News Archive - 6 October 2015

>As widely expected, the BOJ reiterated its pledge to increase base money, or cash and deposits at the central bank, at an annual pace of 80 trillion yen ($665 billion) through purchases of government bonds and risky assets."Japan's economy continues to recover moderately although exports and production have been...

>NEW YORK JPMorgan Chase & Co, looking to stem falling revenue in its mortgage business as fewer Americans refinance, is increasingly buying loans from smaller lenders, a practice that competitors including Bank of America view as risky. In the first half of 2015, the bank bought 62 percent of the...

>The Finnish firm said in April the 15.6 billion euro ($17 billion) acquisition of network gear maker Alcatel-Lucent as they aim to better compete with market leader Ericsson and low-cost Chinese powerhouse Huawei [HWT.UL].Alcatel had previously said it planned to sell a majority stake in Alcatel-Lucent Submarine...

>Compounding is a process in which pharma products are diluted to create doses that are not sold commercially.Increased regulatory oversight following a fungal meningitis outbreak at a compounding pharmacy in 2012 has escalated the costs for hospitals to produce compounded products internally, boosting demand for large-scale firms such as...

>WASHINGTON The U.S. Senate voted on Tuesday to limit debate on a $612 billion defense authorization bill, clearing the way for a vote on passage, although the measure's future is clouded by a dispute between Republicans and Democrats over government spending policy.The White House has said President Barack...

>SAN FRANCISCO California Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation on Tuesday aimed at closing the wage gap between men and women, a law that supporters say is among the strongest in the country.Brown signed the California Fair Pay Act in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Richmond at the...

>WASHINGTON U.S. President Barack Obama kicked off a sales pitch on Tuesday for a 12-nation Pacific Rim trade agreement, urging farmers to push their lawmakers to approve what he said would boost their sales in a fast-growing region.Although ultimate winners and losers from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are...

>Adobe Systems Inc lowered its profit forecast for 2016 below analyst estimates partly due to a strong dollar, sending its shares down as much as 13 percent in extended trading.The Photoshop maker said it expects full-year revenue of about $5.7 billion and an adjusted profit of $2.70...

>BRUSSELS The EU's highest court struck down a deal that allows thousands of companies to easily transfer personal data from Europe to the United States, in a landmark ruling on Tuesday that follows revelations of mass U.S. government snooping.Many companies, both U.S. and European, use the Safe...

>Samsung, in a regulatory filing, estimated its third-quarter profit at 7.3 trillion won ($6.29 billion), its first quarterly profit gain in two years and its biggest since the first quarter of 2014. This compared with a 6.7 trillion won profit tipped by a Thomson Reuters SmartEstimate poll...

>NEW YORK U.S. authorities charged a former president of the United Nations General Assembly, a billionaire Macau real estate developer and four others on Tuesday for engaging in a wide-ranging corruption scheme.John Ashe, a former U.N. ambassador from Antigua and Barbuda who was general assembly president from...

>WASHINGTON The U.S. military took responsibility on Tuesday for a deadly air strike on a hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz, calling it a mistake and vowing to hold people accountable.Saturday's strike on an Afghan hospital run by Doctors Without Borders, or Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), killed...

>TOKYO/SYDNEY The yen rebounded modestly against its peers on Wednesday after the Bank of Japan stood pat on monetary policy.The yen was pressured earlier amid some speculation that the BOJ would ease in the wake of weak economic data and flagging inflation, but the central bank kept monetary policy...

>SAN FRANCISCO The Federal Reserve should be communicating its views of the economy well enough that markets will not be taken by surprise by an eventual interest-rate hike, a top U.S. central banker said on Tuesday.While it is not a problem if traders are not fully pricing in...

>SYDNEY/WASHINGTON Early industry reaction to a long-sought trade agreement reached between 12 Pacific Rim countries on Monday amounted to faint praise that it could have been worse and umbrage that the United States appeared to be the biggest winner.The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) aims to liberalize commerce across nations accounting...

>MONTREAL/WASHINGTON/PARIS Airbus (AIR.PA) on Tuesday called off talks with Bombardier (BBDb.TO) over propping up the troubled CSeries jet, leaving the Canadian plane maker facing dwindling options to keep alive its dream of competing in the aerospace big league. The latest blow to Bombardier, which has been trying to...

>"If all goes according to plan, we can start the recall in January. All the cars should be fixed by the end of 2016," Mueller told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). The newspaper provided a copy of the interview prior to publication on Wednesday.Mueller told the FAZ that he...

>TOKYO Asian stocks held firm on Wednesday as a sharp rebound in oil prices supported battered resource shares and emerging economy currencies, while Japanese markets were tentative ahead of a crucial Bank of Japan policy meeting.MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS gained 0.2 percent, led...

>LONDON Brewer SABMiller has rejected an "informal" takeover offer from Anheuser-Busch InBev of about $100 billion as being too low, a media report said on Tuesday, pushing down its share price. The proposal made last week was worth slightly over 40 pounds per share, according to Bloomberg, which cited sources...

>SINGAPORE Founders of Asia's largest budget carrier, AirAsia, are sounding out investors to take the company private in a management-led buyout, after a critical research report knocked its shares to a seven-year low, people familiar with the matter said.AirAsia Bhd co-founder Tony Fernandes is talking to banks to secure...

>The U.S. senator from Florida, in excerpts released before his remarks on the economy to be delivered later on Tuesday, said Washington was over-regulating U.S. businesses and pledged to cut down on such rules that he said can cost billions in compliance."I will place a cap on...

>The United States is one of 12 Pacific Rim nations to reach a pact this week that would liberalize commerce, affecting the costs of products ranging from dairy to biotech drugs.But U.S. lawmakers, as well as those in the other countries, must approve the deal first. Obama will...

>WASHINGTON The U.S. Defense Department would protect spending on operations and readiness if Congress fails to pass a budget for fiscal 2016, so procurement programs would sustain most of the impact, the Pentagon's chief arms buyer said Tuesday.Defense Undersecretary Frank Kendall said a long-term continuing resolution would maintain...

>NEW YORK Apple Inc's antitrust compliance program has improved, but the company continues to impede a court-appointed monitor overseeing the program, acting as "its own worst enemy," the monitor told a federal judge in a report made public on Tuesday.Michael Bromwich, who was assigned to monitor Apple’s internal antitrust...

>Microsoft Corp unveiled on Tuesday its first laptop, a line of Lumia smartphones, a new Surface Pro tablet and an updated version of its wearable fitness tracker, Microsoft Band, all running on Windows 10, its latest operating system.Microsoft is counting on Windows 10, launched in July, to help it...

>SAN FRANCISCO Twitter Inc rolled out its much-anticipated "Project Lightning" on Tuesday, a feature that shows users the site's best tweets and content as curated by a Twitter team. The feature, introduced a day after Twitter announced interim Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey would stay on permanently, is one of...

>But Russia's defense ministry denied that its jets hit the city of Palmyra, saying they "do not strike populated areas and especially ones with architectural monuments."The reason for the apparently contradictory reports was not immediately clear. Local activists said that Russian war planes killed at least 12 people from...

>WASHINGTON The deadly air strike that hit a hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz was a mistake made within the U.S. chain of command, the American commander of international forces in Afghanistan said on Tuesday.The strike on Saturday on an Afghan hospital run by Doctors Without Borders,...

>BRUSSELS NATO on Tuesday rejected Moscow's explanation that its warplanes violated the air space of alliance member Turkey at the weekend by mistake and said Russia was sending more ground troops to Syria and building up its naval presence.With Russia extending its air strikes to include the ancient city...

>LIMA The International Monetary Fund cut its global growth forecasts for a second time this year on Tuesday, citing weak commodity prices and a slowdown in China and warned that policies aimed at increasing demand were needed.The Fund, whose annual meeting starts in Peru this week, forecast that the...

>WASHINGTON U.S. exports took a hit from an ailing global economy in August and imports from China surged, fueling the largest expansion of America's trade deficit in five months.The data released on Tuesday by the Commerce Department illustrates the U.S. economy's vulnerabilities to a strong dollar and...

>U.S. stocks fell in afternoon trading on Tuesday as a rout in healthcare stocks resumed and as an IMF report added to worries about global growth.A surge in DuPont's stock helped limit losses on the Dow and, to some extent, on the S&P, but the Nasdaq fell more...

>Sony said the move was part of the company's push to give autonomy to its business units to accelerate decision-making and make them more accountable for their profitability.So far, Sony has focused on splitting off underperforming units, but it said more autonomy for the sensors business would help it...

>Admiral Scott Swift, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, said in a strongly worded address in Australia the United States remained "as committed as ever" to protect freedom of navigation through the region."It's my sense that some nations view freedom of the seas as up for grabs, as...

>JAKARTA Southeast Asia has spent the best past of two decades shoring defenses against a repeat of the Asian financial crisis, including building up record foreign exchange reserves, yet is now feeling vulnerable to speculative attacks again.Officials are growing increasingly concerned as souring sentiment has made currencies slide and...

>The yuan has surpassed seven currencies in the past three years as a payment currency and is now only after the U.S. dollar, the euro and the sterling.Overall, global yuan payments increased in value by 9.13 percent in August, while payments across all currencies decreased by 8.

>The study, by two left-leaning non-profit groups, found that nearly three-quarters of the firms on the Fortune 500 list of biggest American companies by gross revenue operate tax haven subsidiaries in countries like Bermuda, Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.The Center for Tax Justice and the U.S. Public Interest...