Wire Business News

The unemployment rate dipped slightly to 7.6 percent in March but employers added disappointing 88,000 during the month, the government reported Friday.

The U.S. trade deficit unexpectedly narrowed in February as exports climbed close to an all-time high and the volume of imported crude oil fell to the lowest level in 17 years.

Outsiders might hear the opening notes of a war in the deluge of threats and provocations from North Korea, but to South Koreans it is a familiar drumbeat.

In case Americans want to scarf down their fast-food even faster, KFC is stripping the bones out of its chicken.

France's finance minister is warning that the country will barely grow this year.

Outsiders might hear the opening notes of a war in the deluge of threats and provocations from North Korea, but to South Koreans it is a familiar drumbeat.

Daimler AG says its mainstay Mercedes-Benz luxury brand recorded the best monthly sales figures in its history in March despite weak car markets in western Europe.

Samsung Electronics Co. said its operating profit last quarter rose 53 percent over a year earlier, outpacing expectations for what's normally a slow time for consumer electronics sales.

Industrial orders in Germany rebounded more strongly than expected in February, a promising sign for first-quarter growth in Europe's biggest economy.

Most stock markets fell sharply Friday after weaker-than-expected U.S. jobs data raised concern about the recovery in the world's largest economy.

India has decided to lift curbs on its $15.5 billion sugar industry that restricted sales of sugar on the open market and required mills to sell sugar to the government at a deep discount.

The price of oil dipped below $93 a barrel Friday after a weak U.S. jobs report cast doubt on the strength of the U.S. economy.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is about to find out that bending central bankers to his will was the easy part of jolting Japan's economy out of its two decade slump.

A new poll shows Germans widely approve of Chancellor Angela Merkel's crisis management following a bailout deal for Cyprus, suggesting it remains a key asset for the leader as she prepares to seek a third term in elections in September.

Lagardere has confirmed its intention to sell its stake in European aerospace and defense giant EADS by the end of July.

A group of British lawmakers launched a scathing attack Friday on the men who ran failed lender Halifax Bank of Scotland - blaming their "toxic" decisions for the bank's downfall and recommending they never be allowed to work in the financial sector again.

Power was restored Friday to a cooling system at a tsunami-damaged nuclear plant in Japan that failed for the second time in a month after an outage caused by construction work to keep out rats suspected of setting off the earlier blackout.

The government has decided to lift curbs on India's $15.5 billion sugar industry allowing mill owners to sell their produce in the open market.

A streak of robust job growth came to a halt in March, signaling that U.S. employers may have grown cautious in a fragile economy.

Chevron Corp. says it has completed repairs at an area of its Richmond refinery that was damaged last year in a fire.

For most would-be homebuyers, making a run at homeownership is going to mean getting approved for a home loan.

Total U.S. money market mutual fund assets rose $2.61 billion to $2.631 trillion for the week that ended Wednesday, according to the Investment Company Institute.

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew has become the latest member of President Barack Obama's Cabinet to give back a portion of his salary.

A weak jobs report sent prices for energy and industrial metals lower. Natural gas futures soared, while grains and beans ended mixed.

NAME: Mortimer J. "Tim" Buckley

Tim Buckley may be today's most influential fund industry leader, measured by his impact on how Americans' retirement funds are invested.

BACK IN: Investors got back in to the market after a slump a day earlier. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 55 points, almost exactly half of what it lost the day before.

The No. 2 official at the Federal Reserve says she hopes the old days of extreme secrecy surrounding the Federal Reserve are gone forever.

Stocks gained on Thursday as investors took advantage of a slump a day earlier to get back into the market at lower prices. The Dow regained half of its loss from Wednesday, when investors sold stocks on concern that U.S. economic growth is slowing.

Stocks are closing lower on Wall Street after the U.S. government reported a sharp slowdown in hiring last month.

Macy's gave its chief executive Terry Lundgren pay package worth $11.3 million in 2012. That's down 22 percent from 2011 as he failed to meet all of Macy's financial performance goals.

A federal appeals court says that a Johnson & Johnson heart stent does not infringe a patent held by a doctor and inventor, overturning a $482 million decision against the company.

A trustee overseeing MF Global says a risky trading strategy and "negligent conduct" by former CEO Jon Corzine and his top managers contributed to the brokerage firm's collapse in late 2011.

Italian police on Thursday arrested a priest accused of pocketing 4 million euros ($5.1 million) from a Catholic hospital he ran and helping run up 600 million euros ($769 million) in debts that forced it into bankruptcy.

U.S. shares of Toyota, Honda and Nissan soared Thursday as investors anticipated that a weaker yen will allow them to sell cars more cheaply in the critical U.S. market.

Stocks dropped sharply on Wall Street Friday after the government reported that U.S. employers added the fewest jobs in nine months in March and more people gave up looking for work. The report was worse than economists were expecting.