Financial News

Geoff Foster, Daily Mail16 March 2006 SIZE does not matter in this bid-frenzied market, where everything is up for grabs. Early gossip that Exxon Mobil, the world's largest listed oil firm which operates as Esso in the UK, is stalking BP was even taken seriously. OTHER STORIES Market report: Wednesday close Smaller companies report: Wed close Superfunds that boost your profit New on t ...

CHICAGO (Dow Jones) - In the latest of his quarterly missives to shareholders, Sears Holdings Corp. Chairman Edward Lampert lamented missing internal targets, criticized same-store sales measures and attacked government pension reform efforts. In a chatty manner resembling Warren Buffett's note to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, Lampert - who cobbled together the nation's third-largest retaile ...

NEW YORK (Dow Jones) -- Lehman Bros. said Wednesday that strong fixed-income trading and near-record global merger activity helped lift its first quarter earnings 24%. The strong report was the second in two days from a top Wall Street broker. Tuesday, Goldman Sachs (GS) reported that its net income for the quarter rose more than 60% and set a record for any broker's quarterly profit. Rival  ...

U.S. stocks rallied Wednesday, with the S&P 500 breaching the 1,300 mark for the first time since May 2001, after a Federal Reserve report showing the economy growing at a steady pace with few inflationary pressures. The report raised hopes the central bank could end its cycle of interest-rate increases. The Fed has been lifting short-term rates in a bid to slow the economy and curb inflati ...

U.S. stocks rose in early afternoon trading Wednesday as a raised earnings view from Dow component DuPont lifted the blue-chip index to a new multi-year high, with upbeat data and strong results from Lehman Bros. lending further support. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) was sitting close to its high for the session, up 22 points at 11,173 The S&P 500 Index (SPX) put in a fractional ...

U.S. stock futures are pointing to a broadly higher open Wednesday, buoyed by a raised earnings forecast from DuPont, solid results from Lehman Bros. and Sears, with data showing the economy in robust health lending further support. Dow futures were 6 points at 11,237, Nasdaq 100 futures climbed 4.5 points to 1,709, but S&P 500 futures were 0.20 point at 1,308.60. "The market is going to ...

LONDON -(Dow Jones)- Dubai's DP World (DPW.YY) said Wednesday it's selling the North American port operations of newly acquired Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. (PO.LN) in the wake of fierce opposition to the takeover by U.S. lawmakers. DP World said it plans to sell the U.S. ports business to an unnamed " unrelated U.S. buyer" and the transaction is likely to be completed within  ...

BP was in high demand on Wednesday as Cazenove, the broker, questioned the composition of the UK’s largest company. // “It’s time to question the wisdom of upstream/downstream integration,” the broker said as it debated whether the traditional reasons for being an integrated asset had lost much, if not all, of their historical validity. “Why is the oil industry one of the few remaining industrie ...

By Keiron Henderson LONDON (Reuters) - The FTSE 100 index scored a fresh near five-year closing high on Wednesday, boosted by mining stocks as the copper price jumped, while takeover talk elsewhere continued to bubble. Copper miners Kazakhmys (KAZ.L: Quote, Profile, Research) and Antofagasta (ANTO.L: Quote, Profile, Research) each climbed around 5 percent as the copper price jumped to 4-1/2 week highs on speculative buying and pushed by a weaker dollar. "A weaker dollar always helps the co ...

NEW YORK (Dow Jones) -- Lehman Bros. said Wednesday that strong fixed-income trading and near-record global merger activity helped lift its first quarter earnings 24%. The strong report was the second in two days from a top Wall Street broker. Tuesday, Goldman Sachs (GS) reported that its net income for the quarter rose more than 60% and set a record for any broker's quarterly profit. Rival  ...