Business News

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Friday he believes the financial crisis is winding down, but that it would take some time to fully emerge from the malaise.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Friday after the price of oil hit a record and consumer sentiment data came in surprisingly weak, reviving concerns over spending.

WASHINGTON - Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Friday that financial markets are "considerably calmer" now than they were two months ago. He predicted the economy will be rebounding by the second half of this year.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on Friday that U.S. financial markets were calming down from March's turmoil but warned more pain lies ahead for borrowers who face losing their homes through foreclosure.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ground-breaking on single-family homes in the United States in April dropped to the slowest pace since 1991 while consumer confidence hit a 28-year trough, showing the economy still on shaky ground.

NEW YORK - Wall Street pulled back Friday as enthusiasm over a surprise jump in home construction gave way to renewed concerns about how consumers will fare as oil pushes to fresh highs.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Friday after the price of oil hit a record and consumer sentiment data came in surprisingly weak, reviving concerns over spending.

NEW YORK - Wall Street headed for a modestly higher open Friday as investors watched oil prices hit a new record high and awaited data on new home construction last month.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N), billionaire Warren Buffett's investment company, no longer held any Ameriprise Financial Inc stock as of March 31, according to a U.S. regulatory filing on Thursday.

LONDON (AFP) - Europe's main stock markets diverged on Thursday as companies published mixed earnings news, and after share-price gains in Tokyo and overnight on Wall Street, dealers said.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Teen retailer Abercrombie & Fitch Co. said Friday that its first-quarter earnings rose 3 percent from a year ago on stronger sales.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Teen apparel retailer Abercrombie & Fitch Co reported higher quarterly profit on Friday, topping Wall Street estimates, as a lower tax rate and a better gross margin helped offset the impact of lower same-store sales.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Teen apparel retailer Abercrombie & Fitch Co reported higher quarterly profit on Friday, helped by higher sales in all its chains and better gross profit.

LONDON (AFP) - British Airways said Friday that its annual net profit more than doubled as it cut costs to help offset record high fuel prices while the group offered its first dividend in seven years.

LONDON - British Airways said Friday it will pay a dividend for the first time in seven years after reporting its full-year profits more than doubled.

BRUSSELS (AFP) - New car sales in Europe rebounded sharply in April, shwoing a 9.6-percent rise over the same month last year despite global financial problems and soaring fuel prices, the ACEA European automakers association said on Friday.

PARIS (AFP) - French automaker Renault said on Friday its global unit sales rose 8.3 percent from a year earlier to 228,146 vehicles in April.

ROCKVILLE, Maryland (Reuters) - A free hotline for patients to report serious medical side effects should be mentioned in television commercials and also needs to be more widely promoted on pill bottles and pharmacy packaging, U.S. health experts said on Friday.

WASHINGTON - The global market for cancer drugs will grow twice as fast as that for all other pharmaceuticals as the developing world spends more on health care, a new report says.

Verizon Wireless' decision to join Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile as members of a Linux-based mobile initiative appears to have dealt a setback to Google's ambitions for its Android mobile platform. A Verizon spokesperson told the Chicago Tribune that the company joined the rival LiMo Foundation because "of LiMo's approach to providing a truly open OS that isn't simply an extension of a for-profit company's business model."

Uniting the Virtual Workforce: Transforming Leadership and Innovation in the Globally Integrated Enterprise

Lisa and Robert McIlwain are living a business owner's nightmare. It started when a tornado with 157 mph winds ripped through Fun Zone, their Montgomery (Ala.) skating rink and family entertainment center on Nov. 15, 2006. Although the 31 children and 11 staff members trapped inside the center survived, the 50-employee, $2.5 million business was wiped out. Fun Zone was the only source of income for the couple, who have six children. Their insurance payment went to pay off the mortgage on the damaged property.

Prices are going up all over, but it's common practice among economists to cite only the "core" inflation rate, which excludes food and energy costs.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The stock market will likely start the week on a hesitant note with Wall Street facing the first Federal Reserve interest-rate decision in many months not knowing that a cut is likely guaranteed.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors will have seen enough corporate results by the end of this week to determine if the recent string of encouraging earnings was an anomaly or a real sign stocks can weather the credit crisis and economic slowdown.

WASHINGTON - Construction of new homes posted the biggest increase in more than two years in April. While it was a rare spot of good news for the housing market, analysts said it's far too soon to declare an end to the prolonged slump.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - General Electric Co. said Friday that it plans to sell or spin off its iconic appliance business that for a century sold refrigerators, air conditioners and ovens for millions of homes.

WASHINGTON - Fannie Mae is doing away with higher minimum down-payment requirements for borrowers in parts of the country where home prices are dropping.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ground-breaking on single-family homes in the United States in April dropped to the slowest pace since 1991 while consumer confidence hit a 28-year trough, showing the economy still on shaky ground.

NEW YORK - Oil prices surged more than $3 Friday, shattering a previous record in a spike near $128 a barrel, as prices at the pump pushed to new highs of their own.