United States Steel Corp. said Wednesday it had completed its $1.2 billion (?830 million) acquisition of Canadian steel maker Stelco Inc., expanding its presence in North America and making it the world's fifth-largest steel producer.
Australia's Westpac Banking Corp. said Thursday its net profit rose 12 percent to $3.45 billion Australian dollars (US$3.21 billion; ?2.22 billion) in the year to Sept. 30, helped by a strong rise in earnings at its consumer financial services operations.
Michael Dell, the Dell Inc. founder who this year resumed control of his computer company, received compensation the company valued at more than $2 million (?1.38 million) in fiscal 2007, according to an analysis of a regulatory filing Wednesday.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson urged the mortgage industry on Wednesday to do more to identify and help people who risk losing their homes because their monthly mortgage payments are resetting to higher levels.
A panel on Internet names voted Wednesday to defer long-simmering questions on whether names, phone numbers and other private information on domain name owners should remain public in open, searchable databases called Whois.
After a 27-year hiatus, gold returned to the lofty price of $800 an ounce on Wednesday. But that number, which sent jaws dropping in 1980, was unlikely to shock anyone ?investors or even consumers hankering after a 14-karat necklace.
MetLife Inc.'s profits edged lower in the third quarter as the No. 1 U.S. life insurer suffered $270 million (?186.89 million) in losses from investments used to hedge its insurance portfolio.
Insurance brokerage Aon Corp., faced by fierce competition and falling rates, said Wednesday it will cut 2,700 jobs as part of a restructuring plan that will eventually save it about $240 million (?166 million) a year.
Chrysler LLC began laying off thousands of salaried workers Wednesday as part of an effort to slash costs in the company's new era of private ownership, a spokesman said.
Linux, the free operating system that is a perpetual underdog in the desktop market, is showing up in computers in Wal-Mart stores in the U.S. this week for the first time.
Gold barreled above $800 an ounce Wednesday for the first time since 1980 as investors cheered the Federal Reserve's decision to lower its benchmark interest rate by a quarter point.
Wall Street bounded higher Wednesday after the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates as expected and said risks to the financial markets from the summer's credit crisis have eased. The Dow Jones industrial average gained more than 130 points on the day.
The dollar skidded to a new low against the euro Wednesday while the British pound broke through $2.08 after the Federal Reserve lowered a key interest rate by a quarter percentage point to 4.5 percent.
