IBT Staff Reporter

U.S. securities regulators proposed rules on Wednesday that would require more supervision of unlicensed high-frequency traders who gain unfettered, or naked, access to public markets.

The Australian Dollar opens marginally higher today at 0.9230 after the greenback weakened against several major currencies during overnight trade.

U.S. stocks rose on Wednesday as investors bet on recently weakened technology and financial shares ahead of earnings from bellwethers Intel Corp and JPMorgan Chase & Co , taking the Dow industrials to a fresh 15-month high.

Google's threat to quit China over censorship and hacking intensified Sino-U.S. frictions on Wednesday as Washington said it had serious concerns and demanded an explanation from Beijing.

U.S. securities regulators took their first stab at deciding whether rules are needed to curb high-frequency traders, whose lightning-fast computer programs now dominate equities markets.

Microsoft Corp and Hewlett-Packard Co announced a partnership on Wednesday to integrate their software and hardware offerings for companies looking to move their applications and data online, popularly known as cloud computing.

U.S. economic activity remained at a low level as 2010 began but was improving modestly and beginning to broaden out to include wider swaths of the country, the Federal Reserve said on Wednesday.

A Briton who hacked into NASA and Pentagon computers has won the right to challenge the government's decision to refuse to block his extradition to the United States, his lawyers said on Wednesday.

Fourth-quarter U.S. bank results will show anemic lending and still-rising credit losses, but investors are focused more on 2010 outlooks for signs that the fledgling recovery might take hold this year, analysts said.

U.S. chocolate maker Hershey Co is preparing a bid for Cadbury Plc that would top Kraft's hostile $17 billion takeover offer, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.

Goldman Sachs chief executive officer Lloyd Blankfein said on Tuesday that the root causes of the nation's recent financial crisis was due to a sustained period of cheap credit and excess liquidity.

The head of General Motors Co's China operations said on Wednesday that GM is still awaiting Beijing's approval for a deal to sell Hummer and that he is uncertain of the outcome.

A federal appeals court reinstated on Wednesday an antitrust lawsuit accusing major record labels of conspiring to fix prices for potentially millions of people who download their music over the Internet.

Google Inc and other companies were investigating on cyber attack by China and more details have emerged.

Five of France's biggest book sellers called on publishing houses and the government for support in creating a new retail structure for electronic books to fend off Amazon, Google and Apple.

U.S. stocks rose on Wednesday as investors bought financial and technology shares ahead of earnings from bellwethers Intel Corp and JPMorgan Chase & Co later this week.

Carmakers emerging from a savage crisis hope to lure drivers to electric cars in the coming years, but cost, range and safety considerations mean many are still cautious, holding back from predicting an early sales boom.

Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross said on Wednesday that the U.S. economy is nowhere near a full recovery and forecast 2010 as a year of moderate growth for the nation's automotive industry sales.

Stocks extended gains on Wednesday as investors scooped up financial and technology shares, and Merck & Co benefited from a brokerage upgrade.

Google should carry out its threat to withdraw from China. The US search giant says a cyber-attack on its intellectual property, and attempts to access email data from human rights activists, have driven it to the edge.

A federal appeals court on Wednesday reinstated an antitrust lawsuit accusing major record labels of conspiring to fix prices and terms under which their music would be sold over the Internet.

Google Inc announced Tuesday it is no longer willing to continue censoring Internet search results in China, and that it may shut down the google.cn website and pull its offices in the country.

Google has embarked on a game of brinksmanship in China, saying it may quit the world's biggest Internet market by users after hackers apparently looking for information on dissidents broke into its China site.

Top executives of Wall Street's biggest banks acknowledged broad failures as they testified to a U.S. commission looking into the financial crisis, while the White House said an industry apology was in order.

Kraft Foods Inc CEO Irene Rosenfeld was going door-to-door in London on Wednesday, visiting Cadbury's largest shareholders at their offices to win support for a $17 billion takeover bid.

Stocks rose on Wednesday, shrugging off earlier losses, after Kraft raised its outlook and a brokerage upgraded Merck & Co. in welcome signs about future earnings.

Nintendo of America Inc. announced Wednesday that the owners of the Nintendo Wii console will be ale to watch movies and TV episodes streamed from Netflix directly to their TVs.

China markets were still shaken on Wednesday, lagging behind others due to a lower economic outlook after the central bank raised the reserve requirement for banks.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday vowed unwavering support to help Haiti recover from a devastating earthquake.