UNITED STATES

U.S. stocks fell on Thursday, following the best three-day run in 10 months as lackluster jobless data underscored difficulties facing the labor market and offset optimism after a multibillion-dollar tech deal.

Ford Motor Co expects earnings improvement in 2011 after solid profits in 2010 as its turnaround gains traction, executives said at its annual meeting of shareholders on Thursday.

Bank of America Corp said on Thursday that it had modified roughly 56,000 customer mortgages so far this year under the primary U.S. government program aimed at preventing bank foreclosures.

U.S. stocks were little changed on Thursday as gains in technology shares tempered lackluster jobless data that underscored the difficulties facing the labor market.

The number of U.S. workers filing new applications for unemployment insurance fell slightly less than expected last week, government data showed on Thursday, while the number of people still drawing benefits unexpectedly rose.

The number of U.S. workers filing for jobless benefits fell only slightly last week, highlighting the challenges facing the labor market, while import prices pointed to tame inflation, according to government data released on Thursday.

Although price pressures are currently muted, the United States will get an uptick of inflation over the medium term, the world's biggest bond fund management company said on Thursday.

(Reuters) - The Obama administration has urged a court to reject an attempt to block a controversial new law overhauling the U.S. healthcare system, saying it was constitutional and any challenge was premature.

SAP's planned buy of Sybase for $5.8 billion to stay in the mobile data race with arch rival Oracle is raising concerns the German software company may be paying too much.

U.S. authorities are expanding their probes of past mortgage securities deals, with New York's attorney general opening an investigation into whether eight banks misled rating agencies, a source familiar with the matter said.

Former Lehman Brothers Asia executives, who headed the bank's structured products division and its syndicate business, have launched their maiden hedge fund investing in distressed structured credit assets, said the partners in the fund firm, Oracle Capital.

UK regulators have agreed in principle to Prudential Plc's $35.5 billion purchase of AIG's Asian life insurance unit, sources familiar with the situation said, and the British insurer hopes to price its bumper rights issue within days.

S&P 500 index futures edged higher on Thursday, reversing an earlier decline, as investors were cheered by a big technology-sector acquisition and Portugal moved to stem its sovereign debt problems.

Ford Motor and its China venture partners, Mazda Motor Corp and Chongqing Changan Automobile Co, are seeking Chinese government approval to end their three-way tie up, two sources said on Thursday.

U.S. stock index futures pointed to a lower start on Thursday, with futures for the S&P 500, Dow Jones and Nasdaq down 0.1-0.3 percent at 5:30 a.m. EST.

Five U.S. banks and four European lenders are being investigated by U.S. authorities, as they widen their probe of the role of banks in past mortgage securities deals, according to news reports.

U.S. stock index futures were modestly lower on Thursday with technology shares in focus after cautious comments from Cisco, as investors awaited jobless data.

HTC Corp fired back on Wednesday in its legal battle with Apple Inc, asking the U.S. International Trade Commission to ban sales of iPhones, iPads and iPods in the United States.

Romantics looking for love on online classifieds site Craigslist.com or maybe just for a wheelbarrow could end up starring in a new Web-only documentary series that chronicles how people are using the website.

The makers of file-sharing software LimeWire are liable to 13 major record companies that accused the service of infringing their music copyrights, a Manhattan federal judge has ruled.

Gold firmed near a record high reached in the previous session, while the world's largest gold-backed ETF reached an all-time high on Thursday as investors continued to worry that attempts to contain the euro zone debt crisis would either fail or stoke inflation.