Business News

A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, January 5, 2009. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)Reuters - Gains in the tech sector lifted U.S. stocks on Tuesday, offsetting another batch of weak data showing slumping factory orders and dismal pending home sales.



A broken 'For Sale' sign is seen outside a home in the Queens borough of New York, November 21, 2008. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)Reuters - Pending sales of existing U.S. homes dropped to a seven-year low in November, data showed on Tuesday, as rising job losses and a deepening economic recession kept potential house buyers on the sidelines.



German billionaire Adolf Merckle, pictured in this undated handout photo, has killed himself, his family said on January 6, 2009. 'The desperate situation of his companies caused by the financial crisis, the uncertainties of the last few weeks and his powerlessness to act, have broken the passionate family entrepreneur and he took his own life,' a family statement said. Prosecutors in the southern German town of Ulm, near Merckle's home, said the 74-year-old died when a train struck him late on Monday. There was no sign anyone else was involved, they said. Merckle was ranked as the world's 94th richest person in 2008 according to Forbes magazine and his family controls a number of German companies including cement maker HeidelbergCement and generic drug company Ratiopharm, but its empire was rocked last year by wrong-way bets made on shares in carmaker Volkswagen. (Merckle/Handout/Reuters)Reuters - German billionaire Adolf Merckle has committed suicide, in despair over the huge losses suffered by his business empire during the financial crisis, his family said on Tuesday.



An assembly worker in a file photo. (File/Reuters)Reuters - New orders received by U.S. factories plunged a much-greater-than-expected 4.6 percent in November, the fourth straight monthly decline and a sign the sharp drop in manufacturing is deepening the recession, a government report showed on Tuesday.



Bob Doll speaks at the Reuters Investment Summit in New York December 8, 2008. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)Reuters - The U.S. stock market could gain as much 12 percent in 2009 from current levels, despite a recession that will last at least into the first half of the year, a top executive with asset manager BlackRock said on Tuesday.



Women in Kimono, smile as they join the ceremony to start the first trading at the Tokyo Stock Exchange after the new year holidays in Tokyo. Global stock markets have held onto New Year optimism even as the euro suffered fresh losses amid signs of Europe's deepening recession and a looming energy standoff with Russia drove up oil prices.(AFP/Yoshikazu Tsuno)AFP - Global stock markets held onto New Year optimism Tuesday even as the euro suffered fresh losses amid signs of Europe's deepening recession and a looming energy standoff with Russia drove up oil prices.



Allan Goldstein, a retiree and investor with Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, testifies before the House Committee on Financial Services, Monday, Jan. 5, 2009, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)AP - Two more months of mortgage payments and retiree Allan Goldstein says he'll be broke, just another victim in what may be the biggest Ponzi scheme in history.



AP - House prices in Britain fell by their biggest annual amount in at least 56 years during 2008, as credit seized up and possible buyers stayed out of the market, a leading mortgage lender said Tuesday.
Reuters - Talbots Inc shares jumped 24 percent on Tuesday, a day after the women's apparel retailer said it entered into agreements with three banks to secure a total $150 million in committed lines of credit.