MORGAN STANLEY

Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) on Thursday reported weaker first-quarter profit but still beat analyst expectations, which helped lift shares up more than 2 percent.

Facebook’s $1 billion deal to acquire Instagram may have resulted in pushing the initial public offering price for the No. 1 social media network even higher.

Human Genome Sciences Inc has rejected an unsolicited bid worth around $2.6 billion from long-time partner GlaxoSmithKline Plc, marking a new takeover battle in a drugs sector that has been swept by M&A recently.

Stock index futures rose on Thursday after Spain sold all of its debt at an auction and ahead of a raft of corporate earnings and economic data.

Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS), the exalted New York house of finance that is a veritable icon of white-shoe Wall Street firms, is expected to report first-quarter financial results Thursday somewhat weaker than a year-ago, a consensus of bank analysts has noted, as the firm is unlikely to have benefited as much as peers from positive developments that lifted large-cap U.S. banks during the first quarter.

The U.S. economic outlook for next year is being shadowed by what economists are calling the fiscal cliff of 2013 -- the expiration of enormous tax cuts and transfer payments.

That Wall Street expects J.P. Morgan to outperform its peers shouldn't come as a surprise. Besides being the biggest, it's arguably among the three or four most stable big banks.

Chesapeake Energy Corp, the second largest natural gas producer in the US, said on Monday that it has finalized three deals to sell its assets, which will raise $2.6 billion, as it faces cash crunch and a rising debt.

Splunk Inc., a developer of software that helps companies analyze data, plans to sell 13.5 million shares for $8 to $10 in its initial public offering.

U.S. employers hired 120,000 workers in March, well below economists' forecast, and the smallest gain since October, signaling the economy could be losing momentum.

Following the tradition of big tech companies like Google and Apple, Facebook has reportedly chosen to list its shares on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol FB. The report comes from The New York Times, which cites Facebook insiders with knowledge of the matter.

Two of the most iconic American brands suffered setbacks to their credit ratings on Wednesday, evidence that some of the nation's most visible economic engines could face higher borrowing costs.

Shares of Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) set another record high Tuesday after three more analysts boosted their targets, although none as high as the $1,001 set Monday by Brian White of Topeka Capital Markets.

U.S. manufacturing grew alongside the overall economy in March, rising 1 percent over the previous month's level, according to the March purchasing managers index (PMI) of the Institute for Supply Management.

Asian shares eased for a second day in a row Thursday, as investors limited their risk exposures on concerns about growth prospects in the world's two largest economies, the United States and China.

BATS Global Markets, the U.S. exchange operator that withdrew its public offering Friday after a computer glitch sent its newly-issued stock into a tailspin, should develop a "credible IPO plan" and go through with it in the second quarter, its founder and current director said.

With political pressures mounting, talk about the release of the strategic oil reserves has come back. Will the President decide to release the country's reserves in a last gasp effort to stem the gas price spike? And if he does, what kind of impact will it have on prices?

Because of serious glitches in equity-market trading operations on Friday, Bats Global Markets Inc. announced it has scuttled its planned initial public offering, which had been scheduled to close on March 28.

Facebook isn’t even trading yet but Rapid Ratings, a New York firm with an unusual risk-analysis model, rates the social networking company's stock as highly as that of technology stars Intel, Apple, Microsoft and Google.

On Thursday, John Edwards denied claims that he had hired hookers from the so-called Soccer Mom Madam, Anna Gristina, during visits to New York.

An alleged call girl and prostitute who worked for the madam of the alleged Millionaire Madam or Soccer Mom Madam Anna Gristina, informed New York City authorities that she was paid to have sex with 58-year-old former U.S. Sen. John Edwards while he was in New York raising money for a 2008 presidential nomination.