Financial Market News

2. Sanctions talk: EU ambassadors meet for a second day running to talk about how to escalate sanctions on Russia over Ukraine.

Japan's Nikkei 225 gained 0.6 percent to 15,387.28 and South Korea's Kospi was up 0.3 percent to 2,036.20.

For a time on Thursday, a company based on sharing "likes" and photos was worth more than storied computer pioneer IBM.

New Zealand shares rose, paced by Xero after the cloud-based accounting software firm said it is mulling a New York listing where shares in Facebook and Apple have rebounded.

Investors reacted to quarterly results from companies across several industries, including Facebook, Ford and Caterpillar.

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced the settlement Thursday with the Wall Street bank.

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell to the lowest level in nearly 8-1/2 years last week, suggesting the labour market recovery was gaining traction.

The Toronto stock market was set for a sharply higher open Thursday amid encouraging Chinese and European manufacturing data and strong earnings reports.

Bulgarian lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to accept Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski's resignation on Thursday, paving the way for an interim government to take over in August and a snap election in early October.

The world's biggest manufacturer of cancer drugs, which reports earnings every six months, said it had 5.641 billion Swiss francs in net income from April to June, down from 6.047 billion francs in the comparable period of 2013.

After two days of jury selection, lawyers are poised to give opening statements in the trial of a Detroit-area man who opened his front door and shot an unarmed woman, killing her.

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.