By Jessica Wohl Mon Nov 19, 2012 1:24pm EST (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc on Monday became the biggest corporation yet to move its planned dividend into late December from early January to help shareholders avoid a looming jump in the tax rate on payouts due to the so-called fiscal cliff. The move by the world's largest retailer will give shareholders, ...

If you're contemplating building a new home next year, prepare yourself to pay higher taxes than before, reports the national newspaper La Nacion. But you'll have to pay higher construction costs on which the taxes are predicated, say officials. The paper reported that you'll pay 29.7% to 41% more in taxes next year than this year. In the case of a home with the outside wall of concrete bloc...

By Angela Moon NEW YORK | Mon Nov 19, 2012 7:50am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock index futures started off a holiday-shortened trading week in an upbeat mood on Monday, with investors encouraged by signs of progress in talks to resolve the fiscal crunch in the United States. Leading U.S. lawmakers expressed confidence on Sunday that they could re...

Mon Nov 19, 2012 7:49am EST (Reuters) - Lowe's Cos Inc's reported a higher-than-expected quarterly profit on Monday as preparation and rebuilding efforts tied to superstorm Sandy boosted business at the world's No. 2 home improvement chain, which raised its full-year sales forecast. Shares of Lowe's rose 3.5 percent to $33.10 in premarket trading.The company said...

By Kelvin Soh and Denny Thomas HONG KONG | Mon Nov 19, 2012 7:49am EST HONG KONG (Reuters) - HSBC (HSBA.L) is in talks to sell its $9.3 billion stake in China's Ping An Insurance (2318.HK), stepping up a program by Europe's biggest bank to shed non-core operations to boost profitability. A sale, widely expected as part of HSBC's three-year recove...

FRANKFURT | Mon Nov 19, 2012 7:08am EST FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) co-Chief Executive Juergen Fitschen said Europe's banking sector remains too dependent on extraordinary support measures taken by the European Central Bank. "Some banks are staying alive because the European Central Bank has made available cheap money. Without this it ...

By Gilbert Kreijger and Robert-Jan Bartunek AMSTERDAM/BRUSSELS | Mon Nov 19, 2012 6:30am EST AMSTERDAM/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Dutch banking and insurance group ING has won more time from regulators to shed assets and repay government aid, avoiding a fire sale but keeping it under state supervision for longer and delaying dividend payments. The Euro...

Mon Nov 19, 2012 3:05am EST (Reuters) - Citigroup Inc (C.N) has agreed to pay $360 million to the brokerage estate of Lehman Brothers to resolve a dispute over $1 billion in collateral that the investment bank was forced to post in the days leading up to its bankruptcy in 2008. According to a settlement reached on Friday with the trustee liquidating Lehman Brothe...

Mon Nov 19, 2012 1:55am EST (Reuters) - Citigroup Inc (C.N) is on track to cut 300 sales and trading jobs globally this year, as part of its plan to streamline its banking operations, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people briefed on the process. The sales and trading unit of the bank employs about 17,000 people, the Journal said. (link.reuters.com/kyz93...

DUBAI | Mon Nov 19, 2012 1:20am EST DUBAI (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Inc (GS.N) bought warrants worth 147 million dirhams ($40 million) in Dubai's Drake & Scull International DSI.DU, less than a week after helping arrange a loan facility for the contracting firm. Drake, which specializes in mechanical, engineering and plumbing operations, said the "st...

Mon Nov 19, 2012 1:08am EST (Reuters) - Online financial services company E*Trade Financial Corp (ETFC.O) will shut down its British brokerage business as the company shifts focus back to its core U.S. operations, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the decision. Customers of the British unit, E*Trade Securities Ltd, were recently notifi...

By Ronald Grover Mon Nov 19, 2012 12:15am EST (Reuters) - Rupert Murdoch's News Corp (NWSA.O) is expected to announce this week that it will acquire a 49 stake in the YES Network from the New York Yankees baseball team and its partners, in a deal that would value the sports channel at $3 billion, a person with knowledge of the talks told Reuters. The deal...

By Leah Schnurr NEW YORK | Fri Nov 16, 2012 6:50pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hope that politicians would find common ground to steer clear of the "fiscal cliff" boosted stocks on Friday, though the gains were not enough to offset the week's losses. Stocks recovered from early declines after leaders of the Senate and House emerged from a meeting at...

By Doug Palmer WASHINGTON | Fri Nov 16, 2012 6:25pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Commerce Department on Friday said it had reached a draft agreement with the Russian government to revise a 13-year-old deal governing imports of hot-rolled steel. The pact raises the minimum price at which Russian hot-rolled steel can be sold in the United St...

By Rodrigo Campos and Jonathan Spicer NEW YORK | Fri Nov 16, 2012 6:23pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - The 1987 crash. The Y2K bug. The debt ceiling debacle of 2011. All these events, in the end, turned out to be buying opportunities for stocks. So will the "fiscal cliff," some investors say as they watch favorite stocks tumble during the political gi...

By Jessica Wohl Fri Nov 16, 2012 6:14pm EST (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc is taking its first legal step to stop months of protests and rallies outside Walmart stores, targeting the union that it says is behind such actions. Wal-Mart filed an unfair labor practice charge against the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, or UFCW, asking...

By David Ingram WASHINGTON | Fri Nov 16, 2012 5:41pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department and the state of California sued online retailer eBay Inc on Friday over what they called an illegal agreement with Intuit Inc not to recruit Intuit's employees. The agreement eliminated competition for workers, depriving them of access to ...

Fri Nov 16, 2012 5:27pm EST (Reuters) - The pilot union at AMR Corp (AAMRQ.PK), parent of American Airlines, said it will vote on a tentative contract with the bankrupt airline by early December. The board of Allied Pilots Association on Friday approved the agreement-in-principle reached last week as a tentative agreement, which will now be subject to votes by it...

Fri Nov 16, 2012 2:54pm EST (Reuters) - The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has asked Visa Inc to provide information on a debit card service that may have violated regulations related to the Dodd-Frank Act, the company said. The FTC's Bureau of Competition requested the company to provide information regarding violations of the Durbin amendment, Visa said in its ...

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK | Fri Nov 16, 2012 1:59pm EST WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) and Credit Suisse Group (CSGN.VX) will pay a combined $416.9 million to settle U.S. civil charges that they fraudulently misled investors in residential mortgage-backed securities offerings. The U....

By Angela Moon NEW YORK | Fri Nov 16, 2012 12:46pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose on Friday after Republicans said their meeting with Democratic President Barack Obama about the "fiscal cliff" was constructive and that they were prepared to put higher revenue on the table if there were also significant spending cuts. All three major U.S. st...

By Lucia Mutikani WASHINGTON | Fri Nov 16, 2012 10:38am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Industrial output unexpectedly fell in October as superstorm Sandy disrupted production, but the underlying tone remained consistent with slowing manufacturing activity. Industrial production contracted 0.4 percent last month after a 0.2 percent increase in Septemb...

NEW YORK | Fri Nov 16, 2012 9:43am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks opened flat on Friday after disappointing economic data offset optimism following a Wall Street Journal report that White House officials were discussing taking a more flexible approach in negotiations over the "fiscal cliff." The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI gained 0.23 point to 12,...

By Michael Erman and Ben Hirschler NEW YORK/LONDON | Fri Nov 16, 2012 9:07am EST NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc (RB.L) has trumped Bayer AG's (BAYGn.DE) agreed deal to buy Schiff Nutrition International Inc (SHF.N) with a higher offer of $1.4 billion for the U.S. vitamin maker. The bid, which tops Bayer's $1.2 billion pri...

By Carey Gillam Fri Nov 16, 2012 8:55am EST (Reuters) - Hostess Brands Inc, the bankrupt maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, said it had sought court permission to go out of business after failing to get wage and benefit cuts from thousands of its striking bakery workers. Hostess, which has about $2.5 billion in sales from a long list of iconic consumer b...

By Richard Hubbard LONDON | Fri Nov 16, 2012 8:31am EST LONDON (Reuters) - World shares were headed for a second consecutive weekly loss on Friday as uncertainty over U.S. budget talks, a weak economic outlook and violence in the Middle East weighed on investors. Further falls were likely when Wall Street opens, according to stock index futures ....

By Nathan Layne and Kevin Krolicki TOKYO | Fri Nov 16, 2012 7:59am EST TOKYO (Reuters) - U.S. gaming regulators are investigating millions of dollars paid by affiliates of Japanese billionaire Kazuo Okada's Universal Entertainment Corp to a former consultant for the Philippine gaming authority around the time the company was lobbying to win conce...

By Sarah White LONDON | Fri Nov 16, 2012 7:42am EST LONDON (Reuters) - Major banks have announced some 160,000 job cuts since early last year and with more layoffs to come as the industry restructures, many will leave the shrinking sector for good as redundancies outpace new hires by roughly two-to-one. A Reuters analysis of job cuts announced by...

ATHENS | Fri Nov 16, 2012 4:34am EST ATHENS (Reuters) - A Greek journalist who published the names of more than 2,000 Greeks with Swiss bank accounts will stand trial again after a prosecutor appealed a decision to acquit him of breaking data privacy laws, court officials said on Friday. The speedy arrest, trial and acquittal of magazine editor Costas Va...

By Satarupa Bhattacharjya NEW DELHI | Fri Nov 16, 2012 4:30am EST NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian authorities are investigating claims that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT.N) violated foreign exchange rules when it invested $100 million in a domestic unit owned by its wholesale joint-venture partner, a law enforcement official said. An Indian lawmaker fir...

By Kathy Finn and David Ingram NEW ORLEANS/WASHINGTON | Fri Nov 16, 2012 4:09am EST NEW ORLEANS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - BP Plc will pay $4.5 billion in penalties and plead guilty to criminal misconduct in the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which caused the worst U.S. offshore oil spill ever. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called the deal a "critic...

AMSTERDAM | Fri Nov 16, 2012 3:00am EST AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch delivery group TNT Express (TNTE.AS), which has agreed to be bought by U.S. rival United Parcel Service (UPS) (UPS.N), has conditionally sold its airlines operations to ASL Aviation Group. The flight operations' sale depends on the completion of the merger of UPS and TNT Express, the Dut...

By Leah Schnurr NEW YORK | Thu Nov 15, 2012 7:02pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed on Thursday as the prospect of a drawn-out battle over impending tax and spending changes made investors wary of getting into the water, while retailer Wal-Mart tumbled after disappointing sales. The S&P 500 is down nearly 2 percent for the ...

By Chris Baltimore and David Ingram HOUSTON/WASHINGTON | Thu Nov 15, 2012 2:45pm EST HOUSTON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - BP Plc will pay $4.5 billion in penalties and plead guilty to felony misconduct in the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which killed 11 workers and caused the worst U.S. offshore oil spill ever. The settlement includes a $1.256 billion c...

By Brad Dorfman Thu Nov 15, 2012 2:42pm EST (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N) posted disappointing quarterly sales on Thursday as shoppers in key markets like the United States battled high gasoline prices and unemployment, while store traffic continued to decline in China. Lower prices for some food and electronics reduced Walmart's U.S. sales, and...

By Emily Stephenson WASHINGTON | Thu Nov 15, 2012 2:36pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Postal Service posted a record net loss of $15.9 billion in fiscal 2012, much of it due to massive payments the mail agency could not make but still must account for in financial statements. That is more than triple its $5.1 billion loss last year.The USPS, wh...

By Angela Moon NEW YORK | Thu Nov 15, 2012 2:21pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 was on track to fall for a third day on Thursday as Wal-Mart Stores Inc reported disappointing results and investors feared the "fiscal cliff" will harm the economy. Stocks have struggled recently to hold onto even slight gains, dropping more than 1 percent...

By Deepa Seetharaman DETROIT | Thu Nov 15, 2012 2:14pm EST DETROIT (Reuters) - Chrysler Group LLC will invest $238 million in two plants in Michigan to boost engine production to meet U.S. demand for smaller, more fuel-efficient engines, the U.S. automaker majority owned by Fiat SpA said on Thursday. Chrysler is spending $198 million to make by e...

By Jason Lange WASHINGTON | Thu Nov 15, 2012 1:21pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Superstorm Sandy drove a surge in new claims for jobless benefits last week and hurt factory activity in the mid-Atlantic region in November, signs it could deal a substantial blow to economic growth in the fourth quarter. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits...

FRANKFURT | Thu Nov 15, 2012 1:00pm EST FRANKFURT (Reuters) - General Motors (GM.N) will not sell its loss-making European unit Opel or "simply close up shop and leave" it, the U.S. carmaker's Chief Executive told more than 5,000 staff in Germany. Former private equity manager Dan Akerson has come under pressure from investors to divest or unwind Opel, w...