Stock Values

The Federal Reserve will have to raise its benchmark interest rate to 3 percent by the end of the year to combat inflation, said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at RBS Securities Inc. in New York.

Citigroup Inc. and Marshall & Ilsley Corp. were among the worst performing stocks in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index this year, dragged down by souring commercial and residential property loans that may extend the declines into 2010.

Japan Airlines Corp., Asia’s biggest carrier by sales, plunged to a record in Tokyo trading after reports the carrier may enter bankruptcy proceedings led investors to sell shares on the year’s last trading day.

GMAC, the home and auto lender that counts the U.S. government as the largest stakeholder, is discussing with the Obama administration a third bailout of $3 billion to $4 billion

Barton Biggs and Marc Faber, who recommended buying stocks in March when investors were dumping them, are again united as they predict gains for U.S. equities and the dollar

Treasuries were little changed after the government sold a record-tying $42 billion of five-year debt, the second of three note sales this week totaling $118 billion.

Sanofi-Aventis SA’s $1.9 billion bid for Chattem was leaked in advance to two French investors who reaped $4.2 million by making illegal insider trades, U.S. regulators claim in a lawsuit

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta "threw away his duties" by divulging bank secrets to hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam, a U.S. prosecutor said at the start of Gupta's insider-trading trial on Monday.

ALBIREH, Lebanon (Reuters) - Hundreds of Islamist gunmen fired in the air on Monday at the funeral of a Sunni Muslim cleric whose killing ignited street battles and brought the bloodshed from Syria's 14-month-old uprising spilling across the border into Lebanon.

SANTO DOMINGO (Reuters) - Ruling party candidate Danilo Medina claimed victory on Monday in the Dominican Republic's hotly disputed presidential election, avenging his defeat 12 years ago by opposition candidate Hipolito Mejia.

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Twenty five mutineers loyal to a renegade general have been killed in clashes with the army in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the government said on Monday.

New research casts doubt on a claim that 90 percent of employment growth happens after a company goes public

(Reuters) - Bank of America Corp is "very comfortable" with the composition of its corporate investment portfolio, which is invested mostly in government-guaranteed mortgage bonds and U.S. Treasuries, Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan said at an investor conference on Monday.

SHANGHAI/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc will sell as much as half of its 40 percent stake in Chinese e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba Group for $7.1 billion, ending years of fractious talks over how to extract value from its most prized asset.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Monday not enough had been done to end the euro zone debt crisis but reassured savers worried by a downgrading of Spanish banks that British banks were well regulated and well capitalized.

VIENNA/DUBAI (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog chief held talks in Tehran on Monday ahead of a meeting between major powers and Iranian officials this week, but there was no immediate sign of a breakthrough in the tense confrontation over Iran's nuclear programme.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers investigating Wal-Mart Stores Inc for alleged bribery in Mexico are frustrated by the lack of cooperation they have received from the company, a committee staffer familiar with the investigation said.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Angela Merkel returns from one of her most difficult foreign trips in recent memory on Tuesday to face more, severe tests of her long-standing command over the policy agenda in Germany and Europe.

SANAA (Reuters) - A suicide bomber in army uniform killed more than 90 soldiers in the heart of the Yemeni capital on Monday and an al Qaeda affiliate threatened more attacks if a U.S.-backed campaign against militants in the front-line state did not stop.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - After a three-week selloff in financial markets, measures of risk show investors in Asia are assuming a return to stability, and with a level of confidence that could be horribly misplaced.