Tue Nov 6, 2012 1:58pm EST (Reuters) - Dish Network Corp (DISH.O), the second-largest U.S. satellite TV company after DirecTV (DTV.O), reported a third-quarter loss due to high litigation costs, but at least one analyst said the results highlighted weaknesses in the company's core business. Revenue fell about 2 percent to $3.52 billion. The company also said it l...

By Rodrigo Campos NEW YORK | Tue Nov 6, 2012 1:46pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Traders and investors seem to agree on one thing about Tuesday's U.S. presidential election: The markets want a clear winner by Wednesday morning. The most recent Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll shows a tight national race, with Democratic President Barack Obama up two point...

By Jessica Toonkel NEW YORK | Tue Nov 6, 2012 2:04pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - American Century Investments has hired Patrick Bannigan, an Ameriprise Financial (AMP.N) executive, as its new chief operating officer. Bannigan was formerly president of RiverSource Funds, part of Ameriprise's Columbia Management division. He is replacing Barry Fink, w...

By Caroline Valetkevitch NEW YORK | Tue Nov 6, 2012 1:21pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks climbed on Tuesday on speculation the presidential election will produce a clear winner, removing a major source of uncertainty that has dogged investors. Investors awaited results of a close race that will set the country's course for the next four years o...

By Nick Zieminski Tue Nov 6, 2012 1:00pm EST (Reuters) - Superstorm Sandy will slash earnings at New Jersey casinos and benefit home repair and discount retailers but have limited impact on other sectors and is unlikely to trigger credit downgrades, credit agency Moody's Investors Service said. While potential credit downgrades exist, no rating actions we...

NEW YORK | Tue Nov 6, 2012 11:53am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - The number of job openings slipped slightly in September, suggesting the labor market is still recovering at a slow pace, data showed on Tuesday. Job openings - a measure of labor demand - fell to 3.56 million from 3.66 million in August, the Labor Department said in its monthly Job Openings and...

By Svea Herbst-Bayliss, Katya Wachtel and Lauren Tara LaCapra BOSTON/NEW YORK | Tue Nov 6, 2012 11:34am EST BOSTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - There is one group of voters Mitt Romney should win in a landslide in Tuesday's U.S. presidential election: hedge fund managers. Most of the best-known hedge fund managers threw their support and, more importantl...

By Jennifer Saba Tue Nov 6, 2012 10:35am EST (Reuters) - AOL Inc (AOL.N) reported higher-than-expected revenue and profit on the strongest advertising growth the company has seen in seven years. AOL said on Tuesday that third-quarter revenue was flat at $531.7 million, ahead of analysts' average estimate of $521.6 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B...

By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS | Tue Nov 6, 2012 10:32am EST BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union regulators are to accept an offer by Apple and four publishers to end an antitrust probe into their e-book prices, two sources said, handing Amazon victory in a bid to sell online books cheaper than its rivals, sources said. The case underscores the battle ...

By Hyunjoo Jin SEOUL | Tue Nov 6, 2012 10:04am EST SEOUL (Reuters) - General Motors Co (GM.N) said it would not build its next-generation Chevrolet Cruze small car in South Korea, raising the possibility that it might shift the assembly to Europe to help boost efficiency at its money-losing unit there. A GM Korea spokesman confirmed statements on...

In the past The Costa Rica Star has published extensively on video game culture in Costa Rica. Although you may be crazy about video games, are you crazy enough to think like an ant? That is the theme of a new video challenge from the Costa Rica-based Sabor Studios, the same crazies who brought you Pota-Toss that puts a preminum on throwing potatoes for survival. The new game, sold in App...

Around 3,000 striking workers from Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) achieved the goal of their protest, to lift the purchasing restrains that Superintendencia de Telecomunicación (Sutel) imposed. To go ahead with the acquisition of Cable Vision company, Sutel had asked ICE to return several radio-electronic frequencies but today it recanted. Jorge Arguedes, president of Asociaci...

By Atossa Araxia Abrahamian NEW YORK | Mon Nov 5, 2012 8:10pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks advanced modestly on Monday in light trading in one of the year's quietest sessions on the day before the presidential election. Whatever the outcome of the race between incumbent President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney, the electio...

When Griffin Thall and Paul Goodman travelled to Costa Rica in 2009 after graduating from San Diego State University, they were just looking for a fun trip to celebrate their accomplishments and unwind before starting the job hunt. They never imagined that a finding in a small beach community would be the catalyst for their own successful business, one which not only generates profits, but als...

NEW YORK | Mon Nov 5, 2012 2:08pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - The pace of growth in the U.S. services sector slowed modestly in October, though a measure of employment improved to its highest in seven months, underscoring expectations the economic recovery will remain modest. The Institute for Supply Management said its services index eased to 54.2 last mon...

By Chuck Mikolajczak NEW YORK | Mon Nov 5, 2012 1:14pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were flat to slightly lower in thin trading on Monday a day before the presidential election as traders were reluctant to place bets until the winner of the very close race is known. Shares of Apple rose, helping the Nasdaq composite index, after it announced b...

NEW YORK | Mon Nov 5, 2012 11:17am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - The pace of growth in the U.S. services sector slowed modestly in October, though a measure of employment improved to its highest in seven months, underscoring expectations the economic recovery will remain modest. The Institute for Supply Management said its services index eased to 54.2 last mo...

The loan from the Inter-American Development Bank is aimed at developing the country's power sector. As reported by the institution, $152 million will finance investments in generation, transmission and distribution of electricity, and about $98 million will go to the Reventazón hydroelectric project. "What is more, investment will be made in renewable energy projects and modernization of th...

For ten years now, the Voice of Nosara (VON) has been serving Nosara and the surrounding communities with the goal of connecting and uniting people—not just people in different towns but people of different backgrounds, nationalities and languages. At first, the newspaper was more of a newsletter, printed on letter-size paper and stapled together. But even that simple newsletter served an imp...

NEW YORK | Mon Nov 5, 2012 7:46am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock index futures were little changed on Monday as traders awaited the election for president and members of Congress on Tuesday to place bets on sectors seen performing better under one or the other political party. Volume was relatively low as President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney...

By Steve Slater and Matt Scuffham LONDON | Mon Nov 5, 2012 7:12am EST LONDON (Reuters) - A U.S. fine for anti-money laundering rule breaches could cost HSBC significantly more than $1.5 billion and is likely to lead to criminal charges, Europe's biggest bank said on Monday. HSBC said the U.S. investigation had damaged the bank's reputation and fo...

Mon Nov 5, 2012 6:53am EST (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) has cut the number of employees it lists as partners to help streamline expenses. Goldman has reduced the number of partners to 407, down 31 from February, the bank said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, without identifying the partners that had been dropped.Becoming...

By Rodrigo Campos NEW YORK | Sun Nov 4, 2012 10:27am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Regardless of the results of Tuesday's U.S. presidential election, the next four years will be a tough act to follow from Wall Street's standpoint. The benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 Index .SPX.INX has rallied 66 percent since President Barack Obama took office - o...

By Jason Lange WASHINGTON | Fri Nov 2, 2012 8:22pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Employers stepped up hiring in October and a small increase in the jobless rate was due to more workers restarting their job hunts, a hopeful sign for a lackluster economy that has been a drag on President Barack Obama's re-election bid. Employers added 171,000 people t...

Fri Nov 2, 2012 7:42pm EDT (Reuters) - Best Buy Co Inc (BBY.N) on Friday rescheduled its analyst day for November 13 in New York, after postponing it because of Hurricane Sandy. The meeting, seen as Chief Executive Hubert Joly's opportunity to tell investors how he plans to turn the company around, had originally been scheduled for Thursday, November 1.Last week,...

By Chris Reese NEW YORK | Fri Nov 2, 2012 7:08pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stronger-than-expected hiring by U.S. employers in October and a small increase in the jobless rate will have a neutral or insignificant impact on U.S. presidential elections next week, according to most economists surveyed in a Reuters poll on Friday. Twenty-four economist...

WASHINGTON | Fri Nov 2, 2012 7:03pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Boeing Co (BA.N) has secured a contract valued at $4 billion to modernize the Royal Saudi Arabian Air Force's fighter jet fleet, the Pentagon said on Friday. The procurement order covers conversion of 68 existing F15S jets to the new F15S-A configuration.The Pentagon said the work, expected t...

Fri Nov 2, 2012 6:25pm EDT (Reuters) - Kraft Foods Group Inc (KRFT.O), which sells Planters peanuts, Oscar Mayer lunch meat and Velveeta cheese, said it approved a $650 million restructuring plan related to its spin-off from Kraft Foods Inc in October. The company said the restructuring cost involves severance related to the spin-off, asset disposals and other on...

By Deborah Zabarenko WASHINGTON | Fri Nov 2, 2012 6:19pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Around the time of the 2008 global financial meltdown, consumer products giant Unilever decided to make a dramatic shift in strategy, away from meeting investors' quarterly expectations to a long-range plan that treads lightly on the environment and supports socia...

Fri Nov 2, 2012 6:07pm EDT (Reuters) - Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N), the conglomerate run by billionaire Warren Buffett, on Friday said its third-quarter profit rose as strength in the railroad and utility businesses, as well as investment gains, offset weaker results in the insurance units. Berkshire earned $3.92 billion, or $2,373 per Class A share, compared...

Fri Nov 2, 2012 6:06pm EDT (Reuters) - MetLife Inc (MET.N), the largest U.S. life insurer, said it will sell MetLife Bank's mortgage servicing portfolio to a unit of JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) for an undisclosed amount, as it looks to exit its bank holding structure. The $70 billion servicing portfolio will increase JPMorganChase Bank's $1.1 trillion servici...

By Chuck Mikolajczak NEW YORK | Fri Nov 2, 2012 4:33pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks ended an unusual storm-shortened trading week with a selloff on Friday, as major indexes erased early gains sparked by a stronger-than-expected payrolls report. Energy stocks were a drag on the market after Chevron Corp, the second-largest U.S. oil company, pos...

The mega concert by singer Lady Gaga in Costa Rica has provoked discussion on the profitability of such ventures. The many different forms of business models that exist for performances of this type by internationally renowned artists in markets such as Costa Rica, demonstrate that the cost benefit analysis of this activity is not easy. The risks become clear when you add up the number of ca...

Costa Rica's Call Center (CCC) is a state of the art telemarketing outsourcing call center located in the capital city of San Jose, Costa Rica in Central America. Our bilingual call centers primary objective is to personally fulfill your need of key BPO call center telemarketing services. The main focus of every BPO outsourcing campaign will always be to personally educated and enhance the skills ...

By Padraic Halpin DUBLIN | Thu Nov 1, 2012 2:24pm EDT DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland's economy won't grow as fast next year as previously anticipated, although it will beat the 1.4 percent growth posted in 2011, finance minister Michael Noonan said on Thursday. Noonan's guarded optimism appeared to be...

Thu Nov 1, 2012 2:03pm EDT (Reuters) - United Airlines is mulling upgrading some of its Airbus (EAD.PA) A350 orders to the largest member of the European aircraft family in a possible setback for Boeing Co's (BA.N) 777 mini-jumbo, industry sources said. The deal would be seen as a breakthrough for the A350-1000, which suffered a four-year gap in orders until Cath...

By Rodrigo Campos NEW YORK | Thu Nov 1, 2012 1:35pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks shot higher on Thursday, boosted by bullish job market and consumer confidence data as trading continued to return to normal following storm Sandy's devastating sweep through the U.S. North East. Technology and industrial sector shares led gains as data showed U.S...

By Jason Lange WASHINGTON | Thu Nov 1, 2012 12:30pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Companies added jobs in October at the fastest pace in eight months, a sign of modest healing in the labor market just days before a presidential election that could hinge on the economy. Other data on Thursday showed a sharp improvement in consumer confidence and a dr...

By Ben Klayman and Bernie Woodall DETROIT | Thu Nov 1, 2012 12:27pm EDT DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Co and Chrysler Group LLC both reported their strongest U.S. sales for the month of October since the financial crisis sent both U.S. automakers into bankruptcy, but the destruction of storm Sandy will cause the sector to miss overall sales ...

By Anna Driver Thu Nov 1, 2012 12:25pm EDT (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, reported a quarterly profit on Thursday that topped expectations, as higher margins from its refining arm countered a 7.5 percent decline in oil and gas output. Exxon and other global oil producers are buying oil and gas assets in Nort...