JPMorgan wins second victory in Lehman-linked lawsuit

(Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co on Friday won the dismissal of a pension fund lawsuit accusing it of mishandling its money by investing in notes from its client Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, which later went bankrupt. The decision by U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones in Manhattan is JPMorgan's second court victory in a Lehman matter in two days. On Thursday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge James Peck in Manhattan narrowed Lehman's own $8.6 billion lawsuit against JPMorgan, once its main clearing bank. ...

Chevron Q1 profit up 4 percent, production down

(Reuters) - Chevron Corp, the second-largest U.S. oil company, reported on Friday a rise in quarterly profit as rising oil prices and refining margins made up for a decline in oil and gas production. First-quarter profit rose to $6.5 billion, or $3.27 per share, from $6.2 billion, or $3.09 per share, a year earlier. Revenue rose nearly 1 percent to $60.7 billion. Oil and gas production declined to 2.63 million barrels per day (bpd) on an oil-equivalent basis, down from 2.76 million bpd a year before, while average benchmark oil prices rose about 12 percent over the same period. ...

Goldman Sachs censured, no further penalty on 2011 warrants case

(Reuters) - Goldman Sachs on Friday received an official censure, but no further penalty, from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange following the resolution of a case involving a typographical error in the documentation of some warrants it issued in February 2011. In administering its slap on the wrist to the US investment bank, the exchange said it took into account several mitigating factors including the fact that this was the first such case for Goldman Sachs since it began issuing the products in 2005. The bank had also maintained dialogue with the exchange after noticing what had been a mistake. ...

US futures slide on economic tremors from Europe

U.S. futures fell Monday following data out of Europe that showed government debt continues to pile up despite severe budget cuts that have led to social unrest across the continent.

SABMiller appoints Alan Clark CEO as of July 2013

LONDON (Reuters) - Global brewer SABMiller said its European chief Alan Clark will succeed long-standing Chief Executive Graham Mackay in July 2013 in series of top management changes that will see the 62-year old Mackay take over as chairman. The move appears to fly in the face of the UK corporate governance code which suggests that chief executives should not go on to become chairman of the same group, although the code does say this can be allowed if the company consults its shareholders and sets out clearly the reasons for its decision. ...

Credit Suisse and Barclays investors revolt over pay

LONDON/ZURICH (Reuters) - More than a quarter of shareholders at Credit Suisse and Barclays voted down the banks' pay plans on Friday, in a sign investors are catching up with popular outrage over rewards in an industry blamed for derailing the global economy. Such stark rejections are rare, with the average vote against pay proposals at British companies last year only 6 percent. This year's shareholder meetings to approve the plans were stormy, with investors venting their fury at bosses they see gaining at their expense. ...

Chevron 1Q profits rise 4 pct on higher oil prices

Chevron Corp. said Friday that profits rose 4.2 percent in the first quarter as it sold oil for higher prices.

Ford earnings down on weakness in Europe

DETROIT (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co reported a lower quarterly profit on Friday hurt by weak international results, particularly in Europe, and a higher tax rate. The second-largest U.S. automaker reported first-quarter net income of $1.4 billion or 35 cents per share, down from the $2.6 billion net income it reported a year earlier. About half that drop was due to higher tax expenses, Ford said. The company also recorded $255 million in special charges, largely due to buyouts of workers represented by the United Auto Workers union. ...

AMR union to vote next week on proposal: sources

(Reuters) - The union representing seven work groups at bankrupt American Airlines will vote starting next week on the carrier's best and final contract offer, with results expected before unions testify in a hearing on the airline's request to void their contract, three sources said on Monday. American, a unit of AMR Corp, is finalizing the language of the offer, which features fewer job cuts than the 8,500 originally proposed, airline spokesman Bruce Hicks said. AMR filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November, citing labor costs that were higher than its peers. ...

Rupert Murdoch blames rogue tabloid for phone-hacking

LONDON (Reuters) - Rupert Murdoch called his News of the World tabloid an "aberration" on Thursday, accusing journalists of hiding phone-hacking from himself, his son James and his protégée Rebekah Brooks, and said he wished he had shut it down sooner. "The News of the World, to be quite honest, was an aberration, and it's my fault," the media mogul said in a second day of testimony in Britain's High Court on Thursday. "I'm sorry I didn't close it years before." But he went out of way to defend his Sun tabloid, Britain's top-selling daily. ...

Investors laud saved April as earnings unfold

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Futures edged lower on Thursday a day after investors lauded the biggest gains this year for the Nasdaq and the S&P 500's move back above its 50-day moving average in a rally that has largely reversed a recent pullback in U.S. equities. Stronger than expected earnings, most prominently from Apple Inc , have helped investors set aside worries about the economy and Europe, driving stocks higher. Of the 200 S&P 500 companies reporting, three-fourths have topped estimates, according to Thomson Reuters data as of Wednesday. ...

Stock futures edge lower after run up; jobless data eyed

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock index futures edged lower on Thursday after the Nasdaq posted its biggest gain of the year in the prior session and as investors looked ahead to jobless claims data, a barometer of the health of the labor market. S&P 500 futures fell 1.5 points and were below fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration of the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures fell 9 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures fell 6 points. (Reporting by Ed Krudy; editing by W Simon)

EU voters, citizens rebel against austerity

For more than a year European Union officials seeking to solve Europe's debt crisis have been baying for austerity, austerity and more austerity. Now the people of Europe are taking their backlash from the streets to the ballot box â€" possibly forcing a change of direction.

Chevron profit rises 4 percent despite output decline

(Reuters) - Chevron Corp delivered a 4 percent rise in first-quarter profit on Friday, helped by an asset sale and increases in both oil prices and refining margins that made up for a decline in oil and gas production. Shares of the second-largest U.S. oil company were down a few pennies in midday trading at $106.19. That looked good against the 1 percent decline for larger rival Exxon Mobil Corp on Thursday after it produced weaker-than-expected earnings due to a drop in oil and gas output. Chevron's first-quarter profit rose to $6.47 billion, or $3.27 per share, from $6.21 billion, or $3. ...

Jobless figures up as French election nears

France's bleak economic outlook has returned to the forefront of the country's presidential campaign after new figures Friday showed the number of job seekers rose for the 11th consecutive month in March.

Global shares inch up, Spain debt downgrade caps

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares pushed higher on Friday on firm U.S. data despite a two-notch downgrade of Spain's credit rating that capped gains, while fresh easing measures by the Bank of Japan supported Tokyo stocks. Japan's central bank moved as expected to help fight deep deflation, initially pushing Japanese stocks up more than 1 percent and helping drag the broader Asian stock higher. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan extended gains to a 0.4 percent rise, headed by the technology sector with a 1.6 percent rise. At current levels, the index was set for a 0. ...

Insight: Collusion probe latest Mexico woe for Telefonica

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - When Telefonica arrived in Mexico about a decade ago, the Spanish phone company framed the expansion as a social crusade as much as a business: It would bring wireless service to the country's poor while taking on Carlos Slim, the tycoon who has dominated Mexico's telephone industry for a generation. Telefonica says it has achieved part of its goal. Cellphone use has quadrupled since the company arrived, it says, and it has helped put handsets into the hands of rural peasants and street vendors while shrinking the cost of service. ...

Stock futures signal higher Wall Street open

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures pointed to a higher open on Wall Street on Thursday, with futures for the S&P 500, the Dow Jones and the Nasdaq 100 rising 0.2 to 0.3 percent. At 8:30 a.m. EDT, the Labor Department is due to release first-time claims for jobless benefits for the week ended April 25. Economists forecast a total of 375,000 new filings, compared with 386,000 in the prior week. Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago releases its Chicago Fed National Activity Index for March at 1230 GMT. The index read -0.09 in the previous month. ...

UBS taps private equity chief to boost deals

NEW YORK (Reuters) - UBS AG , the Swiss bank that this month suffered the departure of some of its most senior dealmakers in the U.S., said on Monday it hired the former head of Bank of America Corp's buyout arm to bolster its deals coverage. UBS said in an internal memo that Jim Forbes, a veteran banker who has raised over $100 billion in financing for companies and advised on over $120 billion of merger and acquisition deals, would join the bank on Monday as vice chairman at UBS Group Americas. ...

Political battle over student loans heating up

House Speaker John Boehner said Thursday that President Barack Obama was acting "beneath the dignity of the White House" when he traveled around the country this week to pressure Republicans to help keep federal student loan costs from ballooning. Boehner said Obama should reimburse taxpayers for the trips' costs.

Peugeot Citroen may build cars in India with GM

BEIJING (Reuters) - PSA Peugeot Citroen said it may build cars in India with General Motors , its new global alliance partner, effectively scrapping a planned 650 million euro ($850 million) investment in its own factory. The companies will explore ways to use GM plants to support Peugeot's long-heralded return to the Indian market, said Gregoire Olivier, head of Asian operations for the Paris-based automaker. "We're not going to move forward by building our own factory as we'd planned to," Olivier said in an interview at the Beijing auto show. ...

Toshiba drops out of bidding for Elpida: sources

TOKYO (Reuters) - Toshiba Corp is no longer bidding for bankrupt Japanese chip maker Elpida Memory, sources close to the talks said, leaving a handful of foreign firms including SK Hynix and Micron Technology in the race to take over the company. Toshiba has decided not to join the second round of bidding set for Friday after talks stalled on a joint bid with potential partners, including South Korea's SK Hynix, the sources told Reuters on Tuesday. Toshiba's withdrawal was a relief to its investors, who questioned the merits of a bid for Elpida, the world's No. ...

Europe anxiety drives down futures, Wal-Mart slides

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock index futures slid on Monday on renewed anxiety over how Europe would tackle its sovereign debt crisis while Wal-Mart shares fell after a report about a stymied probe into bribery allegations. The Netherlands government failed to agree on budget cuts over the weekend, making elections in the core euro zone member almost unavoidable and cast doubt on the country's support for future euro zone measures. German manufacturing shrank at its fastest pace in nearly three years in April, denting hopes it can drive growth in the euro zone. ...

Ford earnings beats Wall Street estimates

DETROIT (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co reported a higher-than-expected quarterly profit on Friday as strong results in North America helped offset weak international results and higher taxes. Ford shares rose 2.4 percent to $12.16 in premarket trading after its profit from continuing operations beat expectations. Excluding one-time items, the company reported a profit of 39 cents per share compared to analyst expectations of 35 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. The No. 2 U.S. automaker reported first-quarter net income of $1.40 billion, or 35 cents per share, down from the $2. ...

Honda sees bumper year as it leaves disasters behind

TOKYO (Reuters) - Honda Motor Co forecast a near-tripling of operating profit in the year ahead on surging Asian sales and a recovery in the United States, marking an emphatic rebound from a 2011 hammered by the yen's record strength and natural disasters. Japan's No.3 automaker is expected to ride faster-than-expected growth in demand in the United States, its biggest and most profitable market, where sales of the remodeled CR-V crossover have jumped by more than a quarter so far this year. For the year to next March, Honda forecast an operating profit of 620 billion yen ($7. ...

Stocks up but eurozone crisis stalks bond auctions

European stocks rebounded Tuesday after sharp losses the day before on fears about Europe's debt crisis. But rising borrowing costs at bond auctions for Spain and Italy showed that debt fears still stalk the eurozone.

Thousands of tons spilled at oil field in Russia

Up to 2,000 tons of oil have spilled from a major field in northern Russia after workers struggled to contain the leak for two days, officials said.

Spain downgrade reinforces debt crisis fears

Spain's economic problems were put in sharp relief Friday as figures showed unemployment is near 25 percent, a day after a credit ratings agency downgraded the country's debt rating and warned it faces an uphill battle to get a grip on its finances.

Stocks open mixed after unemployment claims rise

U.S. stocks struggled for direction early Thursday. A batch of bright earnings reports sent some stocks higher, but the gains were checked by disappointing unemployment claims, a broad decline across European markets and losses at some well-known companies.

Apple results put Nasdaq on track for best gain of year

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on Wednesday and the Nasdaq was on track for its best percentage gain for 2012 a day after Apple's blowout results further lifted optimism about the strength of earnings. Pushing the S&P 500 to its session high in afternoon trade, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the Fed stands ready to act if further economic help is needed. Earlier, the Fed repeated its promise to leave interest rates on hold until at least late 2014. Shares of Apple , which has the world's biggest market capitalization, jumped 9 percent to $610. ...

AMR fires opening shot in court battle with workers

NEW YORK (Reuters) - American Airlines defended its plan to abandon its union contracts on Monday as its workers picketed outside a Manhattan court house, in the first day of a high-profile court battle over the bankrupt airline's labor deals. The company's parent, AMR Corp, told a judge at a hearing on its request to abrogate its union contracts, that it cannot survive without major concessions. Jack Gallagher, an attorney for AMR, said the company needs 20 percent across-the-board reductions in employee costs, half of which must come from employee benefits. ...

U.S. Court rules Merck's Zetia patent valid

(Reuters) - A U.S. court on Friday ruled that the patent on Merck & Co's cholesterol fighter Zetia and a related drug Vytorin was valid and issued an injunction blocking approval of a generic version by Mylan Inc until the patent expires. Mylan had admitted that its product would infringe the patent, which run until April of 2017, Merck said. Merck earlier on Friday said first-quarter sales of Zetia, known chemically as ezetimibe, rose 6 percent to $614 million, while Vytorin, which combines Zetia with Merck's older cholesterol drug Zocor, saw sales slip 8 percent to $444 million. ...

Insurer Aetna's 1Q profit falls 13 percent

Aetna Inc.'s first-quarter profit fell 13 percent as benefits and expenses rose and the health insurer faced a tough comparison to year-ago earnings that included a one-time gain.

Ford beats Street despite weakness in Europe

DETROIT (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co reported a fall in quarterly profit on weakness outside North America but still beat analyst expectations, leading to a slight uptick in its stock price on Friday. The No. 2 U.S. automaker reported first-quarter net income of $1.40 billion, or 35 cents per share, down from the $2.55 billion, or 61 cents a share, a year earlier. As China growth has slowed and European auto sales are at their lowest levels since the mid-1990s, the company has said it is relying on North America to boost earnings this year. ...

Apple's blowout quarter propels Nasdaq to big gain

The Nasdaq composite index shot 2 percent higher Wednesday, powered by a surge in Apple. The iPhone maker's stock climbed $50 after the company once again blew past Wall Street's profit forecasts.

Caterpillar 1Q profit jumps 29 pct, boosts outlook

Caterpillar's first-quarter profit jumped 29 percent and it boosted its outlook for the year as U.S. builders replaced old gear and global demand for mining equipment boomed.

Honda quarterly profit jumps on improved sales

Honda's January-March profit jumped 61 percent as the Japanese automaker sold more cars and motorcycles in a turnaround from a disaster-battered 2011. It forecast record global sales of 4.3 million vehicles for this fiscal year.

Insurer WellPoint's 1Q profit falls as expenses up

WellPoint Inc. said Wednesday that its first-quarter profit fell 7.6 percent as enrollment slipped and expenses rose, but the health insurer raised its earnings forecast for 2012.

MF Global judge OKs payout; Freeh says no bonuses

(Reuters) - A federal judge on Tuesday authorized the trustee liquidating MF Global Holdings Inc's brokerage unit to distribute as much as $685 million to customers whose accounts had been frozen when the futures brokerage went bankrupt. The payout authorized by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn in Manhattan is on top of the more than $4 billion that the trustee James Giddens has already distributed, according to the trustee's spokesman Kent Jarrell. It includes as much as $600 million to be paid to U.S. exchange customers, up to $50 million for customers who traded on non-U.S. ...

Starbucks to open on Disney properties

Starbucks is about to perk up "the happiest place on earth."

Safeway's 1Q profits jump amid cost controls

Grocery chain Safeway Inc. reported a sharp jump in net income for the first quarter, helped in part by strong cost controls.

Insurer Aetna's 1Q profit tumbles 13 percent

Shares of Aetna Inc. sank more than 8 percent Thursday after the health insurer reported a first quarter performance that missed Wall Street expectations, and it failed to raise its 2012 earnings forecast.

Few expect major shifts as Fed ends policy meeting

The Federal Reserve has given the public increasingly more information about its work and its thinking. More doesn't always mean more revealing.

Amgen 1Q profit up 5 pct, beats Wall Street views

Biotech giant Amgen Inc. said Tuesday that its first-quarter profit rose 5 percent on higher sales of its top two drugs and two new ones, and it easily beat Wall Street forecasts.

Amgen 1Q profit up 5 pct., beats Wall Street views

Biotech giant Amgen Inc. said Tuesday that its first-quarter profit rose 5 percent on higher sales of its top two drugs and two new ones, and it easily beat Wall Street forecasts.

UPS 1Q profit up, but international business slows

UPS said Thursday that its first-quarter profit rose 6 percent, but the result came in below Wall Street's expectations as Asian exports and other international shipments slowed.

Commercial aircraft sales boost Boeing 1Q earnings

Airlines around the world are updating their fleets with new, more fuel-efficient planes, and that's good news for aircraft maker Boeing Co.

Boeing 1Q earnings, revenue rise on aircraft sales

Airlines around the world are updating their fleets with new, more fuel-efficient planes, and that's good news for aircraft maker Boeing Co.

Higher prices boost Hershey 1Q results

The first quarter was a sweet one for The Hershey Co.

US new-home sales off 7 percent in March

Sales of new homes fell in March by the largest amount in more than a year, indicating that the U.S. housing market remains under strain despite some modest signs of improvement.