Wal-Mart defends low-price ads after rivals' objection

(Reuters) - Retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc has gone on the defensive against charges by competitors that a recent ad campaign is using inaccurate information, leading the competitors to file complaints with state legal officials.A Wal-Mart Stores spokesman defended the retailer's ad campaign that claims to offer better prices on some products than competitors, after the Wall Street Journal reported...

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Asian shares drop on Fed minutes, dollar extends gains

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares fell on Friday, as investors booked profits from a recent sharp climb after senior Federal Reserve officials expressed concerns about continuing to expand stimulative bond buying, but the dollar extended gains as U.S. debt yields rose.European shares were seen tracking Asian peers lower, with financial spreadbetters predicting London's FTSE 100, Paris's CAC-40 and Frankfurt's...

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Fed becoming worried about stimulus side effects

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Reserve officials are increasingly concerned about the potential risks of the U.S. central bank's asset purchases on financial markets, even if they look set to continue an open-ended stimulus program for now.In a surprise to Wall Street, minutes from the Fed's December policy meeting, published on Thursday, showed a growing reticence about further increases in the...

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Report: Israeli ex-spy chief criticizes PM on Iran

A recently retired Israeli spy chief says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acted irresponsibly regarding Iran's nuclear program and accuses him of prioritizing personal concerns over national interests.Yuval Diskin, chief of Israel's Shin Bet intelligence agency from 2005 to 2011, has voiced similar criticisms before.Diskin says Netanyahu tried to convince him and his colleagues to approve what he...

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Sadr visits Baghdad church, site of 2010 attack

Firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr visited a Baghdad church that was the scene of a deadly 2010 attack as well as one of the Iraqi capital's main Sunni mosques on Friday, an apparent overture to other religious groups as opposition mounts against his rival, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.The cleric's stops at the holy sites — a rare public appearance by Al-Sadr outside predominantly Shiite parts...

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Israel ex-spy chief blasts PM ahead of election

JERUSALEM (AP) — A prominent Israeli ex-intelligence chief sought to sway Israelis against Benjamin Netanyahu in upcoming elections, saying in an interview published Friday that the prime minister has mismanaged Israel's response to Iran's nuclear program and missed opportunities to make inroads on a peace agreement with the Palestinians.The interview by Yuval Diskin was an unusually strong and overt...

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Syrian warplanes bomb suburbs of the capital

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian ground and air forces bombarded rebel strongholds on the outskirts of Damascus and other areas around the country Friday while anti-government forces targeted a military post near the capital with a car bomb, activists said.The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said warplanes targeted neighborhoods around the capital including Douma, which troops have been trying...

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Fatah party stages first rally in Gaza since 2007

 Leaders of the Palestinian Fatah party led tens of thousands of supporters Friday in a mass rally in the Gaza Strip, the first such gathering for the largely secular party in the territory since the rival Islamist Hamas seized power there in 2007.The demonstration, which was condoned by Hamas, showed how the long-bitter relations between the rival Palestinian factions have improved since an...

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Shares steady after rally, dollar jumps

 World stocks stalled on Thursday as traders were cautious after equities hit an 18-month high, while the U.S. dollar climbed to a three-week high against a basket of currencies on concerns about more budget wrangling in Washington.Data suggesting some momentum in the U.S. economy as the year ended showed private-sector employers stepped up hiring in December, allowing for the upward tick in...

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Stocks edge lower as next fiscal showdown looms

Stock indexes turned lower Thursday afternoon after the Federal Reserve said its policymakers are split over how long to continue a bond-purchasing program intended to stimulate the economy.The Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor's 500 index treaded water for much of the day, then dipped into the red after 2 p.m. Eastern, when the Fed released minutes from its December policy...

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Fed split on stimulus plans nudges stocks lower

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are fading into the close of trading on Wall Street after the Federal Reserve revealed a split among its policymakers over how long to continue an economic stimulus program.The market started on a weak note Thursday following mixed holiday sales reports from retailers and the prospect of another fiscal fight looming in Congress over the nation's borrowing limit.The Dow Jones...

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Private sector job gains offer hope for labor market

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Private-sector employers shrugged off a looming budget crisis and stepped up hiring in December, offering further evidence of underlying strength in the economy as 2012 ended.While other data on Thursday showed an increase in the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits, the trend remained consistent with steady job growth."The underlying economy has momentum,...

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Stocks fade after Fed discloses split on stimulus

A two-day rally in the stock market came to an end Thursday afternoon when an account of the Federal Reserve's last meeting revealed a split between bank officials over how long the Fed should keep buying bonds to support the economy.The Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor's 500 index treaded water for much of the day, then slid into the red around 2 p.m. Eastern, after the Fed...

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New purported BlackBerry Z10 specs emerge: 1.5GHz processor, 2GB RAM, 8MP camera

Another week, another batch of purported leaks for Research In Motion’s (RIMM) first BlackBerry 10-powered Z10. BBin claims to have most of the Z10′s final specs confirmed and it is shaping up to be a powerful device. Rumored specs for the Z10 include a TI OMAP 4470 1.5GHz dual-core processor (Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8960 for the U.S. and Canada), a 4.2-inch display (1,280 x 768 resolution), quad-band...

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Apple still said to account for 87% of North American tablet traffic as Kindle Fire, Nexus 7 gain

Apple’s (AAPL) share of the global tablet market is in decline now that low-cost Android slates are proliferating, but the iPad still appears to be the most used tablet by a huge margin. Ad firm Chitika regularly monitors tablet traffic in the United States and Canada and in its latest report, Apple’s iPad was responsible for almost 90% of all tablet traffic across the company’s massive network.[More...

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iOS apps see Christmas sales spike shrink in 2012

Distimo just released its statistics on Christmas Day app downloads and revenue growth… and the download spike is far smaller than it was last year. Back in 2011, Christmas Day iOS app download volume spiked 230% above the December average. This year, the increase was just 87% — far below industry expectations. The revenue spike came in at 70%.[More from BGR: Google names 12 best Android apps of 2012]Interestingly,...

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Leaked BlackBerry 10 slides show video calling and screen sharing for BBM

Research in Motion (RIMM) recently updated its BlackBerry Messenger application to include free Wi-Fi calling. With the release of BlackBerry 10 just around the corner, RIM is looking to add even more features to its flagship messaging app. Slides from a purported internal BlackBerry 10 presentation that were originally posted on the CrackBerry forums suggest that the company is planning to update...

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iPad mini met with ‘insatiable’ demand in China

Despite a “soft” launch with few lines and seemingly abundant availability, China is going crazy for the iPad mini according Topeka Capital Markets analyst Brian White. His checks in China and Hong Kong reveal consumers are snapping up iPad minis at rapid rates, causing short supply, even with Apple (AAPL) opening two new retail stores in Hong Kong and three in China. White wrote in a research note...

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Egypt's leader sees currency stabilizing "within days"

 Egypt's pound fell to a record low on Monday as the president signaled his government would allow it to depreciate slowly for several more days to stop a drain on foreign reserves that has driven the economy into crisis since the fall of Hosni Mubarak.Hit by a new bout of political turmoil in the last month, the pound had weakened to a record low on Sunday at a new dollar auction brought in...

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TSX rises with hope for "fiscal cliff" deal

 Canada's main stock index rose more than 1 percent on Monday, boosted by the materials sector, as U.S. lawmakers pushed for a last-minute agreement to avoid the "fiscal cliff" that could put the U.S. economy into recession.Gold rallied in the afternoon after news of a potential deal, and held its gains as President Barack Obama said a deal to prevent the tax hikes and sharp spending cuts was...

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Equities rally as U.S. "cliff" deal nears; oil up

Wall Street rallied on Monday and global equities finished their best year in the last three as U.S. lawmakers closed in on a deal to avoid a budget crisis that many fear could cripple the world economy in 2013.U.S. President Barack Obama said Congress was close to an agreement that would start chipping away at the deficit without raising middle-class taxes.Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell...

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A surprisingly good vintage as market logs gains

If you'd told investors what was going to happen in 2012 — U.S. economic growth at stall speed, an intensifying European debt crisis, a slowdown in China, fiscal deadlock in Washington, decelerating corporate earnings growth — and asked how the stock market would perform, few would have predicted a good year.But that's just what they got.The Dow Jones industrial average, the Standard & Poor's...

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Housing and jobs key to lifting S&P toward record

It may be a big if, but assuming Washington lawmakers can get past the "fiscal cliff," many analysts say that the outlook for stocks next year is good, as a recovering housing market and an improving jobs outlook helps the economy maintain a slow, but steady recovery.An advance of 10 percent in 2013 would send the S&P 500 toward, and possibly past, its record close of 1,565 reached in October...

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