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Foreigners have boosted their share of Japan’s stock market to a record high for the third straight year, in a trend that further increases their power within the country’s boardrooms. // Overseas investors have been increasingly attracted to Japan by steady corporate profit growth and strong economic fundamentals. In many cases they have used their large stakes in companies to lobby for a more ...

CHICAGO (Dow Jones) -- The recent housing boom is the biggest the United States has ever seen, but its underlying reasons may have been psychological, economist Robert J. Shiller said on Friday. New data also suggest the market might be at the end of a cycle, he added. The only time since 1890 that compares to the recent residential real estate market is just after World War II, the Yale Univer ...

By Peggy Hollinger in Paris and James Boxell in LondonPublished: June 16 2006 19:48 | Last updated: June 16 2006 19:48Noel Forgeard, the controversial French co-chief executive of EADS, has been silenced by two of his biggest shareholders as mounting tensions inside the Franco- German aerospace company threaten to destabilise further its troubled Airbus subsidiary. Arnaud Lagardère and Manfred Bi ...

NEW YORK (Dow Jones) -- VeraSun Energy Corp. slid for a second straight day Friday, as shares of the ethanol firm shed another 8% on losses among its peers. VeraSun (VSE) kicked off with a 30% gain Wednesday, when the IPO closed at $30 a share, up $7 from its $23 opening. Earlier, the IPO had priced above its $20 to $22 range as investors piled on. Now, some investors are running for the  ...

U.S. stocks traded slightly lower Friday, as investors chose to take a breather after a two-day rally, but Oracle Corp. gained after the software giant posted strong quarterly results. On the week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is on course to post solid gains after logging its worst 5-day performance in more than a year in the prior week. The Dow industrials (DJI) were down 12 points at  ...

By Matt Falloon LONDON (Reuters) - Stocks gave up early gains to end lower on Friday, notching up a third straight week of losses as miners such as Antofagasta (ANTO.L: Quote, Profile, Research) fell after China moved to curb rapid credit growth, raising fears of lower demand for commodities. Steelmaker Corus (CS.L: Quote, Profile, Research) and precious metal refiner Johnson Matthey (JMAT.L: Quote, Profile, Research) joined the decline triggered by China's decision to raise banks' reserve  ...

Government bonds paused for breath on Friday following a turbulent week’s trading that saw fear of inflation and desire for safe haven assets pull the market in opposite directions. // Sharp sell-offs in the global equity markets gave support to government paper in the early part of the week. But inflation data spooked investors, who started pricing in more interest rate rises in the US beyond t ...

Wall Street looked set to end the week moderately lower, but the slight losses masked far larger sell-offs on Monday and Tuesday that pulled the S&P 500 down 2.6 per cent over the two days and knocked 3.3 per cent off the Nasdaq. // Investors were wary of financial stocks and healthcare, but warmed to some consumer stocks and large-cap industrial plays such as Caterpillar and Boeing. Investm ...

German chancellor Angela Merkel’s controversial law to raise value added tax cleared its last parliamentary hurdle on Friday, despite complaints by economists that the move was damaging and unnecessary. // The law – Ms Merkel’s most divisive decision since taking power seven months ago – envisages a rise in the VAT rate from 16 to 19 per cent from January 1 2007. The government’s independent economic advisers and leading business associations fear the move will choke Germany’s fragile economic  ...

Thousands of investors have recently been pouring money into absolute return funds, lured by the promise of attractive profits even in falling markets. But the last month, which has seen the sharpest fall in the FTSE for three years, has proved the biggest test yet for these relatively new types of investments. // Absolute or target return funds began to spring up following new “Ucits III” Europe ...