IBT Staff Reporter

At a time when the Bombay Stock Exchange Index showed major gains in 2009 with an 80 per cent return, several investors thought of coming back to the equity sector which they had left following the 2008 early 2009 setbacks.

Amid the flat, wide fields of central France, a team of re-trained secretaries and IT experts is packaging Europe's literary heritage for the digital era.

EBay Inc forecast 2010 results above expectations after posting double-digit revenue growth in PayPal and its main online marketplaces unit, sending shares up 8 percent.

Starbucks Corp posted its first quarterly rise in U.S. same-store sales in two years, signaling that recession-weary consumers are spending more on small, daily luxuries.

The U.S. agency charged with dismantling or selling off failed banks said it is equipped to deal with what it sees as a busy 2010, according to remarks to be delivered before Congress on Thursday.

Amazon.com Inc will offer higher royalties on the discount books sold for its popular Kindle electronic reader in a move to boost profitability and preempt the anticipated entry of Apple Inc and Google into the e-book market.

Starbucks Corp posted its first quarterly rise in U.S. same-store sales in more than two years, signaling that recession-weary consumers are spending more on small, daily luxuries.

The following are highlights of today's news on Haiti eight days after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit:

U.S. retail brokerages posted mixed fourth-quarter profits as higher merger and recruiting expenses offset growing management fees and a market-fueled increase in client assets.

After dropping 199 pips from the London opening of 1.4279 to trade as low as 1.4080, the EUR/USD is eerily quiet ahead of the Chinese GDP and Industrial Production data to be reported at 9:00 pm New York time. A drop in EUR/USD is a gain in the dollar.

The amount of time youngsters are spending on the web has ballooned to proportions that exceed the average adults full working week, according to a new study.

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn has made the winning bid to purchase the bankrupt, unfinished Fontainebleau Las Vegas Resort in a bet that the struggling Las Vegas Strip will eventually turn around.

Several Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday expressed concern that the merger of Exxon Mobil and XTO Energy would reduce competition in the oil and gas industries and increase the use of a controversial drilling technique that could pollute water supplies.

Oracle Corp will likely win European Union approval to buy Sun Microsystems Inc before the end of this week, clearing the way to close the long-delayed $7 billion deal, according to a person close to the company.

Persistent concerns surrounding Chinese lending and tightening credit controls dampened expectations for growth in the Asian region in 2010 yesterday following the news that some lenders were asked to rein in credit as they failed to meet regulatory requirements.

The Dow suffered its worst drop of 2010 on Wednesday as U.S. stocks succumbed to fears that China's curbs on bank lending might jeopardize the global economic recovery, while IBM's outlook sparked caution about the technology sector.

In a sign that the U.S. banking sector's problems are far from over, lenders including Bank of America Corp reported falling bond trading revenue and mortgage lending weakness in the fourth quarter.

The amount of time youngsters are spending on the web has ballooned to proportions that exceed the average adults full working week, according to a new study.

Microsoft Corp said it will issue a patch to fix the old version of its Internet Explorer browser that allowed recent attacks on Google Inc's network in China.

Children between the ages of 8 and 18 in the U.S. spend over 53 hours a week online, watching television and playing video games, according to a new study.

A senior counterterrorism official said on Wednesday his agency lacks Google-like search capability that could have identified the suspect in the attempted Christmas Day airline bombing.

A unit of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc , General Re, has agreed to pay $92.2 million to settle accusations that it helped American International Group Inc and Prudential Financial Inc manipulate financial statements, the U.S. government said Wednesday.

U.S. housing starts unexpectedly fell last month as unusually cold weather hampered construction, but a jump in building permits to a 14-month high indicated the housing market recovery was intact.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 122.43 points on Wednesday, losing 1.14 percent to close at 10,603 on fears that the Asian led economic recovery may stall because of government tightening.

They are cloaked by pseudonyms and multiple addresses, but China's legions of hackers were thrust into the spotlight last week after Google said it suffered a sophisticated cyber-attack emanating from China.

The New York Times will begin charging for articles on its website next year, marking a major effort by the newspaper to find new revenue and combat the declines in print circulation and advertising that have badly hurt the publishing industry.

Heidi Montag recently unveiled her new body and face and in one of her first interviews since the surgery, she shares how it almost killed her.

American Airlines parent AMR Corp posted a quarterly loss on Wednesday, capping a year of economic turmoil and weak travel demand that battered the industry.

President Obama has a new foe for his Democratic Party-led national health care reform agenda as Massachusetts voted on Tuesday to elect the Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate.