DailyFinance

Filed under: Company News, Goldman Sachs , Morgan Stanley Bailed out with taxpayer funds just a year ago, major U.S. investment banks may again be gearing up to hand out record bonuses. But as the public outrage builds, authorities seem to be betting that a theatrical crackdown on the hedge fund industry will calm the widespread anger about Wall Street's excesses....

Filed under: Economy, Investing Asian stocks rose Tuesday. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index added 0.3%, ending the day at 22,268. In China, the Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.1% to 3,179 and in Japan, the Nikkei Index closed up 0.6% at 9,871.Shares in Chinese drug companies soared as the number of reported swine flu cases swelled to nearly 60,000, and the death toll rose to 30....

Filed under: Company News, Technology, Google What would you do if you had $10 billion in cash to play with? If you're Google (GOOG), you drop $750 million on AdMob, a leader in mobile display advertising. The search giant announced a deal to do just that on Monday, in a clear indication of where it sees the future of its business....

Filed under: Company News, Technology, GreenAfter announcing some impressive plans to develop electric cars earlier this year, Chrysler has provided few details lately, and now we know why: the company has disbanded its crash program to produce vehicles running on electrons. Chrysler has also backed off a bold January 2009 pledge to manufacture 500,000 conventional and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles by 2013....

Filed under: Economy, InvestingAs news broke that the U.S. jobless rate crossed the dreaded 10 percent mark, many investors braced for the market's reaction. The response to word that unemployment reached levels not seen since 1983? The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 17.46 points to 10,023.42 and the S&P 500 ended the day at 1,069.30, up 2.67 points....

Filed under: Company News, Media, Wal-Mart Stores, Amazon.com, Inc.The howling-wolf T-shirt phenomenon it is not. Walmart Stores (WMT) has closed the lid on customer reviews of its caskets. As DailyFinance reported this week, the retailer is selling 15 caskets, and more than 130 urns and cremains containers, through its website....

Filed under: Company News, Economy, PeopleIt finally happened. After months of anticipation and trepidation, the nation's unemployment rate inched into double digits, reaching 10.2 percent in October, after employers cut 190,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department reported Friday. The increase topped analyst expectations of 175,000 lost positions and a rise in the jobless rate to 9.9 percent....

Filed under: Economy, InvestingAsia's major indexes rose Friday, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index climbing 1.6 percent to close at 21,830, Japan's Nikkei Index increasing 0.7 percent to end the day at 9,789 and China's Shanghai Composite Index adding 0.3 percent to settle at 3,164.Yet another successful IPO sent shares of Greens Holdings Ltd....

Filed under: Company News, PeopleMemo to would-be Silicon Valley moguls: do not double-cross a pair of highly litigious billionaires. After weeks of back and forth legal jousting, the tech heavyweights fighting over Skype are set to announce a deal in which the founders of the popular Web-calling service would regain a stake in the company they sold to eBay (EBAY) in 2005 for $2.6 billion, according to Bloomberg....

Filed under: Economy, People, BlockbusterOn Monday, Aaron Siebers limped into his job at a Blockbuster (BBI) video store in Edgewater, Colo. Bleeding from a deep stab wound in his lower leg and superficial cuts on his face and body, he claimed that he had been assaulted by three "skinheads or hispanic males" who were "dressed in black." Local law enforcement agencies sprang into action....

Filed under: Company News, Economy, Target Corp., Costco Wholesale Corp., TJXShoppers are coming out of hibernation, but that doesn't mean the holiday season won't be a bear. October retail sales were up around 2 percent -- a little better than analysts had expected, and with new pockets of growth. But the reports were wildly uneven....

Filed under: Columns, Economy, Moody's Corp.Wall Street has a short memory when it comes to pay. That's what came to mind when I saw a report saying that many big leveraged buyouts (LBOs) are in trouble -- four of the 10 biggest companies bought in leveraged buyouts have stopped paying back the money they borrowed....

Filed under: Company News, Economy, InvestingOn Wednesday, the Federal Housing Administration was supposed to release its independent audit determining the soundness of the agency. Many have questioned that soundness because, as of Oct. 1, its reserve fund dipped below the required 2 percent of the agency's outstanding loans for the first time in its history....

Filed under: Company News, Earnings, Cisco Systems Inc. Cisco's (CSCO) figures were good, but almost incidental to its bright prospects. The company has become, through both organic growth and M&A, the business world's great proxy for the rise of online video. Its routers deliver massive packets of data across the web....

Filed under: Economy, InvestingShares in Asia closed mostly lower today with Japan's Nikkei Index falling 1.3 percent to 9,717. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index fell 0.6 percent to close at 21,479, and in China, the Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.9 percent, ending the day at 3,155.In Japan, Sanyo Electric Co....

Filed under: Technology, GreenThat luscious ahi tuna roll you chowed down on at your local sushi joint? It's the same as eating an endangered Siberian tiger. Well, not quite. But scientists are increasingly worried that ahi, the blood-red belle of the raw-fish ball, is being quickly fished to extinction courtesy of the never-ending quest for superior sushi....

Filed under: Company News, Technology, Investing, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, IBM, Intel, AMDNew York State Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo filed a massive antitrust lawsuit Wednesday against Intel (INTC), accusing the giant chipmaker of violating state and federal laws by using "bribery and coercion" as well as "illegal threats and collusion" to hurt rivals....