Business and Finance news

Coca-Cola Co. may buy the North American operations of its biggest bottler, a deal that echoes a move by rival PepsiCo in response to falling soft-drinks sales, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
If the partial acquisition of Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. goes through, the rest of the bottler would remain independent and buy […]

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Pakistan’s central bank aims to resume cutting interest rates when inflation eases, Governor Salim Raza said.
Inflation will slow as the effects of higher energy costs wear off, Raza said in an interview in Singapore today, without saying when. Consumer prices may rise between 11 percent and 11.5 percent in the six months through […]

Pushed by growing anger among Americans over the slow economic recovery, "jobs" has become the buzzword of the political season.
President Barack Obama mentioned it almost 20 times during his first State of the Union speech. Republican and Democrat leaders vow that job creation will drive their agendas as they push toward the midterm […]

Japan’s government could agree as much as $30 billion in new stimulus measures on Monday as economic growth is likely to slow next year due to sluggish personal spending and rising inventories.
Economists doubt whether that amount will be enough to push up growth significantly as the Democratic Party-led government will fund the stimulus with […]

Wall Street cash bonuses are set to increase by about 40 percent this year, the Wall Street Journal said citing a report by compensation consulting firm Johnson Associates.
In a report to be released later on Thursday, Johnson Associates projects that the biggest increases in year-end cash bonuses and equity awards will go to employees […]

Norges Bank raised its key interest rate a quarter point from a record low and signaled steeper increases than it previously forecast over the next three years as inflation accelerates and unemployment remains low.
The Oslo-based bank raised the overnight deposit rate to 1.5 percent, becoming the first European central bank to reverse its […]

American Express Co. posted stronger-than-expected quarterly earnings Thursday as the credit card company trimmed costs, a decline in consumer spending stabilized and bad loans eased.
Net income fell 21% to $640 million, or 53 cents per share, from $815 million, or 70 cents per share, a year earlier, the largest U.S. credit card company by […]

Mortgage applications in the U.S. dropped for a second consecutive week as borrowing costs climbed, a sign the recovery in home sales may cool.
The Mortgage Bankers Association’s index of applications to purchase a home or refinance a loan declined 14 percent to 641 in the week ended Oct. 16 from 742.9 a week […]

Chinese President Hu Jintao said countries with currencies that are held as reserves by other nations must consider the implications of their monetary policies for the rest of the world.
“Major reserve-currency issuing countries should take into account and balance the implications of their monetary policies for both their own economies and the world […]

Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher said the U.S. economy will probably undergo an extended period of slow growth while facing “financial headwinds” that will take years to wane.
“We are likely to see a prolonged period of sluggish economic performance and uncomfortably high unemployment as businesses reallocate capital and labor,” Fisher […]