 | | | | Stock markets around the world were up slightly on Wednesday amid signs that Italy would cut its budget deficits in coming years, but U.S. Treasuries yields hit multi-year highs after strong U.S. jobs data, while oil prices saw 4-year highs ahead of U.S. sanctions on Iran exports. | | | | | | Bookseller Barnes & Noble Inc said on Wednesday it is exploring strategic options after several parties, including its chairman Leonard Riggio, expressed interest to buy the company. | | | | | | Brent crude rose nearly 2 percent after hitting a four-year high on Wednesday as the market focused on upcoming U.S. sanctions on Iran while shrugging off the year's largest weekly build in U.S. crude stockpiles and reports of higher Saudi Arabian and Russian production. | | | | | | Wall Street advanced on Wednesday and the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at a record for a second day, after U.S. economic data fueled a rise in Treasury yields, lifting financial stocks. | | | | | | Honda Motor Co Ltd will invest $2.75 billion and take a 5.7 percent stake in General Motors Co's Cruise self-driving vehicle unit, to jointly develop autonomous vehicles for deployment in ride services fleets around the world. | | | | | | U.S. holiday sales in 2018 will increase 4.3 percent to 4.8 percent boosted by a strong economy but will be slower than a year ago when consumer spending surged to a 12-year high, according to a forecast from a leading retail industry group. | | | | | | The U.S. dollar gained on Wednesday as data supported the view that the U.S. economy is in strong shape and as concerns about Italy's budget negotiations continued to weigh on the euro. | | | | | | Ebay Inc on Wednesday accused Amazon.com Inc of trying to poach sellers for its own platform through Ebay's internal messaging system. | | | | | | Facebook Inc's photo-sharing social network Instagram is back up for some users on Wednesday, after suffering a worldwide outage days after it installed a new head of the app. | | | | | | Facebook's lead regulator in the European Union, the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC), on Wednesday commenced an investigation into a massive cyberattack on the social networking site that the company disclosed last week. | | | | | | Dell Technologies Inc confirmed on Wednesday it had met with some investment banks to explore an initial public offering if its plan to buy the tracking stock of VMware Inc falls through. | | | | | |
