funneled their money to Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme are not entitled to recover for their losses, in the manner that direct victims of the massive fraud can recover, a federal appeals court ruled o... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Andrew Adams takes the Wall Street adage “invest in what you know” literally. Adams, the Minneapolis-based manager of the tiny $62 million Mairs & Power Small Cap fund, invests all but a quarter of his portfolio in companies that are headq... More »
MADRID (Reuters) – A bleaker-than-expected economic outlook from the European Commission on Friday will add pressure on Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to review economic policy over the rest of his term, economists and European sources say. Rajoy, who sa... More »
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The euro zone will not return to growth until 2014 and struggling Spain and France will be among those who miss debt-cutting targets as a result, the European Commission said on Friday. Paris and Lisbon said they would seek more time from ... More »
CHICAGO (Reuters) – In the mercurial world of stock market trends, predicting whether the market is favoring growth or value styles is an either/or situation. Sometimes growth stocks, which tend to produce consistently higher earnings, dominate. Then they fall... More »
(Reuters) – Washington Post Co posted a fourth-quarter loss on Friday after taking a $111.6 million writedown of one of its troubled educational businesses, Kaplan Test Preparation. The company, which publishes its namesake newspaper and operates cable and edu... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Asset-backed bonds, banished to the vaults of the European Central Bank (ECB) in return for emergency cash, are back on investor wish-lists, giving banks a fresh shot at profits that could spur lending to the real economy. Banks used to make... More »
(Reuters) – Wall Street brokers who dig in their heels when regulators ask for details about business dealings conducted outside of their brokerages play a risky and often career-ending game. A battle waged by one former broker against the Financial Industry R... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The schism dividing the euro zone’s strong and weak economies deepened to include its core pairing in February as French firms suffered their worst month in four years in stark contrast to prospering Germany. The gap between the two biggest ... More »
SOFIA (Reuters) – The violent protests that forced Bulgaria’s cabinet from power this week underscore the lose-lose situation facing the European Union’s newest members as they struggle to stop economic downturn and stem growing public anger. Ruling parties wh... More »
PHNOM PENH (Reuters) – The European Union is calling on Cambodia to come up with more cash for a Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunal, where resignations have slowed proceedings and some staff are threatening to strike after going for more than two months without p... More »
DUBLIN (Reuters) – Independent News & Media is in talks with a consortium of its banks to restructure over 400 million euros ($534 million) of debt threatening the group’s survival, INM’s chairman said on Wednesday. The Irish publisher is in negotiations with ... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Keith Anderson, the former chief investment officer for billionaire trader George Soros’ money management firm, is raising money for a new macro hedge fund, according to a person familiar with the firm. Anderson left Soros Fund Management ... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – If you have ever been pitched an investment, you’ve probably been on the receiving end of a “limited time” offer – the kind where you have to act now or forever lose your chance of participating in a great opportunity. In fact, there are... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – After a six-year lull, deal making is back with a vengeance. That means investors may need to rethink strategies to profit from increasing numbers of mergers and acquisitions. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and Brazil’s 3G Capital Par... More »
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Euro zone consumer confidence rose in February, figures released on Wednesday showed. The European Commission said a flash estimate that euro zone consumer morale improved slightly to -23.6, up from -23.9 in January. But the improvement wa... More »
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Commission will check euro zone countries’ draft budgets to verify if they are in line with EU rules and will ask for changes if they are not, under a deal struck on Wednesday with the European Parliament. After months of wran... More »
DETROIT (Reuters) – Dan Gilbert has a vision for downtown Detroit that many would find hard to square with the long, painful decline commonly associated with this city: a vibrant urban core full of creative, innovative and talented young people. Yet Quicken Lo... More »
CHICAGO (Reuters) – When U.S. Federal Reserve governors start talking about “overheating episodes in credit markets,” as did Jeremy Stein in a February 7 speech in St. Louis, it is time to prick up your ears. Stein warned that in an attempt to “reach for yield... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – One of SandRidge Energy Inc’s largest shareholders, pushing to remove its chief executive, alleged on Tuesday that a company controlled by the CEO’s children has amassed around 475,000 acres near SandRidge’s operations. Hedge fund TPG-Axon... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. home-builder confidence in the market for single family homes eased slightly in February from last month’s seven-year high as builders faced higher material costs, an index showed on Tuesday. The NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market index ... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Rapid moves in foreign exchange markets have sent strategists scrambling to revise 2013 forecasts as resurgent currencies outpace price predictions, wrong-footing the experts that many rely on for hedging, budgeting and investment. After two... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – European Central Bank president Mario Draghi has created a win-win situation for traders in the run-up to Friday’s announcement on early repayments of banking sector loans, with short-term rates expected to go anywhere but up. Traders are ba... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Sandy Harsh never expected to find herself with $16,800 in credit-card debt and her retirement dreams drifting farther away. Harsh, an IT professional from Tuscola, Illinois, is 62, around the age at which a lot of people start actively pl... More »
SOFIA (Reuters) – Bulgaria’s rightist government on Monday sacked Finance Minister Simeon Djankov, who has kept a tight fiscal policy as the European Union’s poorest member recovers from recession, a day after nationwide protests over electricity prices. Djank... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – European Central Bank board member Joerg Asmussen said on Sunday the euro zone is in better shape than a year ago thanks to positive budget consolidation efforts in individual countries, the European Union’s fiscal pact and ECB actions. Spea... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – German Economy Minister Philipp Roesler wants the European Union and the United States to reach a comprehensive transatlantic free trade agreement rather than settle for the limited deal some southern EU nations favor. Roesler told Der Spieg... More »
NICOSIA (Reuters) – Cypriots went to the polls on Sunday to elect a president who must negotiate a financial rescue to save the island country from a bankruptcy that would reignite the euro zone debt crisis. The eastern Mediterranean nation’s worst economic cr... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama said on Thursday that raising the minimum wage, as he has proposed, might trim corporate profits, but he added that U.S. firms were enjoying robust earnings and needed customers with money to spend. “It might have ... More »
BOSTON (Reuters) – Some of the biggest hedge funds that helped make Apple Inc a stock market darling lost faith and dumped their stakes in the fourth quarter, fueling the massive drop in the iPhone maker’s share price. Noted stock pickers including Leon Cooper... More »
(Reuters) – The final two defendants convicted for helping the former Texas billionaire financier Allen Stanford swindle investors were each sentenced on Thursday to 20 years in prison over their roles in his $7.2 billion Ponzi scheme. Gilbert Lopez, the forme... More »
(Reuters) – Morgan Stanley expanded its risk-weighted asset reduction target, a move that will help the Wall Street bank’s capital levels under new rules and potentially boost shareholder returns. Morgan Stanley earlier said that it would reduce its fixed inco... More »
(Reuters) – Bank of America Corp’s Merrill Lynch said on Wednesday it added four veteran advisers who managed nearly $1 billion in combined client assets from rival U.S. brokerages. The new hires, who moved to Merrill in January, came from Morgan Stanley Wealt... More »
BOSTON (Reuters) – Newly named Legg Mason Inc Chief Executive Joseph Sullivan on Wednesday vowed to reinvigorate the Baltimore-based asset manager and stanch the outflow of investor money from its funds. Sullivan, in a telephone interview shortly after he was ... More »
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The United States and European Union aim to start negotiating a vast Transatlantic free trade pact by June, though the plan confirmed on Wednesday faces many hurdles before it might help revive the world’s top two economies. A deal would b... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Turkey is committed to joining the European Union despite mounting frustration over decades of talks on the issue, but has little appetite for adopting the euro currency, a senior Turkish official said on Wednesday. In a speech in London, Tu... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – London’s colonies of super-rich have stopped spending freely over the last five years and the sellers of luxury cars in the millionaire ghetto of Mayfair report having to work as hard as their suburban mass market counterparts. Upmarket car ... More »
PARIS (Reuters) – Societe Generale has reshuffled its management team and will seek cost cuts after swinging to a wider-than-expected fourth-quarter loss on the back of a weak euro zone economy and one-off charges. France’s No. 2 listed bank said finance chief... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. investors have had plenty of reasons to worry about what goes on in Washington, from “fiscal cliff” fears to concerns about a debt default or government shutdown. But President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday nigh... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama’s nominee to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission pledged to stay away from any matters involving her old law firm or former clients for one year, according to documents released on Friday. Mary Jo White is ... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – It is almost time for Alvin’s massage. After a rubdown, he is off for a personal grooming session, to make sure he looks his best. Alvin is from Thailand originally but recently has been hanging out in California, and this weekend is jetti... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – NYSE Euronext plans to shut down the New York Block Exchange, a joint venture with dark pool operator BIDS Trading for executing large “block” trades because of a lack of market interest. The Big Board parent, which is being bought for abo... More »
(Reuters) – A proposed liquidation plan for MF Global Holdings Ltd fails to take into account that its finance unit is being hit twice for the same debt, undercutting what some creditors might recover, JPMorgan Chase & Co said in a court filing. Creditors of t... More »
(Reuters) – A surge in subscription revenue – mostly digital – let The New York Times Co easily surpass expectations last quarter giving a positive start to the company’s new chief executive officer, Mark Thompson. Shares rallied as much as 15 percent to highs... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits fell last week and a trend reading hit a near five-year low, signs a grinding recovery in the labor market remains on track. Other reports on Thursday showed many top U.S. re... More »
(Reuters) – Hedge fund manager David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital told Reuters on Thursday that he “chatted yesterday” with Apple CEO Tim Cook who is receptive to his proposals on Apple’s capital allocation strategy. Einhorn said he suggested to Apple an init... More »
(Reuters) – Calling them “tax cheats” and their lawsuit a “travesty,” a U.S. appeals court threw out an effort by some American customers of UBS AG to recover damages over bank services that resulted in their having evaded U.S. taxes. The decision by the 7th U... More »
(Reuters) – Barclays Plc said on Thursday it added 16 new investment representatives to its wealth and investment management division as the British bank expands its presence in the United States. The new hires, spread across seven different offices in the Uni... More »
(This is part of a five-story package on retirement that will run Feb 5 – Feb 7) By Mark Miller CHICAGO (Reuters) – Susan Damour flunked retirement. She tried it at age 64 in 2008 along with her husband, Tim, who was 68. That lasted a year. Overseas travel, co... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. prosecutors are nearing a decision on whether to pursue criminal charges against SAC Capital Advisors portfolio manager Michael Steinberg related to an insider trading investigation involving shares of Dell Inc, according to two peopl... More »
(Reuters) – Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp on Wednesday reported higher quarterly revenue and profit on strong growth at its cable assets including its Regional Sports and FX networks. But the rosy quarterly figures – revenue and profit beat expectations – masked ... More »
(Reuters) – News Corp reported higher quarterly revenue and profit on Wednesday on strong growth at its cable networks. The media conglomerate, controlled by Rupert Murdoch, said revenue rose 5 percent to $9.43 billion for the quarter that ended in December. A... More »
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – A European Union court has ruled that the EU should lift sanctions it imposed on one of Iran’s largest banks, the second such judgment that could complicate Western efforts to increase pressure on the Islamic Republic. The ruling further w... More »
(This is part of a five-part package on retirement that will run Feb 5 – Feb 7) By Lauren Young NEW YORK (Reuters) – Employers are getting smarter about how they run retirement plans. They are making some moves that are good for younger workers, including auto... More »
CHICAGO (Reuters) – The baby boom generation has broken the mold at every stage of life, and it looks like old age won’t be any different. Boomers aren’t heading quietly into retirement. They’re launching businesses, embracing digital technology and living abr... More »
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union will consider adding Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement to its list of terrorist organizations after it was implicated in a bombing in Bulgaria last year, an EU foreign affairs spokeswoman said on Wednesday. However, she said ... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – If the euro zone loses the global ‘currency war’, the price will be paid in growth and jobs and fresh tensions about the future of the bloc. Whoever wins the ‘war’ eventually, few doubt the euro area has been routed in the latest monetary ba... More »
(Reuters) – Jim O’Neill, a Goldman Sachs Group Inc executive who coined the term “BRIC” to refer to four fast-growing emerging markets, will retire later this year, according to an internal memo sent out on Tuesday. O’Neill, chairman of Goldman’s asset managem... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The vast U.S. services sector expanded again last month, extending a three-year run of growth, while European business optimism hit an eight-month high, suggesting the euro zone economy was starting to recover. Rising corporate confidence ... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The euro zone’s battered economy is probably recovering but the gulf between its two biggest members is widening, according to a survey on Tuesday that showed business optimism in the bloc at an eight-month high. Markit’s Eurozone Composite ... More »
NEW YORK/CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (Reuters) – A group of mortgage-backed securities investors says Bank of America Corp failed to buy back more than $30 billion in loans from investors after the bank modified the mortgages to reduce borrowers’ payments. The a... More »
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Whenever the stock market breaches an old high – like when the Dow closed over 14,000 on Friday, the best mark since October, 2007 – it is time to look inward, not outward. You could be happy that your portfolio looks pretty good, or you co... More »
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc and other online retailers did not break California law by requiring consumers to provide their address and phone numbers as a condition of accepting credit card payments, the state’s high court ruled on Monday. In a split d... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York State will get another $185.5 million in federal grants as it moves toward establishing a health insurance exchange as mandated under President Obama’s healthcare reforms, Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a statement on Monday. Cuomo... More »
(Reuters) – The Washington Post is the latest media company contemplating selling its headquarters as it tries to rein in costs. Katharine Weymouth, the publisher of the Washington Post and part of the Graham family that controls the paper, wrote to employees ... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Roomy Khan, a one-time technology company executive who became a key FBI informant in the insider-trading case against hedge-fund manager Raj Rajaratnam, was sentenced to 12 months in prison on Thursday. Her defense lawyer had sought five ... More »
