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NEW YORK Stock futures edged higher on Wednesday, setting Wall Street up for a sixth day of gains, as investors anticipated the U.S. Federal Reserve will announce a new round of bond buying to support the economy. * India’s government announced an inquiry into lobbying practices by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on Wednesday after a report that the giant retailer had pressed U.S. lawmakers to help gain access to foreign markets. * Costco Wholesale Corp posted a 30 percent rise in quarterly profit, beating expectations, as the largest U.S. warehouse club chain saw sales rise and got a lift from higher [...]

SAN FRANCISCO TripAdvisor Inc. shares climbed more than 7% Tuesday, to $ 41.05 after Liberty Interactive said it has acquired voting control of the online travel information company. Liberty said it bought 4.8 million shares of Trip Advisor stock, for $ 62.50 a share, in a deal valued at $ 300 million. Liberty acquired the shares from Barry Diller and the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation. Under terms of the deal, Diller will step down as TripAdvisor’s chairman.

The U.S. Treasury is selling its remaining stake in insurer American International Group Inc , bringing an end to government ownership of the company four years after it was rescued from the brink of bankruptcy. In a statement on Monday, the Treasury said it launched an underwritten public offering for its remaining 234.2 million shares of common stock. At Monday’s closing prices the stake would be worth some $ 7.81 billion. Treasury said that the sale would be jointly led by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan. Treasury also said it would continue to [...]

NEW YORK Stock futures rose on Wednesday after comments from China’s new leader boosted global growth expectations. * Chinese Communist Party chief Xi Jinping said the country would maintain its fine-tuning of economic policies in 2013 to ensure stable economic growth. That sparked a rally in Chinese shares, with the Shanghai Composite Index surging 2.9 percent. * Nokia is to partner with China Mobile <0941.HK>, the world’s biggest operator, to launch a version of its flagship Lumia smartphone tailored for the world’s largest market. U.S.-listed shares of Nokia rose 2.9 percent to $ 3.54 in premarket trading. * Repsol filed [...]

NEW YORK Stock futures inched higher on the final trading day of the month, but the mood was still cautious with the market firmly focused on U.S. budget talks. * Whole Foods Market Inc announced a special cash dividend of $ 2.00 per share. In expectation of higher dividend tax rates in 2013, companies have been shifting dividends or announcing special payouts to shareholders. * After a close relationship for several years, Facebook Inc and Zynga Inc revised terms of a partnership agreement between the companies; under the new pact, Zynga will have limited ability to promote its site on [...]

SAN FRANCISCO Advanced Micro Devices is looking to sell its campus in Austin, Texas, although the chipmaker hopes to enter into a leaseback deal that would allow the company to maintain operations on the property, a spokesman told MarketWatch on Thursday. The planned sale is expected to generate between $ 150 million and $ 200 million. Shares of AMD were up 8% at $ 2.11 in early trades, to emerge as the best performer on the [...]

SAN FRANCISCO Shares of Facebook Inc jumped nearly 13 percent on Wednesday, as investors breathed a sigh of relief that expiring trading restrictions on a huge block of shares failed to trigger an immediate wave of insider selling. “While the lockup is expiring, there is nothing requiring anybody to sell,” said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer at Solaris Group in Bedford Hills, New York. “Given the low price, these long-term holders are deciding to hold the stock, and that is lifting it here as the fear of the expiration subsides.” Roughly 800 million Facebook shares were eligible for sale on [...]

SAN FRANCISCO Shares of Facebook Inc jumped as much as 11.2 percent on Wednesday, as investors breathed a sigh of relief that expiring trading restrictions on a huge block of shares did not trigger an immediate wave of insider selling. “While the lockup is expiring, there is nothing requiring anybody to sell,” said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer at Solaris Group in Bedford Hills, New York. “Given the low price, these long-term holders are deciding to hold the stock, and that is lifting it here as the fear of the expiration subsides.” Roughly 800 million Facebook shares were eligible for [...]

SAN FRANCISCO Groupon Inc’s results again fell short of Wall Street’s already-cautious expectations as the daily deal company failed to turn around a struggling European business, sending its shares to a record low. Groupon also confirmed on Thursday that it cut about 80 employees, mainly in sales, as part of an effort to automate and streamline the way its daily deals are sourced and distributed. The company’s shares slid to a record low of $ 3.25 in after-hours trading on Thursday, down 17 percent from their closing price of $ 3.92. The darling of investors during last year’s consumer dotcom [...]

SAN FRANCISCO Facebook Inc Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg sold $ 3.75 million worth of stock in the company on Tuesday, her second stock sale since trading restrictions on insiders expired last week. Sandberg sold roughly 176,000 Facebook shares for an average price of $ 21.24 on Tuesday, according to a regulatory filing on Thursday. Sandberg still owns nearly 19 million vested shares of Facebook, the world’s No.1 Internet social network, according to the filing. Last week, Sandberg sold roughly $ 7.4 million worth of Facebook stock. Facebook General Counsel Theodore Ullyot and Chief Accounting Officer David Spillane also sold [...]