IBT Staff Reporter

Swedish fashion retailer Hennes & Mauritz AB is planning a two-for-one stock split in response to investor calls to make its shares more tradeable.

Costco Wholesale Corp on Wednesday reported a higher quarterly profit for its holiday quarter, helped by more shoppers coming into its stores and improved sales of discretionary items, like home decor and clothes.

Standard Chartered met expectations with a 13 percent jump in 2009 profit, as strong investment banking growth in its core Asian markets offset a jump in bad debts in the Middle East.

Standard & Poor's said on Wednesday that it was less pessimistic on Greece than financial markets, after worries over Greece's debt problems led to increased risk aversion in markets in recent weeks.

U.S. southeast regional bank Synovus Financial Corp said it is facing an informal inquiry from the U.S. securities regulator, filings show.

A key figure in the battle to revamp U.S. healthcare may soon be the U.S. Senate's little-known, mustachioed and highly respected umpire, Alan Frumin.

President Barack Obama is preparing a final push for a healthcare overhaul and is expected to announce a plan on Wednesday to move the ambitious legislation forward without support from opposition Republicans.

The president of the U.N. Security Council said on Tuesday it was ready to tackle proposals for new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, while U.S. diplomats worked to persuade China that action is needed.

Chilean rescue crews fanned out with sniffer dogs on Wednesday around quake-ravaged cities and villages, some still hoping to find survivors and others to begin the daunting task of recovering the bodies buried under mountains of rubble.

When Dell Inc reported its fourth-quarter results last month, the announcement included a surprising figure -- an 81 percent jump in the PC maker's China sales during the quarter.

President Barack Obama said on Tuesday he would explore adding more Republican ideas to his healthcare plan, even as congressional Democrats prepared for a final push to pass the overhaul without Republican backing.

The United States will deliver 1,000 laser-guided bomb kits to Pakistan this month and is considering additional arms sales to help the Pakistani air force crack down on insurgents in the Afghan border region.

Indonesia's parliament will debate on Wednesday two conflicting recommendations from an inquiry into a bank bailout and may hold a rare vote to determine the future of two key pro-market reformers.

Incumbent Rick Perry beat U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison in a bruising primary election on Tuesday to decide the Republican candidate for Texas governor.

Chinese commercial banks absorbed about $170 billion in foreign exchange from the financial system last year, mainly through yuan-dollar swaps, state media on Wednesday cited a former official as saying.

Top Federal Reserve officials on Tuesday offered differing messages about the direction of monetary policy, with one flagging the dangers of keeping interest rates too low for too long and another saying the economy was too weak to raise them.

EU internal market commissioner Michel Barnier was quoted on Wednesday as saying Brussels would conduct an internal investigation into the trading of credit default swaps related to Greece and other countries.

Swoozie's, a U.S. retailer of luxury gifts and stationery products, filed for bankruptcy protection on Tuesday, saying it was hurt by underperformance of recently acquired stores in the Northeast.

Guarded optimism surrounds expectations for a 2012 recovery in the U.S. steel industry, as much will depend on how firm the recoveries are in the construction and automotive sectors of the economy.

TiVo Inc introduced a television set-top box on Tuesday that simplifies finding videos from Web outlets like Netflix and YouTube in addition to local program listings.

Director Oliver Stone was shocked when he revisited the world of high finance for the sequel to his 1987 hit movie Wall Street, describing what was happening there as the collapse of capitalism.

Spanish police have arrested three men accused of masterminding one of the biggest computer crimes to date -- infecting more than 13 million PCs with a virus that stole credit card numbers and other data.

The White House has contacted Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Peter Diamond about joining the Federal Reserve's board of governors, Bloomberg reported, citing two people familiar with the discussion.

Pfizer Inc is set to present a nearly $4 billion offer for German generic-drug maker Ratiopharm GmbH this week, competing against rival bids from Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd and Actavis, sources familiar with the situation said on Tuesday.

A U.S. judge sentenced a former general counsel of recruitment services company Monster Worldwide Inc to one-year probation after he pleaded guilty in 2007 and cooperated with a probe into a fraud over the backdating of millions of dollars worth of stock options.

The Securities and Exchange Commission plans to expand its New York office by about 8 percent this year as the financial regulator focuses more heavily on catching cheaters at hedge funds and brokerages.

Yahoo Inc CEO Carol Bartz said she does not believe Yahoo needs to discuss Google Inc's Internet search practices with government regulators.

Support grew for changes to vehicle braking systems, as a congressional hearing into unintended acceleration confronted Toyota Motor Corp executives with a 2006 internal document warning of quality problems.

AT&T Inc expects users of Apple Inc's iPad to connect to the Internet mostly using short-range Wi-Fi networks rather than AT&T's cellular network, the chief executive of AT&T said on Tuesday.