Financial Market News

Global equity markets edged higher on Wednesday as a backdrop of solid corporate earnings buoyed risk appetite, but worries over the Middle East and Ukraine kept demand strong for safe-haven assets such as bonds.

"This was a market that was dead in the water," Judge Janet Hall told Litvak. "This was a market that existed because of taxpayer money and you were in effect taking advantage of it through fraud."

A federal judge has sentenced a former Wall Street trader to two years in prison for securities fraud, saying he took advantage of a government bailout program.

U.S. stock indexes were mostly higher in early-afternoon trading Wednesday as investors weighed positive earnings from the technology industry against disappointing news from Boeing and other companies.

The S&P 500 cruised to a new all-time intraday high of 1,987.58 right out of the gate on Wednesday.

A strong earnings report from Canadian National Railway helped push the Toronto stock market higher Tuesday as traders put geopolitical concerns aside.

Asian stock markets posted moderate gains Wednesday, bolstered by solid U.S. earnings and home sales.

DETROIT - Companies that insure Detroit bonds and stand to lose millions repeated a pledge Tuesday to aggressively challenge the city's bankruptcy plan, a day after retirees endorsed pension cuts and qualified for a bailout led by the state.

Several states in the Deep South and Southwest have earned dismal scores on an annual child-welfare index that cited poverty and single-parent house households as worrisome trends that must be turned around for things to improve.

Employers in the U.S. are creating jobs at the fastest pace since the late 1990s and the economy finally looks ready to expand at a healthy rate.

Shareholders of Yum! Brands, Inc. looking to boost their income beyond the stock's 2% annualized dividend yield can sell the January 2016 covered call at the $87.50 strike and collect the premium based on the $2.83 bid, which annualizes to an additional 2.5% rate of return against the current stock price , for a total of 4.5% annualized rate in the ... (more)

Solid earnings for a range of companies helped nudge the stock market higher in early Tuesday trading.

Comcast rose 1.3 percent after reporting higher profits than investors were expecting.

The Cabinet decision late Monday paves the way for foreign financial institutions to directly buy and sell stocks listed on Saudi Arabia's $530 billion Tadawul All Share Index starting sometime in the first half of 2015.

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO - Apple, once a can't-miss stock, is finding it tough to persuade portfolio managers to come back into the fold.

Stock markets were looking perky Tuesday morning, with easing tension over Ukraine and healthy company earnings giving investors some extra energy.

European markets rode a global rebound in risk appetite on Tuesday helped by the first signs of cooperation from Ukraine's pro-Russian separatists over the downed Malaysian Airlines plane.

A benchmark index of Indian equities markets Tuesday surged 218.94 points or 0.85 percent as oil and gas stocks rallied.

The U.S. dollar held steady against major currencies on Monday as investors reduced holdings of stocks and other risky assets on anxiety about escalating violence in Gaza and Ukraine.

New York-based credit ratings agency Moody's Investors Service dropped Pennsylvania's $11.1 billion of general obligation bonds a rung on its rating ladder, from Aa2 to Aa3, leaving it ranked among the six worst states in Moody's ratings for the 47 states with general obligation debt.