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• Wall Street rises after growth in services sector
• Service sector picks up modestly in May: ISM
• Euro zone in decline, U.S. and China gain
• Morgan Stanley to pay $5 million to settle CFTC case
• Spain says credit markets closing its doors, G7 takes no action
• Italy prosecutors probe S&P in New York: source
• German industry orders slump as foreign demand falters
• MF Global trustee sees $3 billion in potential claims
• Baby steps to EU bank union come too late for crisis
• THL buys most of Party City, values it at $2.7 billion
• Berkshire seeks independent examiner in ResCap case
• Top EU court allows EDF to keep disputed $1.5 billion
• Home prices gained in April: CoreLogic
• Banker Profumo indicted in UniCredit tax case: source
• Oracle to buy Collective Intellect
• China May inflation to cool, output seen near three-year lows
• Analysis: G7 must look beyond China for euro zone rescuer
• HP says Oracle violated contract, seeks billions
• South Africa police probe MTN Iran graft allegations
• Facebook comments, ads don't sway most users: poll
• Goldman CEO tells jury about board confidentiality
• Dewey creditors' committee taps law firm Brown Rudnick
• Exxon Mobil warns red tape risks snuffing out gas boom
• Chrysler CEO says "no need" for pension buyouts
• U.S.: Restitution impractical for Stanford victims
• Exxon Mobil says may export LNG from the U.S
• BlackRock chief equity strategist Bob Doll to retire
• JPMorgan hands operations executive more authority
• Schools turn their noses up at 'pink slime'
• Oil price little changed as investors track Europe
• Disney to banish junk-food ads from kid shows
• Spain premier calls for EU bank unity plan
• Thomas H. Lee buys controlling stake in Party City
• Obama, Senate Dems court women with fair pay bill
• J&J to stop selling pelvic mesh tied to lawsuits
• US service companies expanded in May
• US stocks waver as emergency call on Europe starts
• News Summary: IEA says China gas demand to double

Wall Street rises after growth in services sector Posted: 05 Jun 2012 07:45 AM PDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose on Tuesday, led by recently beaten down financial shares, after data showed the economy's services sector grew slightly faster than expected in May. The pace of growth in the services sector picked up in May as a gauge of new orders improved, according to an industry report released on Tuesday. The Institute for Supply Management's services index edged up to 53.7 from 53.5 in April, a touch above economists' forecasts for it to hold steady. "The (equities) market is very fearful of the economic data. ...

Service sector picks up modestly in May: ISM Posted: 05 Jun 2012 09:10 AM PDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - The pace of growth in the vast services sector edged up in May driven by gains in new orders, a welcome comfort after recent disappointing economic data. The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said on Tuesday its services index edged up to 53.7 from 53.5 in April; economists had expected the index to hold steady at April's level. A reading above 50 indicates expansion in the sector, which accounts for about two-thirds of economic activity. ...

Euro zone in decline, U.S. and China gain Posted: 05 Jun 2012 09:02 AM PDT LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - All of the euro zone's major economies are now in various states of decline, according to business surveys that heaped more pressure on Europe's leaders to stop the region becoming the center of a new global crisis. The latest purchasing managers indexes (PMIs), published on Tuesday, underlined why finance chiefs from the Group of Seven leading industrialized powers held emergency talks on the euro zone's debt crisis. They agreed to work together to address pressing problems in Spain and Greece, Japan's Finance Minister Jun Azumi said. ...

Morgan Stanley to pay $5 million to settle CFTC case Posted: 05 Jun 2012 08:29 AM PDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Tuesday ordered Morgan Stanley to pay $5 million to settle charges it executed unlawful noncompetitive trades. The CFTC said Morgan Stanley executed, processed and reported off-exchange futures trades to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade as exchanges for related positions (EFRPs) over an 18-month period. The EFRPs constituted "fictitious sales" because the futures trades were executed noncompetitively and not in accordance with exchange rules, the CFTC said. ...

Spain says credit markets closing its doors, G7 takes no action Posted: 05 Jun 2012 09:22 AM PDT MADRID/TOKYO (Reuters) - Spain said on Tuesday that credit markets were closing to the euro zone's fourth biggest economy as finance chiefs of the Group of Seven major economies conferred on the currency bloc's worsening debt crisis but took no joint action. Treasury Minister Cristobal Montoro sent out a dramatic distress signal about the impact of his country's banking crisis on government borrowing, saying that at current rates, financial markets were effectively shut to Spain. "The risk premium says Spain doesn't have the market door open," Montoro said on Onda Cero radio. ...

Italy prosecutors probe S&P in New York: source Posted: 05 Jun 2012 07:23 AM PDT MILAN (Reuters) - Italian prosecutors have probed Standard & Poor's headquarters in New York for alleged market manipulation in a investigation over the credit-rating agency's downgrades of Italy, a legal source said on Tuesday. The S&P base in New York was probed by prosecutors in Trani, a small town in southern Italy, under a law which holds companies liable for crimes committed by their employees. A lawyer for S&P in Milan said he believed the development was a "formal step" in the ongoing Trani case. S&P has rejected the prosecutors' allegations as groundless. ...

German industry orders slump as foreign demand falters Posted: 05 Jun 2012 06:40 AM PDT BERLIN (Reuters) - German industrial orders fell at their fastest rate since November 2011 in April as orders from abroad dried up, adding to signs that Europe's largest economy is heading for a slowdown. Seasonally and price-adjusted order intake sank 1.9 percent on the month, Economy Ministry data showed on Tuesday, well below the consensus expectation for a decline of 1.0 percent in a Reuters poll of 34 economists. The fall was driven by a 3.6 percent drop in orders from abroad. Orders for consumer and capital goods were the hardest hit, falling 5 percent and 3.3 percent respectively. ...

MF Global trustee sees $3 billion in potential claims Posted: 05 Jun 2012 02:10 AM PDT (Reuters) - MF Global Holdings Ltd could have more than $3 billion in claims against its former affiliates, Louis Freeh, the trustee overseeing the wind-down of the parent company of the collapsed broker-dealer, said in his first status report. The potential recoveries for the parent company's creditors will come primarily from such claims, Freeh said in his 119-page report that was submitted to the bankruptcy court. Freeh said his investigation into potential claims and causes of action is in its early stages, and details will be provided to the court as it progresses. ...

Baby steps to EU bank union come too late for crisis Posted: 05 Jun 2012 07:53 AM PDT BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission will propose far-reaching powers for regulators to deal with failing banks on Wednesday, a step towards the banking union the European Central Bank has demanded to secure the euro's future. But the proposal, which suggests closer coordination between countries and increased powers to force losses onto bondholders, is unlikely to take effect before 2014, too late for Spain, which could be forced to seek a Greek-style bailout if it cannot refinance its indebted lenders. ...

THL buys most of Party City, values it at $2.7 billion Posted: 05 Jun 2012 06:32 AM PDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Thomas H. Lee Partners has struck a deal to buy control of Party City in a deal that values North America's largest retailer of party goods at $2.69 billion, the private equity firm said on Tuesday. The retailer's current private equity owners -- Advent International Corp, Berkshire Partners LLC and Weston Presidio -- as well as Party City management will retain minority stakes in the company, THL said. The sale comes more than a year after Party City's owners filed for an initial public offering. ...

Berkshire seeks independent examiner in ResCap case Posted: 05 Jun 2012 06:26 AM PDT (Reuters) - Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc has asked a court to appoint an independent examiner in the Residential Capital LLC (ResCap) bankruptcy case to investigate some transactions between the company and its parent. Berkshire, a major ResCap creditor which tried to buy the company before it filed for bankruptcy, termed the transactions with Ally Financial Inc "potentially improper" and said the examiner should evaluate potential claims arising from them. ResCap, which is Ally Financial's mortgage unit, filed for bankruptcy protection last month. ...

Top EU court allows EDF to keep disputed $1.5 billion Posted: 05 Jun 2012 07:33 AM PDT BRUSSELS (Reuters) - French power giant EDF won a 15-year legal battle to keep 1 billion euros in state aid on Tuesday when Europe's highest court said the European Commission was wrong to rule the payment was illegal. The case goes back to 1997, when, according to the European Commission, France waived a tax claim against the then wholly state-owned company, valued at the time at 888.89 million euros ($1.11 billion). The Commission ruled in 2003 that the waiver strengthened EDF's competitive position with peers and constituted improper state aid, and ordered EDF to pay 1.22 billion euros ($1. ...

Home prices gained in April: CoreLogic Posted: 05 Jun 2012 07:06 AM PDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Home prices climbed in April in a fresh sign of stabilization for the housing market, data analysis firm CoreLogic said on Tuesday. CoreLogic's home price index rose 2.2 percent in April from the previous month and gained 1.1 percent from the year before. Excluding distressed sales, prices jumped 2.6 percent for the month and were up 1.9 percent on a yearly basis. Distressed sales - which include foreclosed homes and properties where the homeowner is behind on payments - are often done at significantly reduced prices. ...

Banker Profumo indicted in UniCredit tax case: source Posted: 05 Jun 2012 05:07 AM PDT MILAN (Reuters) - A Milan judge on Tuesday ordered top Italian banker Alessandro Profumo and another 19 people to stand trial for alleged tax fraud at UniCredit stemming from the use of a financial instrument provided by Barclays , a legal source said. The case centers on suspected tax fraud in 2007 and 2008 from a complex financial scheme, known as Project Brontos, which was set up by Britain's Barclays to the benefit of Italy's largest bank by assets UniCredit. ...

Oracle to buy Collective Intellect Posted: 05 Jun 2012 05:49 AM PDT (Reuters) - Oracle Corp will buy Collective Intellect, which helps businesses to get information about consumers from Facebook and Twitter pages. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. The deal comes a day after Oracle's rival Salesforce.com Inc agreed to buy Buddy Media, a social media marketing company. Collective Intellect uses its web-based text mining and analytics software to help its customers to collect and process information from online consumer conversations and other available content. ...

China May inflation to cool, output seen near three-year lows Posted: 05 Jun 2012 04:05 AM PDT BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese inflation is expected to have cooled further in May and factory output growth is set to come in not far from three-year lows, Reuters polls show, as calls grow for China to take more action to fight its worst economic slowdown in three years. Analysts forecast annual consumer price inflation to have retreated to 3.2 percent in May from 3.4 percent in April, comfortably within the government's 2012 target of 4 percent. They say sedate inflation gives China room to relax monetary policy and shield its economy from bigger headwinds from Europe's debt crisis. ...

Analysis: G7 must look beyond China for euro zone rescuer Posted: 05 Jun 2012 05:44 AM PDT BEIJING (Reuters) - Finance chiefs of the Group of Seven industrialized powers hoping China can step in to rescue the euro zone must look elsewhere for a white knight as Beijing increasingly focuses on domestic issues this year. The G7 policymakers and some members of the wider G20 will hold an emergency teleconference on the euro zone debt crisis on Tuesday in a sign of heightened global alarm about the threat posed by strains inside the 17-nation monetary union. The call comes two weeks before a G20 summit this month in Mexico. ...

HP says Oracle violated contract, seeks billions Posted: 04 Jun 2012 07:41 PM PDT SAN JOSE, California (Reuters) - Oracle Corp violated a clear contract with Hewlett-Packard Co when it decided it would no longer make new versions of its database software compatible with HP's Itanium-based servers, a lawyer for HP said in court. As the two firms faced off on Monday in opening statements in a bitter lawsuit over Oracle's decision to end support for Itanium, an Oracle attorney countered that Oracle had never agreed to give up its business flexibility in the "brief, breezy" contract language cited by HP. ...

South Africa police probe MTN Iran graft allegations Posted: 05 Jun 2012 04:57 AM PDT JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's elite Hawks police unit has opened an investigation into allegations of corruption at mobile phone giant MTN relating to its purchase of a mobile licence in Iran, a police spokesman said. The police probe follows a $4.2 billion U.S. civil claim filed in March by Turkish operator Turkcell accusing MTN of bribing Iranian and South African officials with cash and promises of defense equipment in order to secure the licence originally awarded to Turkcell. "There are allegations of corruption. ...

Facebook comments, ads don't sway most users: poll Posted: 04 Jun 2012 07:17 PM PDT SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Four out of five Facebook Inc users have never bought a product or service as a result of advertising or comments on the social network site, a Reuters/Ipsos poll shows, the latest sign that much more needs to be done to turn its 900 million customer base into advertising dollars. The online poll also found that 34 percent of Facebook users surveyed were spending less time on the website than six months ago, whereas only 20 percent were spending more. ...

Goldman CEO tells jury about board confidentiality Posted: 04 Jun 2012 04:29 PM PDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Lloyd Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs Group Inc, told jurors at the insider-trading trial of one of the investment bank's former directors that "all parts" of a 2008 board meeting the two attended were confidential. "If something is discussed in a board meeting, it is confidential," Blankfein said, when asked about a June 2008 board meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, that he and defendant Rajat Gupta both attended. "All parts of it were confidential. ...

Dewey creditors' committee taps law firm Brown Rudnick Posted: 04 Jun 2012 09:01 PM PDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - The law firm Brown Rudnick has been tapped to represent the committee of unsecured creditors in the bankruptcy of legal giant Dewey & LeBoeuf - a bankruptcy that is expected to be contentious and could drag on for years. Dewey, which was once one of the largest law firms in the United States, filed for bankruptcy protection on May 28 after the vast majority of its partners defected to rivals amid concerns about its heavy debt load and ability to compensate its lawyers. ...

Exxon Mobil warns red tape risks snuffing out gas boom Posted: 05 Jun 2012 03:40 AM PDT KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp , the world's largest publicly listed energy company, warned on Tuesday that too much government regulation could undermine a rapid global expansion of gas output from a range of unconventional sources. Helped by a boom in shale gas, Exxon Mobil has become North America's largest natural gas producer, but energy firms face pressure for tighter regulation of the industry over concerns about the impact of drilling on the environment and also public concern that U.S. gas prices could rise if the gas is exported. ...

Chrysler CEO says "no need" for pension buyouts Posted: 04 Jun 2012 05:46 PM PDT AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The chief executive of Chrysler Group LLC said there was "no need" for the No. 3 U.S. automaker to follow its larger U.S. rivals in offering white-collar pension buyouts. Both General Motors Co and Ford Motor Co said they will offer pension buyouts to white-collar retirees this year. The strategy will lower the automakers' outsized pension obligations, which rose to record levels in 2011 and have been a major concern for investors, analysts said. ...

U.S.: Restitution impractical for Stanford victims Posted: 04 Jun 2012 07:14 PM PDT (Reuters) - The government said it would be "impracticable" to enforce an order of restitution against financier Allen Stanford to victims of his estimated $7 billion Ponzi scheme and that it should be permitted to compensate fraud victims with forfeited assets. In a Monday filing with the federal court in Houston, the Department of Justice said the large number of victims, the difficulty of calculating their losses and the freezing of Stanford's assets in various jurisdictions would make restitution difficult. ...

Exxon Mobil says may export LNG from the U.S Posted: 04 Jun 2012 07:36 PM PDT KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp , the world's largest publicly traded energy company, is considering exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States, CEO Rex Tillerson said on Tuesday. The company has been North America's largest natural gas producer since its 2010 purchase of XTO Energy Inc, helped by a boom in output of shale gas. Asked whether Exxon Mobil planned to export LNG from the United States, Tillerson said: "We are studying it." U.S. ...

BlackRock chief equity strategist Bob Doll to retire Posted: 04 Jun 2012 06:59 PM PDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - BlackRock's chief equity strategist, Bob Doll, who has been one of the biggest cheerleaders of the U.S. stock market, will retire from the largest money manager in the world, according to an internal memo obtained by Reuters. Doll's responsibilities included overseeing BlackRock's $1.6 billion Large Cap Core fund, $1 billion Large Cap Growth fund and its $1 billion Large Cap Value fund. He has been in the asset management industry for more than three decades. ...

JPMorgan hands operations executive more authority Posted: 04 Jun 2012 03:40 PM PDT (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co said on Monday it named company veteran Paul Compton to be deputy chief of operations and added to responsibilities he already holds as chief administrative officer of the company's investment bank and head of its global service center in India. ...

Schools turn their noses up at 'pink slime' Posted: 05 Jun 2012 09:17 AM PDT The nation's school districts are turning up their noses at "pink slime," the beef product that caused a public uproar earlier this year.

Oil price little changed as investors track Europe Posted: 05 Jun 2012 09:15 AM PDT The price of oil is little change as the market waits for Europe's next move to try to clean up its financial mess.

Disney to banish junk-food ads from kid shows Posted: 05 Jun 2012 09:15 AM PDT Disney says its programming will no longer be sponsored by junk food.

Spain premier calls for EU bank unity plan Posted: 05 Jun 2012 09:05 AM PDT Spain's prime minister appealed Tuesday for European leaders to push toward greater fiscal unity — a step that would allow its troubled banks to get direct financial help — while a top government official warned that the country's high borrowing costs meant it faced increasing trouble accessing credit markets.

Thomas H. Lee buys controlling stake in Party City Posted: 05 Jun 2012 09:05 AM PDT Private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners LP is buying a majority stake in party supplies company Party City Holdings Inc. in a recapitalization deal valued at $2.69 billion.

Obama, Senate Dems court women with fair pay bill Posted: 05 Jun 2012 09:03 AM PDT President Barack Obama and his allies in the Senate pushed Tuesday for a bill that calls for equal pay in the workplace, an election-year effort to merge political appeals to women with the No. 1 concern for all voters: the cash in their wallets on the heels of recession.

J&J to stop selling pelvic mesh tied to lawsuits Posted: 05 Jun 2012 08:59 AM PDT Johnson & Johnson plans to stop selling mesh implants used to treat pelvic collapse that have been linked to injury, triggering hundreds of lawsuits.

US service companies expanded in May Posted: 05 Jun 2012 08:59 AM PDT U.S. service companies, which employ roughly 90 percent of the work force, grew at a slightly faster pace in May, marking the 29th straight month of expansion.

US stocks waver as emergency call on Europe starts Posted: 05 Jun 2012 08:56 AM PDT U.S. stocks are struggling for direction.

News Summary: IEA says China gas demand to double Posted: 05 Jun 2012 08:51 AM PDT GASSING UP: The International Energy Agency says global demand for natural gas should grow by 17 percent over the next five years as Chinese consumption doubles.

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