GOLDMAN SACHS

Energy services company AGL Resources Inc. announced an agreement to acquire rival Nicor Inc. for about $2.4 billion in cash and stock, creating a leading natural gas distributor in the U.S.

Stocks were little changed on Monday as investors were cautious before moves by euro zone officials to keep a debt crisis contained, but the S&P 500 stood within points of a new high for the year.

Stocks edged lower on Monday as investors took profits before moves by euro zone officials to keep a debt crisis contained, but the S&P 500 stood within points of a new high for the year.

Stocks dipped on Monday with investors taking profits and looking for further action from European officials to prevent a debt crisis from spreading.

Gold rose almost 2 percent on Friday, ending the week on $1,414 an ounce just a few dollars below the all-time record, as the dollar tumbled after disappointing jobs data cast doubt on the strength of the U.S. economic recovery.

November's jobs data was shockingly bad and casts doubt on the optimism generated by upbeat economic reports from recent weeks.

With the current round of [US quantitative easing] set to end in June 2011, and our US economics team now forecasting strong US economic growth in 2011 and 2012, we expect US real interest rates to begin to rise into 2012, says a new bullion report from former investment-bank Goldman Sachs.

The health of the American economy and the level of accommodation in monetary policy are the two most important factors that influence U.S. stock price movements. In 2011, it seems U.S. equities may get support both.

The financialization of commodities threatens to divert capital from economically useful purposes and use it instead to drive up the cost of essential commodities for end users.

Beginning well before midnight on Thursday, in malls throughout the nation, the lifeblood of the American economy – the consumers – will start queuing up outside the locked entrances of various retail stores, forming longer and longer lines, clutching ads and lists and coupons, sipping coffee and hot chocolate, rubbing their hands and stomping their feet for warmth, exciting each other with anticipatory chatter, and waiting, waiting for the clock to strike the appointed hour, the clerk to open ...

Energy firm Dynegy Inc said it intends to terminate the merger deal with Blackstone Group and seeks new proposals from potentially interested parties.

Stocks finished mixed, but bounced back from early lows on worries that Ireland’s debt crisis could spread to other peripheral euro zone nations, follow a request by the Irish government for a multi-billion euro funding bailout.

Federal prosecutors in New York, the FBI, and the SEC are capping a three-year colossal insider trader investigation involving expert networks.

Shares of automaker General Motors opened at $35 in its first trading day on the NYSE after recovering from a government funded bailout. The opening price was an increase of 2 percent from its IPO price of $33.

GM will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange beginning today after a landmark intial public offering, from which GM is expected to raise as high as $23.1 billion.

A day after cutting the weighting of US dollar and yen in the SDR, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said it did not include China's yuan in the basket as the currency does not meet the freely usable criteria.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett praised the U.S. government for bailing out Wall Street and saving the U.S. economy during the height of the financial crisis.

General Motors Co is inching closer towards returning to the U.S. market in one of the biggest IPOs in the U.S. history and could even become the world's largest.

The Federal Reserve is likely to spend the entire $600 billion allocated for the second round of quantitative easing (QE2) and is open to a third round (QE3) if the economy performs worse than expected.

Paulson & Co., the hedge fund managed by John Paulson, reduced its positions in key financial holdings Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC), Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) and Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) in the third quarter

Equity capital market transactions totaled $23.3 billion last week, with 59 deals in the Asia Pacific region in the last week, a report by Dealogic said.