Business Blog Posts

The S&P hovered near 1,333, a significant level as it represents double the 12-year low hit in March 2009. It is close to the 1,344 representing the S&P's 2011 high, its highest since June 2008.

"There's a lot of congestion in terms of price action around these levels and I wouldn't expect the market to break to new highs in the next weeks," said Paul Zemsky, head of asset allocation at ING in New York.

Strong job growth and supportive comments on Fed policy from influential New York Fed Bank President William Dudley were supportive, but the market is looking to forthcoming earnings to kick the rally into a higher gear.

U.S. employment grew solidly for a second month in March and the jobless rate hit a two-year low of 8.8 percent.

"Once we get to earnings and get confirmation companies continue to show strength, I think we'll make new highs on the S&P. But a couple of weeks of consolidation seems like a good thing to happen," Zemsky said.

About 7.4 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE Amex and Nasdaq, below last year's estimated daily average of 8.47 billion. Composite volume was the weakest for any week so far this year.

Dudley said quantitative easing that totaled $600 billion in bond purchases was expected to run until June, countering several days of hawkish rhetoric from other Federal Reserve officials.

The payrolls number was "a clear breakout in the trend of job growth to the upside," said Zemsky. "I think this is the game changer in terms of giving more confidence the recovery is going to be durable and survive the end of QE2."

NYSE Euronext (NYX.N) shares rallied after Nasdaq OMX Group Inc (NDAQ.O) and IntercontinentalExchange Inc (ICE.N) unveiled a bid to buy the rival exchanges operator, topping an earlier offer from Deutsche Boerse AG (DB1Gn.DE).

NYSE's stock surged 12.6 percent to $39.60 while ICE shares lost 3.1 percent to $119.75 and Nasdaq OMX rose 9.3 percent to $28.23.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI hit 12,419.71 -- its highest intraday level going back to June 2008 -- before closing up 56.99 points, or 0.46 percent, at 12,376.72. The Standard & Poor's 500 .SPX rose 6.58 points, or 0.50 percent, to 1,332.41. The Nasdaq Composite .IXIC gained 8.53 points, or 0.31 percent, to 2,789.60.

For the week, the Dow gained 1.3 percent, the S&P added 1.4 percent and the Nasdaq rose 1.7 percent.

April is the best month for the Dow industrials going back to 1950, with an average gain of 2 percent, according to the Stock Trader's Almanac.

In another snapshot of the economy, the U.S. manufacturing sector grew at a marginally slower pace in March, according to the Institute for Supply Management. The Commerce Department said construction spending fell more than expected in February, dropping to its lowest level since October 1999.

Advancing stocks outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a ratio of more than 2 to 1, while on the Nasdaq, slightly more than five stocks rose for every four that fell.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Jan Paschal)

The report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which has been in the works for months, will include potentially embarrassing emails and internal communications from investment banks such as Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank AG, the Journal said.

It also will discuss a little-known dispute between Goldman and Morgan Stanley that developed in 2008 over one complex subprime-mortgage backed security called Hudson Mezzanine Funding, the newspaper said.

The subcommittee learned that Morgan Stanley lost money on the collateralized debt obligation that Goldman had a hand in arranging and marketing, the Journal said. The dispute between the rival investment banks got so heated that Morgan Stanley considered suing Goldman over its losses, it said.

The Senate's investigations subcommittee normally follows up its hearings with reports that outline the findings and recommend legislative reforms.

An aide to Senator Carl Levin, a Democrat who heads the subcommittee, declined to comment on the report.

Late last year, two people familiar with the subcommittee told Reuters that they expected the report to be finished in early 2011 and said it would contain more information than surfaced during last year's series of subcommittee hearings.

An all-day hearing last spring on the role Goldman played in creating and marketing several CDOs - complex securities constructed from a pool of subprime mortgaged-backed bonds -- drew particular attention.

A number of current and former Goldman executives testified at the hearing, including Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein.

(Editing by Vicki Allen)

"As we have said consistently, the IMF supports the Greek government's position of no debt restructuring and its determination to fully service its debt obligations. Any reports claiming otherwise are wrong," an IMF spokeswoman told Reuters.

Without citing any sources, Der Spiegel reported that the IMF had reversed its previous opposition to the idea of a Greek restructuring and now believed one was necessary soon.

It wrote that senior IMF officials were recommending this to European governments because Greece's debt mountain was now roughly one-and-a-half times its annual economic output.

Early in March, IMF European Director Antonio Borges told reporters he was "confident that Greek debt is sustainable," adding that the Greeks had made "quite a bit of progress on their banks" as well.

But since the IMF now believes current measures no longer suffice, it would like to see interest rates on Greek sovereign debt lowered, maturities extended or the amount of principal which Greece has to repay cut, Der Spiegel said.

European governments and the IMF are jointly contributing to and administering Greece's 110 billion euro ($155 billion) bailout, so a split between them on policy could be damaging to Greece's prospects for recovery.

Greek and European officials have long insisted that Greece can recover without restructuring its debt, and that even discussing a restructuring now would be counter-productive by damaging banks across Europe and causing panic in markets.

Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou, speaking to Reuters at a conference in Italy on Saturday, responded to the Der Spiegel report by saying: "There is absolutely no chance of a restructuring of Greek debt."

He added, "People (who talk about a restructuring) fail to understand that the costs would much outweigh the benefits."

European Commission spokesman Jens Mester said: "All support measures are in place, and there is no reason now to start thinking of this possibility of restructuring Greece's debt."

Der Spiegel reported that the IMF was still not willing to call openly for a Greek restructuring out of fear this could increase market pressure on Portugal. Portuguese bond yields have soared in the last several weeks because investors think Lisbon may soon be forced to seek a bailout.

Many investors and analysts think an eventual Greek restructuring may be inevitable. Cutting its credit rating of Cyprus on Wednesday, Standard and Poor's cited an "increasing likelihood that the Greek government will restructure its debt."

Former European Central Bank chief economist Otmar Issing told Der Spiegel last month that Greece's sovereign debt would have to be restructured as soon as other euro zone countries were out of danger.

Before any restructuring, however, Greece may try another strategy. Papaconstantinou said on Wednesday that Athens might use some proceeds from state asset sales to buy back outstanding bonds from the market; since market prices of its debt have dropped sharply below face value, this could have the effect of a restructuring in lightening Greece's debt load without requiring Athens to conduct difficult talks with creditors.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton, Christiaan Hetzner, Renee Maltezou, Valentina Za and Charlie Dunmore; Writing by Andrew Torchia; Editing by Ron Askew)

The mid-April "BRICS" summit will gather leaders from China, Russia, India, Brazil and South Africa in the southern Chinese beach resort of Sanya.

The summit is unlikely to achieve much concrete, though it will give the world's big rising economies a venue to coordinate views on global financial reforms, commodity prices and other shared concerns.

"The BRICS countries have similar concerns or stances on important questions like the global economy, international finance and development," Assistant Chinese Foreign Minister Wu Hailong told a news conference.

"We hope all sides can strengthen coordination and mutual cooperation on reform of the international currency system, commodity price fluctuations, climate change and sustainable development," he added.

China hoped the summit would in particular be able to coalesce views on commodity price fluctuations ahead of the G20 summit in Cannes, France, later this year, Wu said.

"This is a topic at the G20 summit in Cannes and ... the leaders of the five countries will exchange views on this," he added. "We hope that the five countries' leaders can have a joint stance on this issue and reach a broad consensus."

But Wu said the Chinese currency's exchange rate would not be talked about at the Sanya summit. Some countries say China keeps the yuan artificially undervalued to help boost Chinese exports.

"The renminbi's exchange rate is not on the agenda for discussion," he said, repeating China's standard line that its currency was not the cause of global imbalances.

China's hard work at perfecting the yuan's exchange rate mechanism was "clear for all to see," he added. Renmibi is the yuan's formal name.

Brazilian government officials have said they want to discuss the issue of the yuan, whose cheap value they say has helped fuel a flood of Chinese imports and deteriorated Brazil's trade balance.

The BRICS group has emerged as a loose united front to press the rich Western economies, especially the United States, which has traditionally dominated global diplomacy.

Yet there are many disparities among the BRICS member countries, and the past two summits of the evolving group have not achieved much. This time, too, strains over China's currency policies and trade surpluses could make real agreement even harder to reach.

The leaders may also discuss Libya and the broader situation in the Middle East.

"It would be natural if the leaders discussed this issue, but at the moment we have not heard that any country has said they wish to make a dedicated statement on it," Wu said.

China, with Russia, India, Brazil and other developing countries have condemned the U.S.-led air strikes on Libyan forces. South Africa, on the other hand, voted in favor of the United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing the air strikes.

(Editing by Jeremy Laurence)