Business and Finance news

Chrysler said Tuesday its U.S. sales jumped 27 percent in October, while General Motors reported a slimmer 2 percent increase on increased demand for both cars and trucks.
Chrysler Group LLC sold more than 114,000 cars and trucks last month compared with 90,000 a year earlier. The results marked the Auburn Hills, Mich.-based automaker’s best October […]

Asian markets were mostly lower in early trading Monday, as investors shifted their focus from Europe to the U.S. economy.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 index rose 0.5 percent to 9,096.27. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 0.4 percent to 19,938.46, while South Korea’s Kospi was 0.4 percent lower at 1,921.78. Benchmarks in Australia and Singapore also fell, while […]

Stocks edged between small gains and losses Friday afternoon as traders scrutinized a plan to contain Europe’s debt crisis that sent the market soaring a day earlier.
The Dow Jones industrial average ended up nearly 23 points at 12,231. The Dow surged 339 points the day before, its biggest gain since Aug. 11. The Dow is […]

U.S. stock futures are mixed after European leaders said they made progress on resolving the region’s debt problems at a weekend summit but delayed offering any details.
European leaders say they will unveil plans to help resolve the crisis by Wednesday. Worries about Europe’s debt problems have helped drag global stocks up and down over the […]

EU finance ministers neared agreement Saturday on forcing banks to raise just over euro100 billion ($140 billion) to make sure they have enough reserves to weather further losses on their Greek debt holdings and market turmoil, a European official said.
Finance ministers from the 17 nations that use the euro decided Friday that banks must take […]

Amgen Inc. is laying off about 380 employees in research and development as it restructures its R&D operations.
The biotech company, based in Thousand Oaks, Calif., says the layoffs are targeted to enable the company to better allocate its research and development resources.
Company spokeswoman Christine Regan says the affected employees were notified Wednesday. They work at […]

Thousands of striking workers blockaded roads leading to Freeport-McMoRan Cooper & Gold Inc.’s mine in easternmost Indonesia on Tuesday, preventing food, medicine and other supplies from reaching holed-up staffers and their families.
Production at the mine, which holds some of the largest gold and copper reserves in the world, was halted for a second day over […]

While Research In Motion Ltd. struggles to contain a service outage that’s affecting tens of million of BlackBerry users around the world, its co-chief executives are most conspicuous by their absence.
Neither Jim Balsillie, who was in Dubai Monday at an industry conference when the outage began, nor Mike Lazaridis, the dual CEOs and co-chairmen who […]

Asian markets were mixed in early trading Monday, as investors evaluated a pledge by Germany and France to ensure European banks have the capital to weather any shock that may occur from the region’s debt crisis.
On Sunday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that a comprehensive response to the debt crisis […]

Stocks are closing sharply higher for a third straight day after U.S. retailers reported stronger September sales and the European Central Bank moved to support that region’s lenders.
Target, Nordstrom, Macy’s and other retailers reported sales that beat Wall Street’s expectations. Analysts said the results suggested the U.S. was not in another recession.
In Europe, investors cheered […]