Business news for Thu, 29 Nov 2007 & with word exchange. 22 news.

Germany's finance minister has a tough job. He has to steer the economy through a financial crisis, adverse exchange rate movements and a US slowdown

HipCricket Inc. this week began listing its shares on the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market (AIM) and raised slightly more than $17 million in an initial placement of 3.16 million shares.

TSX Group and the Montreal Exchange have confirmed they've resumed talks that could lead to "a possible future business combination."

Stocks that were moving substantially or trading heavily Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Stock Market:

By Julian Phillips. "The foreign exchange markets are not solely about exchange rates. They are about values, smooth flowing of international trade, about trust and reliability. The sight of the $ falling over a long period of time, with bounces and recoveries that don’t change the downward trend is far more than simply a drop in value!"

In an about-face, Lehman Brothers has decided to take up position again on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, agreeing in principle to purchase the assets of Van Der Moolen Specialists USA. The deal, which hasn't been finalized yet, allows...

The bankers acknowledged conspiring to enrich themselves at the expense of National Westminster Bank of England, then their employer. In exchange for the guilty pleas, prosecutors will recommend reduced prison terms.

In a 3-1 vote split along political lines, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ruled Wednesday that public companies could block investors from putting director candidates on corporate ballots. Critics called the move a major blow to shareholders.

A fight is brewing over booming Indian gambling APART from a few pots and baskets sitting, largely unnoticed, in a corner, there is little distinctively Indian about the Sycuan Casino. The punters are the usual mix of retirees and the statistically inept. The casino has three floors with some 2,300 jangling slot machines, a few card tables and a 1,250-seat bingo hall. That is not quite enough to meet demand, which is why the Sycuan tribe wants to expand. Whether it is allowed to do so will depend on how California's voters feel about the enormous casinos that have sprouted in their midst. It will also be a test of their views of Indians. Indian tribes are free to run casinos because, as sovereign nations, they are not subject to all state laws. Yet the tribes must agree terms with the state. Last year the Sycuan, together with four other tribes, negotiated agreements with Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's governor, that would allow them greatly to enlarge their casinos in exchange for paying more taxes. A motley crew of gambling opponents, racetrack owners, unions and rival tribes objected. As a result, a judge ruled this week, the agreements must be ratified by the state's voters in February. The television advertising blitz has already begun. ...

On trade or the exchange rate "LET China sleep, for when she wakes the world will shake." So, purportedly, said Napoleon some 200 years ago. In Beijing this week European leaders have been telling their Chinese counterparts that such unease is at risk of spreading. Once content to let the Americans do the worrying, the EU is joining in. In the build-up to an annual China-EU summit in Beijing on November 28th, European officials raised hackles by complaining about Chinese trade practices and exchange-rate policy in the kind of direct language that China had thought an annoying American trait. The European Commission's president, Jose Manuel Barroso, told Communist Party officials that the emergence of China risked being seen by Europeans "as a threat". Mr Barroso gave warning of "protectionist pressures which would be very difficult to contain" if nothing were done to curb the EU's huge trade deficit with China. ...

Gordon Brown struggles to keep his footing as another crisis erupts TONY BLAIR, after years as Britain's prime minister, remarked recently that religion and politics don't mix: a leader who invokes his faith is, he lamented, considered a "nutter". For his successor, Gordon Brown, reconciling politics and God must seem a breeze compared with reconciling politics and money. Less than two months after the police dropped investigations into whether parties had offered peerages in exchange for loans, another money scandal is gripping Westminster. The latest is a labyrinthine affair, and potentially devastating for Mr Brown. Since 2003 David Abrahams, a property developer from the north-east, has donated a total of over GBP650,000 ($1.3m) to the Labour Party through intermediaries including two employees, the wife of another and his solicitor. He claims to have done this to protect his privacy but, under the tighter rules introduced by this government, making donations in someone else's name is unlawful. On November 26th Peter Watt, the general secretary of the Labour Party, admitted that he knew about the arrangement, and resigned. Mr Brown, who claims not to have known, has promised to return the money. ...

Another victory for bosses over shareholders YET another attempt to make it easier for shareholders of American public companies to elect the board of directors of their choice has failed, thanks once again to lobbying by bosses anxious to keep pesky owners at arm's length. On November 28th a vote by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) killed off the latest proposal to get companies to cover the costs of dissident shareholders who wish to propose their own candidates for the board. There have been many efforts over the years to improve America's system for electing corporate directors. As things stand the incumbent board sends shareholders a ballot, or proxy, listing its preferred candidates. Any shareholder wishing to propose an alternative slate of directors must bear the cost of distributing a rival proxy. An attempt in 2003 by William Donaldson, then SEC chairman, to allow shareholders to nominate directors on the company proxy was shelved when bosses objected. ...

China may be a smaller economic giant than previously thought AMERICANS who spend their time fretting about when their economy will be overtaken by China will have gleefully leapt upon new numbers suggesting that China's economy may in fact be 40% smaller than current estimates. However, the new figures, if confirmed, would also mean that the world economy has been growing rather more slowly in recent years than officially reported by the IMF, which is less salutary for everyone. It is not the Chinese government that has been exaggerating the size of its GDP, but international organisations, such as the World Bank and the IMF, which measure each nation's output in terms of purchasing-power parity (PPP). If China's GDP is converted into dollars using market exchange rates it amounted to $2.7 trillion last year, only one-fifth of America's $13.2 trillion, and the fourth-largest in the world. But a dollar buys a lot more in China than in America because prices of many non-traded goods and services tend to be much lower in poor economies. Converting a poor country's GDP into dollars at market exchange rates therefore understates the true size of its economy. ...

New webinar series will provide Australian and New Zealand companies a real understanding of the impact Foreign Exchange has on business success

The International Business Times, Inc., a Global Leader in Business News, Announces the Launch of the World's First Foreign Exchange News Portal, Powered by Content From Top Industry Analysts and Forex News Specialists

Securities firms and banks sold "too many lottery tickets" tied to U.S. mortgages and failed to look closely enough at their growing risks, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission's market regulation division said Wednesday.

OIL'S rise to US$100 a barrel, which seemed a done deal as recently as two days ago, was dealt a severe blow yesterday when the US government reported an increase in stocks at the Nymex delivery terminal in Cushing, Oklahoma, which is closely watched by traders as a benchmark of oil inventory tightness. Anemic growth in demand and a jump in refinery activity also weighed on prices, which have dropped sharply in recent days on concerns about the economy and expectations supplies will grow. "The report ... added to the bearish sentiment in the market," said Eric Wittenauer, an energy analyst at A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc in St. Louis. "It comes at a period in time when OPEC is boosting production ... and considering another increase in production." Light, sweet crude for January delivery plunged US$3.80 to settle at US$90.62 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange following Tuesday's drop of US$3.28 a barrel. That was crude's second largest two-day

Companies will be able to scuttle investor attempts to nominate board members under a plan adopted by a bitterly divided Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday.

Following a contentious hearing Wednesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission adopted a rule that will make it more difficult ...