Business Blog Posts

* Tech shares will be a focus after Texas Instruments (TXN.N) launched a $6.5 billion takeover bid for National Semiconductor Corp (NSM.N), offering a 78 percent premium to merge two of the industry's oldest companies into a dominant force in analog microchips used in products from cars to phones.

* Texas Instruments stock traded in Frankfurt (TXN.F) was down 1.5 percent.

* Exchange operator Nasdaq OMX Group (NDAQ.O) said it will rebalance its benchmark Nasdaq-100 index, cutting the weighting of Apple (AAPL.O).

* U.S. chemicals group DuPont (DD.N) said the European Commission has approved its acquisition of Danish food ingredients and enzymes maker Danisco (DCO.CO) and it expected to close the transaction this month.

* Oil prices hovered near their highest levels since 2008 on Tuesday, with Brent near $121 a barrel, as prices were supported by the unrest in the Middle East and North Africa as well as delays to elections in Nigeria.

* Japan's Nikkei average .225 fell 1.1 percent on Tuesday with the mood soured by Tokyo Electric Power's fall to an all-time low. .T

* European stocks inched higher in thin volume in early trade, helped by rallying tech shares on consolidation hopes after the TI deal, while investors awaited the European Central Bank's interest rate decision and comment on Thursday.

* The ECB was expected to raise rates by 25 basis points from a record low in reaction to rising inflationary pressures in the euro zone. Two more 25-basis-point rate hikes have been factored in by year-end.

* Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said a recent rise in U.S. inflation was driven primarily by rising commodity prices globally, and was unlikely to persist.

* Bernanke's remarks were in sharp contrast to recent comments made by a string of central bank officials, some of whom have argued the time was coming for the Fed to begin tightening monetary policy.

* Investors awaited the release of the Federal Open Market Committee's minutes from its meeting of March 15, due at 1800 GMT on Tuesday, to get more insight on the outlook for U.S. interest rates.

* Credit rating agency Moody's cut Portugal's sovereign debt one notch on Tuesday, saying an incoming government would likely need to seek financing support from the European Union as a matter of urgency.

* The S&P 500 met tough resistance on Monday, failing to break a level that has held since mid-February and ending flat even as a spate of deals and underlying strength in the economy spurred optimism.

* The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI rose 23.31 points, or 0.19 percent, to end at 12,400.03. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index .SPX rose 0.46 point, or 0.03 percent, to 1,332.87. The Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC was down 0.41 point, or 0.01 percent, at 2,789.19.

* About 5.94 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE Amex and Nasdaq, the lowest total of the year.

(Reporting by Blaise Robinson; Editing by Dan Lalor)

"The longer Congress fails to act, the more we risk that investors here and around the world will lose confidence in our ability to meet our commitments and our obligations," Geithner said in a letter to congressional leaders. "Default by the United States is unthinkable."

Previously, the Treasury had forecast that the $14.3 trillion statutory debt limit would be reached between April 15 and May 31.

Some Republican lawmakers have sought to use the need to raise the debt limit as a lever to pressure the Obama administration into agreeing on large-scale budget cuts.

The debt-limit showdown comes as Congress struggles to complete a spending package that would keep the government operating beyond Friday. Republicans are seeking to use that bill to enact deep spending cuts.

Geithner said a failure to raise the ceiling in a timely way would lead to hardship for many Americans as government payments would stop, pushing interest rates higher and sparking "a financial crisis potentially more severe than the crisis from which we are only starting to recover."

Both Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke have said a failure to raise the ceiling could have "catastrophic consequences."

As the government nears the debt ceiling, the Treasury has authority to take certain extraordinary measures to postpone the date the United States would default on its obligations.

However, those actions would be exhausted after about eight weeks and there would be "no headroom" to borrow after July 8, Geithner said. The Treasury has already taken steps to avoid reaching the debt ceiling.

Lawmakers in both chambers have introduced legislation that would force the Treasury to first pay interest on U.S. bonds before other obligations, such as unemployment benefits and Social Security and Medicare payments, as a way to stave off a debt default.

They have also asked Treasury whether financial assets such as the country's gold reserves or the government's portfolio of student loans could be sold to avoid raising the debt ceiling.

Treasury has rejected the proposals as unworkable.

"To attempt a fire sale of financial assets in an effort to buy time for Congress to act would be damaging to financial markets and the economy and would undermine confidence in the United States," Geithner said.

He said that while the debt ceiling projections could change, the Obama administration does not believe they could change in a way that would give Congress more time to raise the debt ceiling. He said Treasury would provide updated projections in early May.

(Editing by James Dalgleish)

British media have said BP is in talks with Washington to restart drilling at existing fields following the blast on the Deepwater Horizon rig that ruptured the company's underwater Macondo well, unleashing millions of barrels of oil.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar called that a "misconception", and a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management regulator said "there are no ongoing negotiations".

"There is absolutely no such agreement nor would there be such an agreement" with BP to resume drilling, Salazar said at a briefing while visiting the Mexican capital.

He added that BP would need to go through the same review process to resume drilling as other companies.

Salazar also condemned rig operator Transocean Ltd for granting bonuses based on what it said last week was an "exemplary" safety record in 2010, notwithstanding the rig blast that killed 11 workers. One of the leading members of a presidential panel on deepwater drilling said the firm "just doesn't get it".

U.S. legal probes into the accident are ongoing, but a presidential commission earlier this year released a report blaming the disaster on systemic safety lapses and a series of mistakes made by BP and its contractors.

Months after lifting a temporary ban on deepwater drilling, the bureau has begun approving permits for such activity, clearing more than a handful of projects in the past few weeks.

BP is a partner in a well operated by Noble Energy, which received the first permit since the end of the ban.

GULF KEY TO BP FUTURE

Last week, BP America CEO Lamar McKay said the company was "working constructively" with regulators to meet new rules.

"We are encouraged by both verbal and written messages we have gotten from regulators," McKay had said.

BP is the largest holder of deepwater acreage in the Gulf of Mexico and the region is key to the company's future growth.

"The Gulf of Mexico is by value about 15 percent of the company at the moment so it's important that they drill there to replace reserves," Investec analyst Stuart Joyner said.

"If you look at the company's reputational issues, it's important that they're seen resuming business in the Gulf of Mexico alongside other participants. It's very much a psychological issue," Joyner said.

The global restaurant chain said it plans to hire as many as 50,000 new U.S. employees -- ranging from restaurant crew to managers -- on April 19. The move would increase the hamburger company's U.S. workforce by 7.7 percent to 700,000, but such hiring is typical in the lead up to the busy summer months.

"Our total hires are similar to past years, but the goal of hiring 50,000 people in one day across the U.S. is unique," McDonald's spokeswoman Ashlee Yingling told Reuters.

The April hiring event is preparation for the busy summer months. "But these are not just seasonal jobs. It's a mix of permanent and temporary jobs," Yingling said.

She added that McDonald's hourly employees typically make more than minimum wage, often more than $8 per hour.

There are some 14,000 McDonald's restaurants in the United States. Ninety percent of McDonald's U.S. restaurants are run by franchisees, and pay varies by ownership.

Oak Brook, Illinois-based McDonald's said in a statement that its April hiring event is an opportunity to highlight that "a McJob is one with career growth and endless possibilities."

Yingling said many of McDonald's top executives and franchisees worked their way up the company ranks.

Janney Capital Markets analyst Mark Kalinowski told Reuters that the announcement "certainly seems like a way to attract some favorable publicity around something it was more or less going to do anyway."

McDonald's said it and its franchisees would be spending an extra $518 million on wages and salaries for the 50,000 new workers it plans to hire.

McDonald's reported that February sales at its U.S. restaurants open at least 13 percent rose 2.7 percent compared with a year earlier.

U.S. employment grew firmly for a second straight month in March and the jobless rate hit a two-year low of 8.8 percent, underscoring a decisive shift in the labor market that should help to underpin the recovery.

That is better news for some than others.

Income growth for the top-earning U.S. workers has risen sharply since the 1980s, while the loss of well-paying manufacturing jobs has led to stagnation at the low end.

Workers earnings and corporate earnings also have barely risen so far this year.

(Reporting by Lisa Baertlein and Phil Wahba; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Tim Dobbyn)