Business News

FRANKFURT, Germany - The euro traded slightly higher against the U.S. dollar Friday after data showed a drop in U.S. industrial production and unexpectedly strong first-quarter economic growth in Germany.

UNITED NATIONS - The world economy is "teetering on the brink" of a severe downturn and is expected to grow only 1.8 percent in 2008, the United Nations said in its mid-year economic projections Thursday.

WASHINGTON - Industrial output plunged in April as factories making everything from autos to heavy machinery felt the adverse effects of the weak economy. Analysts held out hope that production will revive in the second half of the year, helped by the government's economic stimulus checks.

WASHINGTON - Wall Street investment companies are borrowing from the Federal Reserve's emergency lending program at a fairly steady pace.

NEW YORK - Oil futures ended a whipsaw session slightly lower Thursday as the expiration of options played havoc with prices, driving crude near record high levels at times and down by more than $3 a barrel at others. Retail gas prices, meanwhile, advanced past $3.77 a gallon.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose in light trading on Thursday, pushing the S&P 500 to its highest close since January, as a pullback in oil prices eased concerns about inflation and a battle to control Yahoo Inc helped the tech sector.

NEW YORK - The stock market notched its second straight daily advance Thursday, with investors assuaged by a pullback in oil prices and some better-than-expected economic data.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N), billionaire Warren Buffett's investment company, no longer held any Ameriprise Financial Inc stock as of March 31, according to a U.S. regulatory filing on Thursday.

LONDON (AFP) - Europe's main stock markets diverged on Thursday as companies published mixed earnings news, and after share-price gains in Tokyo and overnight on Wall Street, dealers said.

LOS ANGELES - Securities regulators on Wednesday charged Broadcom Corp. co-founders Henry T. Nicholas III and Henry Samueli with falsifying the company's reported income, leading to what is believed to be the largest accounting restatement yet because of backdating stock options.

LONDON (AFP) - British Airways said Friday its annual net profit more than doubled as it cut costs to help offset record high fuel prices.

MILWAUKEE - Department store stalwarts J.C. Penney Co., Nordstrom Inc. and Kohl's Inc. all reported steep drops in first-quarter profits on Thursday as Americans snub apparel to focus on basic necessities at discounters in a challenging economy.

1 Erasing modest early losses, the Nasdaq rose 1.5%, the NYSE composite 1.2% and the S&P 500 1.1% -- all to 4-month highs. The Dow climbed 0.7%. Several factors fueled gains: a less-bad Philly Fed, oil reversing from highs, Internet deals, solid retail earnings and reports of a housing rescue bill deal. The 10-year Treasury yield fell 10 basis points to 3.83%.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Upscale department store Nordstrom Inc reported a lower quarterly net profit on Thursday that beat Wall Street estimates, hurt by lower sales in what the company called a "challenging retail environment."

SEATTLE - Luxury retailer Nordstrom Inc. said Thursday its profit fell 24 percent in the first quarter, as recession rumblings in the U.S. crimped even wealthier consumers' shopping habits.

PARIS (AFP) - French automaker Renault said on Friday its global unit sales rose 8.3 percent from a year earlier to 228,146 vehicles in April.

OTTAWA (AFP) - The Canadian Auto Workers union (CAW) has reached new tentative labor agreements with General Motors and Chrysler that include wage freezes and cuts in some benefits, the union said Thursday.

WASHINGTON - The global market for cancer drugs will grow twice as fast as that for all other pharmaceuticals as the developing world spends more on health care, a new report says.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sales of cancer drugs will grow at nearly double the rate of the global pharmaceutical market and could reach $80 billion by 2012, according to IMS Health , which tracks prescription drug sales.

Verizon Wireless' decision to join Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile as members of a Linux-based mobile initiative appears to have dealt a setback to Google's ambitions for its Android mobile platform. A Verizon spokesperson told the Chicago Tribune that the company joined the rival LiMo Foundation because "of LiMo's approach to providing a truly open OS that isn't simply an extension of a for-profit company's business model."

In 2000, a few members of the Lyman family moved out of its capacious ancestral home. Though the house, set on a sprawling farm in Middlefield, Conn., had been inhabited by Lymans since its construction in 1785, it was feeling too big for them. Two years later, the 180-member family decided to turn the homestead into an event space for weddings and other occasions. It was the latest in a series of business decisions that have kept the family business thriving for over 200 years.

Kathy Cloninger, chief executive officer of Girl Scouts of the USA since 2003, is in the process of transforming the venerable U.S. organization to ensure it remains as relevant to girls today as when it was founded in 1912. (I consider one of Kathy's predecessors as CEO, Frances Hesselbein, to be the greatest leader I have ever met.) The organization recently released a fascinating study on girls and their aspirations to leadership, so I invited Kathy to discuss what she sees for the next generation of women leaders. Edited excerpts of our conversation follow.

At around $125 a barrel, crude oil has more than doubled in price since the end of 2006. How is it possible that the vast majority of government forecasters, stock analysts, economists, traders, and journalists who follow the oil market failed to foresee this? Moreover, how can it be that even today, the bulls and bears on oil are extremely far apart, disagreeing not only on the oil outlook but even the present situation?

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The stock market will likely start the week on a hesitant note with Wall Street facing the first Federal Reserve interest-rate decision in many months not knowing that a cut is likely guaranteed.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors will have seen enough corporate results by the end of this week to determine if the recent string of encouraging earnings was an anomaly or a real sign stocks can weather the credit crisis and economic slowdown.

FAIRFIELD, Conn. - General Electric Co. plans to auction off its appliances business, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Financier Carl Icahn launched a proxy battle on Thursday to force Yahoo Inc to reopen buyout talks with Microsoft Corp , saying the Yahoo board had acted "irrationally" in refusing its $47.5 billion offer.

TRENTON, N.J. - A Texas appeals court on Wednesday overturned a multimillion-dollar verdict against Merck & Co. in one of the few trials it lost over its withdrawn painkiller Vioxx.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - T. Boone Pickens' Mesa Power LLP placed a $2 billion order for 667 wind turbines with General Electric to build the world's largest wind farm in the Texas Panhandle, the Dallas Morning News reported Thursday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Directors and officers of mortgage lender Countrywide Financial must answer shareholder accusations of insider trading and failure to monitor lending practices that led to the company's collapse, a federal judge in California has ruled, the New York Times reported.