Business and Finance news

Employers recruited more than half their interns for full-time positions last year, the highest rate of intern-to-staff hiring in a decade, according to survey results released Thursday.
The survey showed that companies turn 58% of their interns into full-time employees.
"That’s the highest conversion rate we’ve seen since we started tracking this on an annual basis […]

Spain’s resistance to Europe’s debt crisis may be tested next month as local governments taking power after regional elections threaten to repeat Catalonia’s experience when revealing the state of their finances.
Finance Minister Elena Salgado, who is spearheading the nation’s efforts to stave off turmoil, agreed to seven deficit- cutting plans with local finance chiefs […]

Rebounding energy demand and prices helped Arch Coal Inc. post a $55.6 million first-quarter profit and prompted the nation’s No. 2 coal producer to raise its earnings forecast for the full year.
Net income was 34 cents per share compared with a loss of $1.8 million, or 1 cent per share, in the same quarter a […]

The yen and dollar fell versus most of their major peers on speculation the central banks in Japan and the U.S. will this week keep interest rates near zero, while policy is being tightened elsewhere.
The euro rose toward a 16-month high versus the dollar on prospects European Central Bank officials will signal that further […]

Authorities in China’s commercial hub of Shanghai say they are easing fees that sparked trucker protests and disrupted the flow of goods through the country’s busiest port.
A government spokesman told official Xinhua News Agency on Saturday that authorities lowered some fees Friday and removed others that had been imposed without prior notice.
Hundreds of drivers parked […]

The evidence shows that an ex-billionaire on trial in the biggest hedge fund insider trading case in history used corrupt, well-connected friends and employees to get secrets and earn tens of millions of dollars illegally, a prosecutor said in his closing argument Wednesday.
“The evidence is now in, and you know the evidence is overwhelming,” Assistant […]

Japan’s exports in March fell for the first time in 16 months, hit by the fallout from last month’s massive earthquake and tsunami, which destroyed factories and crippled supply chains, the government said Wednesday.
Auto exports especially took a beating in the month as the twin disasters forced Toyota, Honda and Nissan to suspend their all […]

Investors are paying the smallest discounts for Treasuries other than the newest, most-traded bonds since the start of the financial crisis, a sign of growing demand even as the Federal Reserve’s $600 billion buying program approaches its conclusion.
Yields on older notes with 10 years left to maturity have fallen to within 11.4 basis points, […]

Mexico’s anti-trust commission has hit billionaire Carlos Slim’s cellphone subsidiary with a 12 billion peso ($1 billion) fine, parent company America Movil announced.
The Federal Competition Commission said the cellphone subsidiary, Telcel, engaged in monopolistic practices associated with call terminations, America Movil said in a filing with the Mexican stock exchange late Friday.
The company said it […]

India’s inflation accelerated in March, beating the central bank’s estimate and increasing pressure for higher interest rates.
The benchmark wholesale-price index rose 8.98 percent from a year earlier after an 8.31 percent gain in February, the commerce ministry said in a statement in New Delhi today. The median forecast of 28 economists in a Bloomberg […]