MARKETS / FINANCE

Federal officials in Boston said on Thursday they charged 13 people in connection with a kickback scheme involving microcap stocks.

Stocks mostly dipped late on Thursday, as raised hopes for a stellar payrolls report on Friday may be hard to match.

Russia's MMC Norilsk Nickel, the world's largest palladium producer, will sharply cut sales from its stockpile in the next two years before ending them altogether in 2014, a company executive said Thursday.

Research In Motion does not install, nor authorize, its carrier partners to install Carrier IQ monitoring software on its BlackBerry smartphones, the company said on Thursday.

Sprint Nextel Corp , the No. 3 U.S. mobile provider, agreed to pay up to $1.6 billion to Clearwire Corp in the next four years, including a network pact and a potential equity infusion, easing concerns about a liquidity crisis at Clearwire.

Gold prices slipped modestly Thursday as investors booked profits from this week's 3.3 percent rally in the yellow metal.

It is believed that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of women in Afghanistan are languishing in jails over so-called ‘moral crimes.’

President Nicolas Sarkozy will endeavor to warm the nation to giving Brussels more control over national budgets on Thursday as the euro zone crisis pushes France towards recession, squeezes its banks and threatens its AAA credit rating.

Wall Street eased on Thursday after the Dow posted its best run in nearly three years, but hopes Friday's key jobs report would underscore signs of strength in U.S. economy kept investors engaged.

HSBC Securities is raising its forecast for the average price of silver in the next two years on strong retail investment demand and a narrowing market surplus.

Wall Street eased on Thursday after the Dow posted its best run in nearly three years, but hopes Friday's key jobs report would underscore signs of strength in U.S. economy kept investors engaged.

Apple Inc's newest board member, Walt Disney Co Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger, bought about $1 million worth of the iPhone maker's shares earlier this week, a symbolic gesture of confidence in the prospects of the company.

U.S. auto sales rose sharply in November as more confident American consumers spent more on the average showroom purchase, extending a recovery trend for the industry to a sixth month.

Research In Motion does not install nor authorize its carrier partners to install Carrier IQ monitoring software on its BlackBerry smartphones, the company said on Thursday.

Recently, a top tech analyst predicted that Amazon is likely to release its own smartphone for under $200 next year. Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney said in a research note that Amazon may sell the smartphone for as little as $170. Citing supply-chain channel checks in Asia, he said Amazon may release its first-ever smartphone by the fourth quarter of 2012.

U.S. stocks are expected to end next year with modest gains, despite the threat of a global downturn brought on by the euro zone debt crisis and a tepid domestic economy that may still need more stimulus, a Reuters poll found.

Nissan Motor Co and Volkswagen AG posted double-digit percentage gains in November U.S. sales, a strong showing for a month analysts were expecting to set a more than two-year record overall.

New claims for unemployment benefits rose unexpectedly last week, popping above 400,000 for the first time in just over a month and reinforcing the view that the battered labor market was healing only slowly.

New claims for unemployment benefits rose unexpectedly last week, popping above 400,000 for the first time in just over a month and reinforcing the view that the battered labor market was healing only slowly.

Stocks were little changed in choppy trade on Thursday after manufacturing data came in stronger than forecast, but gains were capped as investors took a breather from the previous session's powerful rally.

U.S. senators plan to press regulators on Thursday on whether they were asleep at the switch as now-bankrupt MF Global took on massive risky bets, and why hundreds millions of dollars in customer funds are still missing.

Blackstone Group and Bain Capital are preparing a bid for all of Yahoo Inc with Asian partners in a deal that could value the Internet company at about $25 billion, a source familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

A year after four hedge funds were raided as part of a sweeping probe into insider trading, agents are ready to arrest as many as three people who worked at the raided funds, sources familiar with the investigation said.

UBS removed its head of risk Maureen Miskovic on Thursday after less than a year in the job and 11 weeks after a $2 billion trading scandal rocked the Swiss bank.

The top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee is calling for a regulatory watchdog to investigate the oversight of now-bankrupt brokerage MF Global Holdings Ltd.

Wall Street stocks were set to drift lower at the open on Thursday as investors took a breather after the S&P 500 posted its best gains since August in a powerful rally.

China's economic growth will probably slow to 8 percent in 2012 and further to 7 percent in 2013 even though the government has started to relax policy, a prominent Chinese government economist said on Thursday.

If you can tolerate moderate-risk, Pepsi is a stock that offers that rare opportunity for a decent dividend with capital appreciation, according to one stock reviewer.

Manufacturing activity is contracting across Europe and most of Asia, data showed on Thursday, and a Chinese official declared that the world economy faces a worse situation than in 2008 when Lehman Brothers collapsed.