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Oil dropped more than 4% near $60 a barrel Wednesday after a U.S. government report showed that distillate stocks have risen near a 25-year high, reinforcing worries about a potential economic rebound.
U.S. crude fell $2.79, or almost 3%, to settle at $60.14 a barrel Wednesday.
That’s the lowest settle price since May 19, when crude […]

Italian automaker Fiat SpA will not abandon its purchase of ailing U.S. peer Chrysler even if the deal is not completed by a June 15 deadline, a spokesman said on Tuesday.
He said Fiat would have no comment on the U.S. Supreme Court order blocking the sale until it had more information about it same […]

CALGARY–WestJet Airlines Ltd. is cutting commissions paid to travel agents for booking flights by more than half as it seeks to slash costs by $25 million in the next six months.
Agents will get a 4 per cent commission, as of July 1, down from 9 per cent, Richard Bartrem, WestJet vice-president of culture […]

Chrysler LLC will not repay U.S. taxpayers more than $7 billion in bailout money it received earlier this year and as part of its bankruptcy filing.
This revelation was buried within Chrysler’s bankruptcy filings last week and confirmed by the Obama administration Tuesday. The filings included a list of business assumptions from one of the […]

NEW YORK–The chairman and chief executive of Visa Inc. received compensation valued at about $17.3 million in 2008, a year in which the credit card processor staged the largest initial public offering in history. His pay was up 56 per cent from 2007.
According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on […]

Campbell Soup Co. posted a higher-than-expected quarterly profit and said fiscal-year earnings could slightly beat analysts’ estimates as consumers turn to soup as a low-cost meal in the recession.
The world’s largest soup maker said its U.S. soup sales rose 8% and that overall, consumer purchases at stores outpaced the company’s sales to retailers.
Still, total […]

Thailand’s consumer prices fell for the first time in nine years in January, giving the central bank room to cut interest rates this month.
Consumer prices dropped 0.4 percent from a year earlier, after gaining 0.4 percent in December, the Commerce Ministry said today in Bangkok. That’s the first contraction since October 1999. The […]

India’s Spice Group is ready to invest about 20 billion rupees ($408 million) in Satyam Computer Services and wants to buy a 51 percent stake in the fraud-scarred outsourcer, Spice Chairman B.K. Modi said.
“That is our desire,” Modi told Reuters on Friday. “We want the money to go inside the company. For that they […]

Bill Gross says taxpayers could make money on the financial-sector rescue package moving in fits and starts through Congress. He doesn’t have much company, though.
The chief investment officer at giant bond manager Pimco wrote this week in the Washington Post that the $700 billion plan proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson "is anything […]

German investor confidence probably rose for a second month after a decline in oil prices and a weaker euro improved the prospects of Europe's largest economy, a survey of economists shows.
The ZEW Center for European Economic Research will say its index of investor and analyst expectations rose to minus 53 from minus 55.5 […]