Britain's newly created budget watchdog downgraded economic growth forecasts Monday but did not radically alter the scale of austerity measure required from the country's coalition government. Britain's economy will grow more slowly after this year than the previous Labor government expected but state borrowing will fall a bit faster than originally thought, the Office for
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The Agricultural Bank of China is seeking to raise over $23 billion by listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai, in what would be the world's biggest IPO, as China's banks shore up their capital base after a lending spree. The initial public offering by AgBank, founded by Mao Zedong in the 1950s as the central
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The U.S. labor market will hold the key to a recovery in the hard-hit housing sector, according to a Harvard University report released on Monday. Record high foreclosures and a high jobless rate both pose significant challenges to the housing market, but some recovery in labor markets and record low mortgage rates could partly overcome
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Stock index futures pointed to a higher open on Wall Street on Monday, adding to last week's gains and tracking gains in global equities, with futures for the S&P 500 up 0.6 percent, Dow Jones futures up 0.4 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.6 percent at 0821 GMT. European shares hit a four-week high
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Microsoft Corp christening its new motion-sensing game system "Kinect," on Sunday offered a sneak peek of upcoming titles it hopes will help draw a new generation of casual players into the 40 million-strong Xbox game console fold. In a performance conceptualized by Cirque du Soleil, the company staged enactments of how games would be played.
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A strong global economic recovery is under way, and is unlikely to be thrown off course by European debt woes or the improbable event of the bursting of an asset bubble in China, a top U.S. Federal Reserve official said on Monday. "While the sovereign debt crisis in Europe is indeed a serious matter, the
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German-French talks on Monday launch a decisive week for reforms in Europe aimed at preventing a repeat of Greece's debt crisis, with the euro and stock markets adding to recent signs of improvement. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy were due to seek an accord between Europe's two biggest economies on new
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Euro zone industrial output in April surged year-on-year more than in any month in almost two decades, data showed on Monday. The European Union's statistics office Eurostat said industrial production in the 16 countries using the euro rose 0.8 percent month-on-month for a 9.5 percent year-on-year gain. The annual jump is the highest since measurements
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European shares touched a four-week high on Monday as strong euro zone industrial output rekindled optimism over the region's economic outlook, while AXA rose on talks of a UK asset sale to Resolution. By 1038 GMT, the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index of top shares was 1 percent higher at 1,018.48 points, up for the fourth
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Greek betting group OPAP expects flat sales this year as the economy weakens, the firm's chief executive told the annual shareholders meeting on Monday, causing its shares to trim earlier gains. "We expect this year's turnover will be at 2009 levels based on actions we have taken," CEO Yannis Spanoudakis told shareholders. Debt-laden Greece is
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