|
Euro
scales four-year high on bleak US outlook
The euro hit a fresh four-year high against the dollar
on Thursday as doubts lingered over the US economic outlook,
while oil prices rose after OPEC said it might intervene
to stop a steep slide.
Shares
gained in Japan and held steady in Australia as most Asian
markets stayed shut for the Labour Day holiday. Gold climbed
to a six-week high on the weaker dollar.
Back
to News Review index page
Tech
companies profit from investments, cash
The three-year downturn in technology is not over yet,
even though -- after a long dry spell -- many computer
equipment and software companies are again enjoying profit
growth.A happy ending is not necessarily written in their
bottom line because investments rather than sales of actual
computers or software are pushing many tech companies
to profitability, analysts say.
Back
to News Review index page
Wall
St firms face lawsuits as investors burn fingers
Wall
Street securities firms' practice of paying one another
to produce positive research reports on their own clients
should trigger lawsuits by investors who claim they were
misled, lawyers said. Federal regulators implicated Bear
Stearns Cos, Morgan Stanley and the securities units of
JP Morgan Chase & Co, UBS and US Bancorp in various
payment schemes from 1999 to 2001. These might have helped
insure that companies for which they did business would
be hyped in research available to unsuspecting investors.
"There is no legal presumption a research report
is false, but if I were a juror and I heard that someone
paid money for a report, I might be more skeptical of
claims the report was justified," said Marcel Kahan,
a professor at New York University School of Law.
Back
to News Review index page
Australian
investors pounce on brothel shares
Australian
investors plunged enthusiastically into the world's oldest
profession on Thursday when a Melbourne company became
the globe's first listed brothel. Shares of the bordello
enterprise, which hired Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss to
spice up its stock listing and touts itself as a recession-proof,
five-star hotel, doubled on their first day of trading.
About 1.4 million shares of the company -- called The
Daily Planet -- changed hands.
Back
to News Review index page
Former
Enron execs charged in new indictments
The
US government brought new charges against former Enron
Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow on Thursday and
for the first time accused his wife and seven other executives
of fraud and other crimes in the bankrupt energy giant's
failure. Seven former Enron executives, including Lea
Fastow, surrendered to federal authorities in Houston
as the US Justice Department's sprawling probe into the
landmark 2001 corporate scandal bore its newest fruit.
An eighth defendant was to surrender later.
Back
to News Review index page
Australia's
Telstra denies using cheap Indian
IT workforce
Australia's
leading telecommunication and information services company
Telstra has refuted recent reports in Australian media
that it was using Indian computer workers at "sweatshop
wages" to replace higher paid Australians. These
claims have also been strongly rejected by Indian IT giants
- Infosys Technologies and Satyam Computer Services -
engaged by Telstra. The two companies, with offices in
Melbourne and Sydney, have released detailed salary figures
to counter suggestions of low pay.
Back
to News Review index page
|
