Oil Prices fluctuate on supply concerns and fears of economic downturn
Gasoline prices jumped back above $3 a gallon at the pump Monday even as oil prices waffled amid conflicting reports about the economy and crude supplies.

Retail gas prices have been slow to catch up with soaring crude prices, which have gained nearly 39 percent since late August to a trading high of $96.24 on Thursday. Gas prices only started rising steadily in mid-October.

The national average price of a gallon of gas rose 1.5 cents overnight to $3.004, and has jumped almost 25 cents in three weeks, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service.

Wall Street falls with Citi
Stocks fell on Monday after Citigroup's warning of billions more in loan losses compounded fears that the credit crunch could get worse.

The news sparked a sell-off in shares of other financial companies as investors questioned which among them would be the next to reveal damage from the meltdown in the U.S. housing and subprime mortgage markets.

The S&P financial index fell to a two-year low, while Citigroup's stock fell to its lowest in 4-1/2 years.

Analysts see more subprime writedowns in Q4
Major Wall Street banks and brokerages, struggling under the weight of large subprime mortgage holdings whose value has plunged steeply, may take additional write-downs of between $30 billion and $40 billion in the fourth quarter, a top analyst predicted on Monday.
"Everybody will have write-downs in the fourth quarter," Charles Peabody, partner at New York-based research firm Portales Partners LLC, said at the Reuters Finance Summit in New York.

Merrill faces $400m buyout to secure Fink

Merrill Lynch may have to buy out Larry Fink’s $400m stake in BlackRock if it wants the asset manager’s chief executive to succeed Stan O’Neal as chairman.

The buyout, which would be needed to avoid exposing Mr Fink to a potential conflict of interest, highlights the price the Wall Street banks may have to pay for new chiefs amid an acute la

ck of suitable candidates.

Both Merrill and Citigroup are looking for new chief executives and of the few potential candidates, many have sig

nificant drawbacks.

Google enters mobile phone market

Google Inc said on Monday it would offer a sof

tware system to make the Internet work as sm

oothly on mobile phones as it does on computers, seeking to spur change in a tightly controlled industry.

In its long-rumored entry into the mobile phone market, the world's leading Internet comp

any said it would start next week by allowing independent designers to tinker with its software, known as "Android." Google-based phones are due to appear in the latter half of next year.

Bewkes elected to be CEO of AOL Time Warner
Time Warner Inc's board on Monday elected Jeffrey Bewkes to succeed Richard Parsons as chief executive on January 1, stoking expectations that big changes lie ahead for the world's largest media company.

Bewkes, identified as the heir apparent since he became chief operating officer in 2005, will take the helm of Time Warner at a time when investors are demanding drastic measures to boost its sluggish share price.

Banks to offer $10B in Chrysler debt
Wall Street investment banks are planning to launch an offering of up to $10 billion in loans for Chrysler LLC's a utomotive business on Wednesday, according to a report published in the Wall Street Journal.

The loan offering is a sign of improvement in the corporate loan market, according to the Journal. The paper reported that the loans were part of the automaker's sale to private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP.

Alibaba.com IPO jump in Hong Kong debut

Chinese e-commerce portal Alibaba.com debuted on the Hong Kong stock market Tuesday, with its shares soaring 122 percent to 30 Hong Kong dollars ($3.87) from its issue price of 13.50 Hong Kong dollars ($1.74).

Demand has been heavy for the business-to-business Web site, which raised more than $1.5 billion through its global offering of 858.9 million shares, a 17 percent stake of the company.

Burger King profits up as shares fall on stake news
Burger King Holdings Inc (BKC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) reported higher-than-expected profit on Monday, but its stock fell 3 percent after the No. 2 hamburger chain said private equity firms that own more than half its shares plan to unload part of their stake.

Dell to buy EqualLogic
Dell, the world's secondbiggest personal computer maker, yesterday moved to wean itself further from its reliance on direct sales by announcing a $1.4bn deal to buy EqualLogic, a company specialising in storage virtualisation.

The agreed deal would be the biggest acquisition in Dell's 23-year history.

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This entry was posted by David Choi, on Monday, November 5, 2007. You can leave your response.