Fri Dec 14, 2012 10:18am EST (Reuters) - Southwest Airlines, known for its popular "bags fly free" policy, said it will implement new travel fees next year as part of a plan to increase revenue by $1.1 billion. The company told investors on Friday that it will raise fees on third bags and overweight baggage, increase fees for flights on AirTran, the carrier it bo...

Fri Dec 14, 2012 10:04am EST (Reuters) - Best Buy Co Inc (BBY.N) agreed to extend the deadline to February 28 for founder Richard Schulze to make a bid for the company, continuing the uncertainty for shareholders over whether he can put a bid together. Best Buy shares fell 13.5 percent to $12.22 on the New York Stock Exchange.The company said on Friday the extens...

By Huw Jones LONDON | Fri Dec 14, 2012 10:02am EST LONDON (Reuters) - Swiss bank UBS (UBSN.VX) is expected to pay about $1 billion to settle charges of rigging the Libor interest rate benchmark, according to a person familiar with the situation, making it the second major bank to be officially ensnared by the global scandal. The announcement coul...

By Alister Bull and Ann Saphir WASHINGTON/CHICAGO | Fri Dec 14, 2012 9:51am EST WASHINGTON/CHICAGO (Reuters) - Two top Federal Reserve officials on Friday raised questions about the U.S. central bank's unprecedented decision to tie monetary policy to specific economic guideposts, and warned that its latest policy actions risk straying into fiscal...

By Himank Sharma Fri Dec 14, 2012 11:03am EST (Reuters) - Apple Inc shares fell 3.9 percent on Friday after the iPhone 5 debuted in China to a cool reception and two analysts cut shipment forecasts. Jefferies analyst Peter Misek trimmed his iPhone shipment estimates for the Jan-March quarter, saying that the technology company had started cutting orders t...

Costa Rican coffee exporters have decided to team up against what they consider organized crime, which causes losses over $3 million. For over a year, criminal gangs have been stealing coffee containers and many have even reached their destination country full of debris. To date more than 18 containers have been stolen. As part of the modus operandi, which is very diverse, containers were stole...

Thu Dec 13, 2012 10:41am EST (Reuters) - Best Buy Co Inc (BBY.N) founder Richard Schulze is expected to make a fully financed offer to buy the consumer electronics retailer by a mid-December deadline, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported, citing a source. Schulze's bid would be at least $5 billion to $6 billion, the newspaper reported late Wednesday, citing the ...

By John O'Donnell and Andreas Rinke BRUSSELS | Thu Dec 13, 2012 10:32am EST BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European governments reached a landmark deal on Thursday that gives the European Central Bank new powers to supervise banks, boosting confidence in the single currency bloc as it enters the fourth year of its debt crisis. EU finance ministers forged a...

By Jason Lange WASHINGTON | Thu Dec 13, 2012 10:28am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New jobless claims fell sharply last week to a near four-year low and retail sales rebounded in November, hopeful signs for an economy that appears to have slowed sharply in the fourth quarter. New claims fell for a fourth straight week, dropping 29,000 to a seasonall...

By Leah Schnurr NEW YORK | Thu Dec 13, 2012 10:23am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks opened little changed on Thursday after data showed first time claims for jobless benefits fell sharply last week, but investors were cautious about making aggressive bets in the midst of ongoing "fiscal cliff" negotiations. Shares of Best Buy Co (BBY.N) surged al...

By Ben Klayman DETROIT | Thu Dec 13, 2012 10:22am EST DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Co (GM.N) is counting on muscled up, more refined versions of its lucrative Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra full-size pickup trucks to show investors and car buyers the No. 1 U.S. automaker is back on the right track. The 2014 trucks are the most critical ...

By Ben Berkowitz and Tanya Agrawal Thu Dec 13, 2012 10:17am EST (Reuters) - MetLife Inc (MET.N) warned that 2013 earnings might be well below Wall Street expectations and said it did not expect to buy back any shares next year, a blow to investors who have been waiting more than a year for a capital return. The largest life insurer in the United States al...

WASHINGTON | Thu Dec 13, 2012 9:29am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top central banks around the world on Thursday renewed a series of currency swap lines set up during the 2007-2009 financial crisis as a precaution against future market strains. The Federal Reserve said it had extended for another year the dollar swaps with the European Central Bank, Bank o...

By Himank Sharma and Sinead Carew Thu Dec 13, 2012 9:28am EST (Reuters) - Sprint Nextel Corp (S.N), the majority owner of Clearwire Corp (CLWR.O), has offered $2.1 billion to buy the rest of the wireless service provider but it will likely have to offer more money in order to secure a deal. Clearwire, which said it is reviewing the offer, saw its share ju...

LONDON | Thu Dec 13, 2012 7:29am EST LONDON (Reuters) - Thomson Reuters (TRI.TO) said on Thursday it wanted to play a role administrating overhauled interbank lending rates after British regulators told the news and information company it was not part of a global probe into rate fixing. "The FSA (Financial Services Authority) and Bank of England have sai...

By Francesca Landini MILAN | Thu Dec 13, 2012 7:23am EST MILAN (Reuters) - The European Central Bank's potent bond-buying scheme allowed Italy and Spain to complete their challenging 2012 debt funding requirements through successful auctions on Thursday. The ECB's pledge in September to buy unlimited quantities of short-term government bonds of v...

It was good news for vehicle fleet owners and mixed news for motorcycle riders last week. Owners of fleets of vehicles, due to paying a stiff hike in the annual Marchamo circulation permits, will get a 10% reduction come January. Motorcycle owners will also get a healthy reduction in the 12,500 colon marchamos, down to 8,500. But they have to wait until 2014 to get it. It is unlikely that biker...

By Caroline Valetkevitch NEW YORK | Mon Dec 10, 2012 4:32pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks edged higher on Monday as technology shares bounced back after recent weakness and McDonald's posted strong monthly sales. Technology stocks were led by Hewlett-Packard Co (HPQ.N), which climbed 2.6 percent to $14.16 on rumors that activist investor Carl I...

Bebidas Florida manager Ramon Mendiola was presented with the "Entrepreneur of the Year 2012" award Wednesday night by the financial publication El Financiero, the local equivalent of The Wall Street Journal. The company began and continues to be Costa Rica's primary producer of beer (including best selling Imperial) and other beverages. The newspaper also chose Foreign Trade Minister Anabel Go...

The national electrical monopoly ICE has chosen 11 projects of clean private industry to buy 140 megawatts of generation power for this energy starved nation. Among them are five projects of wind energy totaling 100 megawatts nearly three times cheaper than ICE itself can generate it. The other six are hydroelectric to produce 40 megawatts. In the bidding, the cheapest source was a wind ener...

Mon Dec 10, 2012 9:00am EST (Reuters) - McDonald's Corp (MCD.N) reported on Monday a stronger-than-expected 2.4 percent rise in November sales at established restaurants, helped by demand for breakfast in the United States and lower-priced offerings in Europe. Analysts on average had expected a 0.17 percent rise in sales at restaurants open at least 13 months, ac...

Mon Dec 10, 2012 8:58am EST (Reuters) - Diversified manufacturer Ingersoll-Rand Plc (IR.N) said it will spin off its security division and buy back $2 billion of shares, yielding to pressure from activist investor Nelson Peltz. The company, known for its heating and cooling systems, also raised its quarterly dividend to 21 cents per share.Shares of the company, w...

By Rhys Jones LONDON | Mon Dec 10, 2012 8:57am EST LONDON (Reuters) - Richard Branson said he planned to keep control of Virgin Atlantic VA.UL and IAG (ICAG.L) boss Willie Walsh was misguided for saying the brand would be ditched by U.S. suitor Delta Air Lines (DAL.N). "Rumors have been spread in the press that I am planning to give up control of...

By Ben Berkowitz and Denny Thomas NEW YORK/HONG KONG | Mon Dec 10, 2012 8:39am EST NEW YORK/HONG KONG (Reuters) - American International Group Inc (AIG.N) is to sell nearly all of ILFC (ILFC.N), the world's second-largest airplane leasing business, to a Chinese consortium for up to $4.8 billion, giving the fastest growing aviation market easier a...

PARIS | Mon Dec 10, 2012 8:16am EST PARIS (Reuters) - Economic growth appears to be gathering traction in the United States and Britain, while China and Italy may be about to turn up, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said on Monday. Signals continue to point to weak growth in Germany, France and the euro zone as a whole, however...

By Leah Schnurr NEW YORK | Mon Dec 10, 2012 9:12am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were set to open little changed on Monday as investors awaited any sign of progress in talks to avert the United States' so-called fiscal cliff of tax hikes and spending cuts. Developments in Europe weighed after Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said he would res...

By Christiaan Hetzner FRANKFURT | Mon Dec 10, 2012 8:04am EST FRANKFURT (Reuters) - General Motors Co's (GM.N) Opel unit came a major step nearer to closing its Bochum plant in Germany, telling the roughly 3,000 workers it had not changed its mind about ending vehicle production in 2016. Opel said it had made rigorous efforts to rescue car manufa...

By George Georgiopoulos and Jan Strupczewski ATHENS/BRUSSELS | Mon Dec 10, 2012 7:59am EST ATHENS/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Greece extended its offer to buy back debt until Tuesday, seeking more bids from bondholders after falling short of a target to retire bonds worth 30 billion euros at a cost of just 10 billion euros. The buyback is designed to pr...

By Aileen Wang and Kevin Yao BEIJING | Mon Dec 10, 2012 6:53am EST BEIJING (Reuters) - China's exports growth slowed sharply to a much lower than expected 2.9 percent in November, a customs report said on Monday, underscoring the global headwinds dragging on an economy showing otherwise solid signs of a pick up in domestic activity. Data at the w...

By Fred Barbash WASHINGTON | Mon Dec 10, 2012 6:02am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama heads for familiar campaign ground Monday, an auto plant in Michigan, to press his case for tax hikes on the wealthy. Obama's trip, part of an aggressive White House public relations effort, comes a day after a Sunday meeting with the Republican...

NEW YORK | Sun Dec 9, 2012 6:38pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - China's largest maker of auto parts won an auction for A123 Systems Inc (AONEQ.PK), a bankrupt maker of batteries for electric cars that was funded partly with U.S. government money, A123 confirmed in a statement Sunday. Wanxiang Group Corp's bid of $256.6 million topped a joint bid from Johnson ...

NEW YORK | Sun Dec 9, 2012 5:35pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Corporate giants Apple (AAPL.O), JPMorgan Chase (JPM.N) and Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) all made it into Barron's top 10 stock picks for 2013, the financial weekly reported on Sunday. Barnes & Noble (BKS.N), BlackRock Inc (BLK.N), General Dynamics (GD.N), Marathon Petroleum (MPC.N), Novartis (...

By Angela Moon and Steven C. Johnson NEW YORK | Sun Dec 9, 2012 4:50pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Like many on Wall Street, investor Todd Petzel cringed when U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said this past Wednesday that he was ready to let the economy go over the "fiscal cliff" if Republicans would not agree to higher tax rates on the rich...

By Tim Kelly TOKYO | Sun Dec 9, 2012 3:54pm EST TOKYO (Reuters) - Panasonic Corp, Japan's struggling maker of Viera brand TVs, owns more than 10 million square meters of office and factory space, dormitories for its workers and sports facilities for its rugby, baseball and women's athletics teams. As it battles for Christmas shoppers' wallets in ...

By George Georgiopoulos ATHENS | Sun Dec 9, 2012 3:48pm EST ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece is set to purchase back about half of its debt owned by private investors, broadly succeeding in a bond buyback that is key to the country's international bailout, a Greek government official said on Saturday. Greek and foreign bondholders offered the targeted 3...

By Pedro Nicolaci da Costa WASHINGTON | Sun Dec 9, 2012 3:05pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The contrast could not be sharper: Economists are all but certain the U.S. Federal Reserve will expand its monetary stimulus this week, but they have no clue how the fiscal battle in Congress will shake out. U.S. central bankers look set to extend their mone...

LONDON | Sun Dec 9, 2012 2:53pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - British business minister Vince Cable said Britain could fall back into recession for a third time since the 2008 financial crisis but expected the economy to stagger on with minimal growth. In an interview published on Sunday, Cable, one of the most senior ministers in the coalition's junior Liberal...

By Caroline Valetkevitch NEW YORK | Sun Dec 9, 2012 12:10pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors typically sell stocks to cut their losses at year end. But worries about the "fiscal cliff" - and the possibility of higher taxes in 2013 - may act as the greatest incentive to sell both winners and losers by December 31. The $600 billion of automatic t...

By Alexandra Alper MEXICO CITY | Sun Dec 9, 2012 11:47am EST MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Juan Ramirez makes up to $42 a week selling candy, newspapers and other items from his street kiosk, but he's not interested in a new Mexican law that aims to bring millions of workers out of the country's informal economy. "I don't think it is going to benefit c...

WASHINGTON | Sun Dec 9, 2012 9:48am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States needs a balanced, comprehensive approach to tackle its fiscal woes that should include a mix of spending cuts and revenue increases, the head of the International Monetary Fund said on Sunday. "My view, personally, is that the best way to go forward is to have a balanced app...