IBT Staff Reporter

U.S. home foreclosures actions spiked in March and set a quarterly record despite federal programs to combat the unrelenting pace that homeowners are defaulting on mortgages, RealtyTrac said on Thursday.

Apache Corp said it will acquire smaller oil and natural gas explorer Mariner Energy Inc for $2.7 billion, in a bid to extend its operations into deepwater Gulf of Mexico.

The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless benefits unexpectedly soared last week as applications held back during the Easter holiday were processed, government data showed on Thursday.

The Fortune 500 largest U.S. companies slashed a record 821,000 jobs last year, even as their collective profit soared more than three-fold to $391 billion.

Jeffery Stone and his wife Janette Diller Stone, one-time operators of a now-defunct New York investment firm called Crescent Fund, are not on any government most wanted list. And they aren't exactly hiding, either. But the former Greenwich, Connecticut, residents owe U.S. regulators nearly a half-million dollars in fines and restitution for their part in a five-year-old penny stock manipulation ...

The world's top memory chipmaker, Samsung Electronics, said it will launch independent reviews in response to reports that toxic materials used in chip making may have caused cancer in some of its employees.

U.S. stock index futures dipped on Thursday as nagging concerns about Greece's debt woes undercut a solid quarterly earnings report and stronger forecast from economic bellwether United Parcel Service Inc.

Capital One Financial Corp's U.S. credit-card defaults rose in March in a sign that consumers may still be under stress.

Abruptly changing the structure of mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would likely lower home prices and could threaten the fragile U.S. economic recovery.

U.S. stock index futures dipped on Thursday as nagging concerns about Greece's debt woes undercut a solid quarterly earnings report and outlook from economic bellwether United Parcel Service Inc.

China chalked up unexpectedly strong annual growth of 11.9 percent in the first quarter, prompting renewed calls for tighter policies to prevent the economy from overheating and stoking speculation of when Beijing will loosen its grip on the yuan.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc laid out a plan on Wednesday to repay creditors a portion of some $1 trillion in expected claims, under a proposal that could resolve the largest U.S. bankruptcy in history.

Good morning dear traders, I had yesterday some trading break. With no questions. One reason was that I had not really much time for trading. The second reason was that the markets where too choppy in my eyes.

LAS VEGAS - As Dreamworks Animation prepares for the May 21 release of Shrek Forever After, the studio is converting the first three movies in the hit franchise to the stereo format for a 3D Blu-ray Disc release.

China chalked up unexpectedly strong annual growth of 11.9 percent in the first quarter, prompting renewed calls for tighter policies to prevent the economy from overheating and stoking speculation on when it will loosen its tight grip on the yuan.

Kuwait's Agility , the Gulf's biggest logistics firm, has been replaced by a new company as the main supplier to the U.S. military in Kuwait and Iraq, the company said in a statement on Thursday.

Toyota Motor said on Thursday it would conduct safety tests on all its sport utility models after a report claiming that a handling problem in a new version Lexus put drivers at risk of rollover accidents.

Global miner Rio Tinto slightly raised its production guidance for iron ore after posting a 39 percent jump in first-quarter output on Thursday, driven by Chinese demand and recovery in the West.

Billionaire financier George Soros thinks the euro and the European Union itself are at risk of breaking up if Germany refuses to play its traditional role and make concessions, he told a newspaper.

Malaysia's Petronas has stopped supplying gasoline to Iran, a company spokesman said on Thursday, as the threat of U.S. sanctions on oil firms with supply ties to the Islamic Republic looms large.

Stock index futures pointed to a lower open on Wall Street on Thursday, with futures for the S&P 500 down 0.3 percent, Dow Jones futures down 0.2 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures down 0.21 percent at 5:12 a.m. EDT.

The Greek aid deal is a turning point in the crisis that shows suggestions of a euro zone break up and Greek default are absurd, a top European Central Bank policymaker said on Thursday.

Nippon Sheet Glass Co Ltd named former DuPont executive Craig Naylor as its new president and CEO on Thursday, making him the second non-Japanese to head the Tokyo-based glass maker.

Strong growth in China and upbeat corporate earnings lifted world stocks on Thursday to a new high for the year, putting them at levels last seen around the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

AIG remains a long-term investor in China's top non-life insurer PICC , the Chinese insurer said on Thursday, even as the embattled U.S. firm unwinds its holdings in other assets to repay the U.S. government.

The European Union may have to establish a mechanism to help out countries with financing difficulties after a 30 billion euro aid package agreed for Greece last weekend, Jean-Claude Juncker, chairman of the Eurogroup of finance ministers, said in a newspaper interview on Thursday.

Occupancy rates in hotels in Bangkok, the Thai capital that has been the scene of violent clashes between anti-government protesters and security forces, are at about one-thirds of expectations, a spokesman for Federation of Thai Tourism Associations said on Thursday. We were expecting 80-90 percent room occupancy rate in Bangkok, but I don't think we can make it to 30 percent, Charoen Wangan...

There is no possibility that Greece will default on its debts and no reason to doubt Germany's commitment to an EU pledge to help Greece, the European Union's monetary chief said on Thursday.

Syngenta AG , the world's largest agro-chemicals company, undershot analyst expectations with $3.5 billion sales in the first quarter and said cheaper raw materials should buoy its 2010 results.