U.S. stock futures surged and bond prices tumbled Friday after the government reported strong September job growth and revised August's weak data upward.
The Central Bank of Ireland cut its growth forecasts for this long-booming country Friday, citing Ireland's high exposure to financial turmoil in its major trading partner, the United States.
Washington Mutual Inc. said Friday a weak housing market and the recent crunch in the mortgage market will lead to a 75 percent drop in third-quarter net income at the national bank.
Job creation in the U.S. picked up in September but not enough to stop the unemployment rate from rising to 4.7 percent, the highest in just over a year.
Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drugmaker, is the world's top spender onresearch, the European Commission said Friday, outranking rival Johnson &Johnson, software giant Microsoft Corp. and auto companies Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler AG.
Oil prices inched lower Friday after rising overnight as investors began to question whether supplies of crude and products are sufficient for coming winter demand.
Russian mining giant OAO Norilsk Nickel said Friday that net profits in the first six months of 2007 rose 60 percent to US$3.79 billion (?2.69 billion), amid record-high global prices for its primary product ?nickel.
Asian markets were mixed Friday, with many traders awaiting the release of a U.S. jobs report. Hong Kong, meanwhile, bounced back sharply after two days of losses.
Spanish energy and infrastructure company Acciona and Italian power utility Enel have gained acceptances for 85.3 percent of the shares targeted in their tender for Endesa, bringing their combined ownership in the Spanish electricity company to more than 92 percent.
Airbus Chief Executive Thomas Enders denied insider trading of shares of parent company EADS over the European planemaker's problems with the A380 superjumbo.
Leading private Chinese movie company Huayi Brothers plans to list in China or Hong Kong next year, a news report said Friday, citing the company's co-president.
Norway's center-left government on Friday proposed a 2008 budget that calls for boosting climate change incentives and spending slightly more of its vast oil wealth than it did this year.
