The stars have aligned for gold prices, leaving them just a short hop from record highs, but as bullion bugs celebrate, the rally appears to have flaws. Prices have been swept along to 18-month highs at $1,023.85 — opening the door to record levels at $1,030.80 — on a wave of dollar weakness, inflation concerns

Britain's Lloyds Banking Group said it was in talks over scaling back or cancelling its participation in a state-backed scheme to insure it against credit losses. Lloyds is discussing a reduction in the number of toxic assets it might place in the so-called asset protection scheme (APS), encouraged by "improving economic conditions," the part-nationalised lender

U.S. stock index futures pointed to a slightly lower open on Wall Street on Friday, with futures for the S&P 500 down 0.2 percent, Dow Jones futures down 0.2 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures down 0.2 percent at 3:37 a.m. EDT. Robust sales of the Pre smartphone helped Palm Inc (PALM.O) post a smaller-than-expected loss,

Publishers of general news would find it hard to charge for their content online because too much free content is available, the chief executive of Google Inc said on Thursday. Speaking to a group of British broadcasting executives via video link, Eric Schmidt said he could, however, imagine niche providers of content such as business

Greece's stock market will stay on index compiler FTSE's watch list for a possible classification downgrade for another 12 months, FTSE said after an annual country review. Greece, which gained mature market status in 2001 after joining the euro zone, faces a possible change in classification to advanced emerging from a current developed market status.

Britain's top share index drifted lower early on Friday, as investors took profits after a five-day winning run, with commodity stocks and banks taking the most points off the index. At 0816 GMT, the FTSE 100 was 6.01 points or 0.1 percent lower at 5,157.94, having closed up 0.8 percent at 5,163.95 on Thursday, its

Global equities fell on Friday as investors took stock of recent gains that pushed European and Asian markets to multi-month highs, giving a reprieve to the downtrodden dollar and shoring up government bonds. Commodity prices also beat a hasty retreat with oil shedding 82 cents to $71.67 a barrel and copper falling 1.5 percent to

European Union leaders agreed on Thursday to seek curbs on bankers' bonuses at next week's G20 summit and said they wanted evidence the recession is over before they stop spending to prop up their economies. They warned against complacency over the fragile recovery, and some called for the Group of 20 developed and emerging economies