GOLDMAN SACHS

Stock index futures pointed to a mixed open on Wall Street on Friday, with futures for the S&P 500 down 0.05 percent, Dow Jones futures down 0.1 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.16 percent at 1039 GMT.

Shares in Research In Motion climbed nearly 4 percent on Thursday on market speculation the BlackBerry maker had hired investment bank Goldman Sachs to explore strategic options.

A group of chief executives at more than 200 large U.S. companies urged a federal appeals court to undo a judge's controversial decision making it harder for companies to settle Securities and Exchange Commission fraud cases.

The S&P 500 closed at a five-month high for the third day on Thursday but had difficulty extending gains in the face of lackluster economic data and another European bond market test.

Former customers of MF Global Holdings Ltd's collapsed brokerage were disappointed to hear on Thursday that the trustee hunting for funds missing from their accounts has no immediate plans to transfer more money to them.

A recent rise in loans to businesses is spurring hope that bank earnings reports, which begin Friday, will show that the outlook for this economically critical industry is better than its battered stock prices and weak investment banking volumes would suggest.

Stocks of major U.S. homebuilders rose on Wednesday after Lennar Corp. reported a 20 percent increase in home orders in the fourth quarter.

MetLife Inc. (MET), the largest U.S. life insurer, said Tuesday that it's shutting down the business of originating residential mortgages, three months after the company said it would seek a buyer for the unit. Goldman Sachs upgraded MetLife to "buy" as the company scales back to meet targets for shareholder returns.

Lululemon Athletica expects profit and sales in the current quarter to top earlier forecasts after holiday shoppers flocked to its shops to snap up the trendy yoga wear that have made the company a runaway retail success story.

A deteriorating European with slower growth and the longer we go without economy and weak global growth will keep the Bank of Canada from raising rates for at least another year, though an interest rate cut looks highly unlikely, according to a Reuters survey.

Bank of America Merril Lynch's (NYSE:BAC) move to fire one-fifth of the managing directors in its Asia operations, while significant, is only the latest sign foreign banks are jumping ship on investment banking opportunities within that market.

China's growing demand for energy means oil should fundamentally have the most upside when compared to other publicly traded commodities, a Goldman Sachs analyst told a financial strategy conference in London Monday.

Oil, gold and base metals are Goldman Sachs' top commodity picks this year, with big upside risk in oil due to tight fundamentals and a potential Iranian conflict, the investment bank said on Monday.

The top pre-market NASDAQ stock market gainers are: Idenix Pharmaceuticals, Achillion Pharmaceuticals, VIVUS, MAKO Surgical, Questcor Pharmaceuticals, Research In Motion and Apple. The top pre-market NASDAQ stock market losers are: IPC The Hospitalist Company, Pacira Pharmaceuticals, Akamai Technologies, Logitech International and Costco Wholesale.

A few months before MF Global collapsed in bankruptcy, some top executives at the futures firm were talking about a plan code-named "Project Honeydew" as a way of freeing-up badly needed capital and cash.

A New York federal judge on Thursday damped hopes that he would throw out government wire tap evidence in the insider trading trial of Rajat Gupta, a former board member of Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble .

New claims for unemployment benefits fell by 15,000 last week in the latest sign the labor market was improving and could help the country resist the effects of a likely Eurozone recession.

Now that Scott Thomson, 53, has been elected as Yahoo’s new CEO as well as a director, here are a couple of items the technology savvy accountant needs to take care of fast:

Samsung Electronics, the world's top maker of memory chips and smartphones, is set to report a robust quarterly profit rise on Friday, starting 2012 on an upbeat note aided by record-smashing sales of smartphones.

There are only hours left for Iowans to choose their Republican presidential nominee. The top two candidates seem set for a dead heat finish, while a third is trying to make the best use of a last minute and surprising surge forward in polls.

Crude prices started their jolly ride to the top in February last year when simmering discontent in the Middle East erupted into several violent anti-government protests.