U.S. regulators recall 2.1 million vehicles in new air bag issue

The vehicles involved in the recall announced by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are made by Toyota Motor Corp, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and Honda Motor Co. There have been about 400 reported cases of inadvertent air bag deployments in the recalled vehicles, NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind said. The recall concerned a defective chip in air bag systems and the fix involved replacing the entire air bag module, including circuits manufactured by parts maker TRW Automotive Holdings, Rosekind said.

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China official PMI falls to 49.8, lowest in over two years

Activity in China's factory sector contracted in January for the first time in more than two years, an official survey showed on Sunday, which will increase gloom about the outlook for the world's second-biggest economy this year. A housing slump, erratic growth in exports and a state-led slowdown in investment to help restructure China's economy has hurt China's economy in the past year, when growth sunk to a 24-year low of 7.4 percent.

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Greek PM Tsipras calls ECB's Draghi to reassure over talks

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called ECB President Mario Draghi to reassure him that his new government wanted a solution with international partners over its demands to renegotiate its bailout accord, a government official said on Saturday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Tsipras called Draghi on Friday night after a tense meeting between his finance minister Yanis Varoufakis and Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the head of the euro zone group of finance ministers.

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McDonald's to slow Russia expansion due to fall in rouble

McDonald's Corp. (MCD.N) will open fewer new restaurants in Russia this year than last because a fall in the rouble has increased expansion costs and is hurting consumers, its Russian chief executive Khamzat Khasbulatov told Reuters. The rouble, hit by a drop in oil prices and Western sanctions over Ukraine, has fallen more than 50 percent since early 2014, fuelling inflation. Russia now faces its first recession since 2009. McDonald's will open at least 50 new restaurants in Russia compared to 73 last year, having earmarked 6 billion rubles ($87 million) for capital expenditures, the same amount as in 2014, Khasbulatov said in an interview.

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JPMorgan to pay $99.5 million to resolve currency rigging lawsuit

JPMorgan Chase & Co, the largest U.S. bank, agreed to pay $99.5 million to settle its portion of an antitrust lawsuit in which investors accuse 12 major banks of rigging prices in the $5.3 trillion-a-day ...

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Google shares reverse course as traders shrug off Q4 miss

Google shares dipped more than 3% after the firm posted disappointing fourth-quarter profits and sales.

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Exclusive: Treasury official among those eyed for regional U.S. Fed openings

Final decisions are not imminent in the efforts to find successors to Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser, who steps down March 1, and Richard Fisher of the Dallas Fed, who retires on March 19. Matthew Rutherford, whose stint as Treasury's top domestic finance official ended on Friday, was under consideration at least in early stages of the searches, according to three sources. James McAndrews, who heads up research at the neighboring New York Fed, was considered for the job in Philadelphia, where he once worked. Regular golfing partners, Plosser and Fisher are ardent inflation hawks who have repeatedly dissented against the easy money path pursued by Fed Chair Janet Yellen and her predecessor, Ben Bernanke.

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U.S. regulators say 2.1 million vehicles recalled over air bag fault

Some 2.1 million vehicles produced by Toyota Motor Corp, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and Honda Motor Co are being recalled to fix a potentially defective chip that could cause air bags to deploy inadvertently, ...

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BMW, Bosch join Deutsche Bahn in airline cartel damages claim

German carmaker BMW and car supplier Bosch [ROBG.UL] said on Saturday they would join Deutsche Bahn [DBN.UL] in two claims for about 2.1 billion euros ($2.4 billion) in damages from air freight carriers who were involved in a cartel. The air cargo cartel, which included Europe's biggest airline Lufthansa and British Airways, was first discovered seven years ago and triggered fines in the European Union and in the United States. Confirming a report in German magazine WirtschaftsWoche, spokespeople for BMW and Bosch said the companies had joined the lawsuits, announced by Deutsche Bahn in December.

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Exclusive: GM and China’s SAIC to push into Indonesia with no-frills vans

General Motors (GM.N) and Chinese partner SAIC Motor Corp will soon announce a joint push into Indonesia, using their no-frills Wuling brand to establish a beachhead in Southeast Asia’s biggest market and from there tackle other markets in the region. They have already made moves to purchase a property in an industrial district on the outskirts of Jakarta, according to two people familiar with the matter, and are expected to detail within days what GM China chief Matt Tsien called an important joint venture in a country of 240 million people. In a report late Friday, officials from Indonesia's industry ministry told state Antara news agency that GM and SAIC would invest a total of $700 million in Indonesia to set up operations to manufacture and market Wuling vehicles in the country.

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Can Janet Yellen really help you with your investing?

Fed parsing has become as popular as Fantasy Football. We explore how investors should interpret disclosures from the world's most influential central bank.



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Energy may see further weakness as key names report

Stock prices in the U.S. energy sector have been under pressure in 2015, and there could be more bad news to come when several key players report their fourth-quarter results next week. The group has been ...

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Germany, ECB play hard ball with Greece

BERLIN/HELSINKI (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel ruled out a debt writedown for Greece on Saturday, and a European Central Bank policymaker threatened to cut off funding to Greek banks if Athens does not agree to renew its bailout package. The euro zone's paymaster and the ECB are both taking a tough line with Greece's new leftist government, whose leader swept to victory last Sunday promising that five years of austerity, "humiliation and suffering" were over. Alexis Tsipras has also promised to renegotiate agreements with the European Commission, ECB and International Monetary Fund "troika" and write off much of Greece's 320 billion euro ($360 billion) debt, which at more than 175 percent of gross domestic product is the world's second-highest after Japan.

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Greek emergency funding would be a decision for ECB council: Constancio

ECB Vice-President Vitor Constancio said on Saturday that a decision on whether to give Greece emergency funding would be up to the central bank's Governing Council. He was commenting on options available for Greek banks if the country's new anti-bailout government quits its EU/IMF program. Constancio said that the central bank's emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) facility -- designed as a stop gap for banks facing temporary problems -- was an alternative to its regular funding, but its provision would need to be approved by the European Central Bank's 25-member Governing Council. "There is the possibility of so-called ELA.

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Markets brace for Big Oil profit plunge

It's just a forecast, and for only one of 10 industry groups in the stock market. Yet it has almost singlehandedly turned what had been a promising earnings season into a grim one.

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Cramer: Don't bet against this stock

"Mad Money" host Jim Cramer reveals which company's worth banking on.

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Stocks sag at the close; January finishes on weak note

World stock markets were uneven Friday and Wall Street futures slid ahead of quarterly growth figures that will show whether weakness in China, Japan and Europe has hit the U.S. economy.

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U.S. stocks stumble 3% in tumultuous January

Stocks declined Friday, with equities on track for January losses, after the government reported economic growth slowed sharply in the fourth quarter.

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EU Prepares Tougher Russian Penalties

A “preliminary agreement” has been reached for the Ukraine contact group to meet Friday or Saturday in Minsk, the Belarusian capital, Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Olena Zerkal said. Ukraine’s military said pro-Russian forces are advancing toward the town of Debaltseve, a strategic rail hub in the Donetsk region that has become the focus of clashes. The crisis can only be settled by negotiation “and to make that happen Russia has to stop supporting the separatists,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said.



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Eurozone prices plunge 0.6 pct amid weak growth, cheap oil

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Falling prices sent another worrying signal about the eurozone economy just before the European Central Bank starts a 1 trillion euro ($1.1 trillion) stimulus effort.

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How can Google snap its stock out of its stupor?

Google has turned into a stock market laggard as the shift to mobile devices has lowered the Internet search leader's digital ad prices and the company's expensive investments in far-out technology has ...

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Russian official: West aims to turn business against Kremlin

A top Russian official has accusing a leading rating agency of trying to turn tycoons against the Kremlin. Standard & Poor's earlier this week downgraded Russia's credit rating to a non-investment grade, ...



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No rest for the Street after a tough January

Equities took a hit in January, while bond yields and the U.S. dollar jumped. As February kicks off, there will be a slew of corporate earnings and economic data for traders to parse through.

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Exxon adds discrimination protections in U.S. for LGBT workers

Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N), the world's largest publicly traded oil company, has changed its U.S. employment policies to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity as now required by federal law. Investors had pressed for the change for years, filing shareholder proposals for Exxon to guarantee protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation since 1999. Exxon has previously resisted making the change, saying it already prohibited all forms of discrimination at its offices anywhere in the world.

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U.S. oil spikes 8%, traders eye month-end short covering

Oil prices rocketed more than 8 percent higher on Friday, their biggest one-day gain in two and a half years, after data showed U.S. drillers were slamming the brakes on the shale drilling boom. In a rally that may spur speculation that a seven-month price collapse has ended, global benchmark Brent crude shot up to more than $53 (35 pounds), its highest in more than three weeks, after Baker Hughes data showed the number of rigs drilling for oil in the United States fell by 94 - or 7 percent - this week. Two weeks of relatively stable oil prices have helped shift sentiment after months of decline, setting the stage for the violent rebound on Friday afternoon. With drillers having idled about 24 percent of their oil drilling rigs since the summer, some traders may be betting that an anticipated slowdown in U.S. oil production is nearer than expected.

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Wall Street set to cap volatile week with 2% loss

U.S. stocks were poised to end what has been a volatile week with a 2% dip as traders digested a slew of corporate earnings and economic data.

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Oil up on Iraq concerns but poised for record seven-month drop

Oil rose on Friday as concerns over fighting in Iraq extended short covering from the previous session, but crude prices were still poised for a seventh month of declines, the longest rout on record. A supply glut and OPEC's refusal to cut output has driven benchmark Brent and U.S. crude futures down 60 percent since June. A Reuters poll shows oil prices may post only a mild recovery in the second half of the year, with prices still averaging less in 2015 than during the global financial crisis. Crude was up in early trading Friday in New York on renewed violence in oil producer Iraq, where Islamic State militants had struck at Kurdish forces southwest of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

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House Democrats' new message on the economy: We told you so

Democrats' new message on America's economic recovery is: We told you so, and we're going to keep telling you so. The economy is rebounding on nearly every front, even if the middle class still needs help, ...

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McDonald's franchisees to new CEO: back-to-basics, fast

McDonald's Corp (MCD.N) franchisees have an urgent order for the fast-food giant's new CEO - get back-to-basics. McDonald's on Wednesday said Chief Brand Officer Steve Easterbrook would replace Don Thompson as chief executive after he had held the post just two and a half years. Easterbrook, 47, turned around McDonald's operations in the UK, where he was born, by refocusing on burgers and burnishing the brand with an ad campaign that sought to debunk unflattering rumors about its food, the company said. A cricket enthusiast who earned a reputation among former UK colleagues for being funny, fair and a lover of simplicity, Easterbrook will also be the rare McDonald's CEO with experience running other restaurant chains.

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U.S. economy cools in fourth quarter, but consumer spending shines

U.S. economic growth slowed sharply in the fourth quarter as weak business spending and a wider trade deficit offset the fastest pace of consumer spending since 2006. The slowdown followed two back-to-back quarters of bullish growth and is likely to be short-lived given the enormous tailwind from lower gasoline prices. Other data on Friday showed consumer sentiment jumped to an 11-year high in January. "We look for strong domestic consumption to continue supporting growth momentum in the coming quarters even as investment suffers due to falling oil prices," said Gennadiy Goldberg, an economist at TD Securities in New York.

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Fed's Fisher: stronger dollar good for U.S. jobs

Sharp gains in the U.S. dollar that have spurred grumbling from some big U.S. companies about the impact on profits are actually a positive sign for U.S. job creation, a top Federal Reserve official said on Friday. "CEOs that have international operations complain about it," Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher told Reuters in an interview. Fisher said he's inclined to take those complaints with a grain of salt. Fisher has a network of top CEOs with whom he talks before every Fed policy-setting meeting, and he noted that his business contacts uniformly told him they've been seeing a strong pickup in activity since late December and through the first three weeks of January.

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Amazon is killing it with Prime: Here's why

Growth in Amazon Prime memberships propelled Amazon to a profitable fourth quarter. That was after two consecutive quarters of steep losses.

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Cramer: Mark Zuckerberg is King Midas in a hoodie

Jim Cramer wants investors to take advantage of this rare opportunity with Facebook and thinks it is a slam dunk for the future.

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2.6% GDP? Reagan wouldn't have let that happen

Ronald Reagan had to dig out of a recession, too - but GDP growth at this point in that recovery was twice what Obama is delivering now.

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American Airlines Group pilots approve contract to raise pay

American Airlines Group pilots have voted to accept a five-year contract that will raise their wages substantially and cement their relationship with the management, the pilots union said Friday. About ...

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Barbie doll maker Mattel to move with 'urgency' as sales fall again

Shares of the company, which also makes Fisher-Price preschool toys and Hot Wheels toy cars, fell 3 percent in premarket trading. Mattel appointed Sinclair, a former PepsiCo (PEP.N) executive, its chairman and interim CEO on Monday, removing Brian Stockton after worldwide sales fell in the all-important holiday quarter ended Dec. 31. Mattel has been struggling to arrest the fall in its sales under Stockton's leadership. In the period, Mattel's sales fell 7 percent, highlighting the company's failure to innovate faster than smaller rivals such as Hasbro Inc (HAS.O) and Jakks Pacific (JAKK.O).

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Asia markets extend U.S. rally as earnings take the spotlight

Markets in Asia followed Wall Street's lead to the upside as oil prices halted their slide and traders digested a flurry of corporate reports.

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Cramer: Don't bet against this stock

"Mad Money" host Jim Cramer reveals which company¿s worth banking on

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Cheap oil burns $390 billion hole in investors' pockets

Now that oil prices have fallen below $46, any euphoria over cheaper energy will be tempered by losses that are starting to show up in investment funds, retirement accounts and bank balance sheets.

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Why the Seahawks have an edge in the Super Bowl: Nate Silver

Nate Silver predicts the Super Bowl



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Shake Shack sizzles in market debut

Shares of gourmet hamburger chain Shake Shack Inc soared 150 percent in their first few minutes of trading on Friday, valuing the company that grew out of a hotdog cart in New York's Madison Square Park ...

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Bob Doll: What's good for economy not so for stocks

Strategist Bob Doll tells CNBC it's all about the negative impact of lower oil prices and the rising dollar on earnings.

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U.S. consumer sentiment rises to best since 2004

U.S. consumer sentiment rose in January to its highest level in 11 years on better job and wage prospects, a survey released on Friday showed. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan's final January reading on the overall index on consumer sentiment came in at 98.1, its best showing on a final basis since January 2004 and the latest in a string of increases since August. "Consumers judged prospects for the national economy as the best in a decade, with half of all consumers expecting the economic expansion will continue for another five years," said Richard Curtin, the survey's director. "While renewed strength in consumer spending will boost the pace of economic growth in 2015, most consumers are counting only on modest income gains during the years ahead.

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Amazon handily beats earnings estimates, shares rally

Amazon revealed quarterly profits that zoomed by Wall Street's estimates, sending shares of the e-commerce heavyweight rallying.

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OPEC oil output rises in January as key members stand firm: survey

OPEC's oil supply has risen this month due to more Angolan exports and steady to higher output in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf producers, a Reuters survey showed, a sign key members are standing firm in refusing to prop up prices. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries at a November meeting decided to focus on market share rather than cutting output, despite concerns from members such as Iran and Venezuela about falling oil revenue. Supply from OPEC has averaged 30.37 million barrels per day (bpd) in January, up from a revised 30.24 million bpd in December, according to the survey based on shipping data and information from sources at oil companies, OPEC and consultants. At the Nov. 27 meeting, OPEC retained its output target of 30 million bpd, sending oil prices to a four-year low close to $71 a barrel.

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Chevron quarterly profit drops 30 percent on cheap oil

Chevron Corp , the second-largest U.S. oil producer, said on Friday its quarterly profit fell 30 percent due to plunging crude prices . The company posted fourth-quarter net income of $3.47 billion, or ...

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Audi could hit two million car sales goal ahead of 2020

German luxury carmaker Audi could reach its goal of 2 million sales a year before its 2020 target, helped by revamped models and new sport-utility vehicles, its chief executive told Reuters. Rupert Stadler said demand in Europe, where Audi sold 44 percent of its cars last year, was stable, while he was upbeat about prospects for China, where some rivals have reported a drop-off in demand as economic growth slows. Audi is the profit engine of Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE), Europe's biggest carmaker, and its sales goal is a key part of the parent company's drive to overtake Japan's Toyota to become global industry leader. German rival BMW (BMWG.DE) retained the global luxury car sales crown for a tenth straight year in 2014, but Audi and Daimler's (DAIGn.DE) Mercedes-Benz have reduced its lead and are striving to unseat BMW by the end of the decade.

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Visa logs fiscal Q1 beat, unveils 4-for-1 stock split

Visa, which earns money from both the volume and value of transactions using its cards, said total volume increased to $1.90 trillion (1.26 trillion pounds) from $1.84 trillion (1.22 trillion pounds). Visa lost its right to process domestic payments in Russia in the middle of last year when Moscow hit back after the imposition of Western sanctions over its role in Ukraine. Visa reaffirmed its revenue and margin forecasts for 2015 after taking into account an expected 2 percentage point negative impact from changes in foreign exchange rates. About 60 percent of Visa's transaction volumes are outside the United States.

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Live: Investors eye GDP; Amazon's blowout quarter; Shake Shack's big IPO

Join Market Movers live now for the latest premarket headlines.

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U.S. labor costs up solidly in fourth quarter

U.S. labor costs rose solidly in the fourth quarter, which could keep the Federal Reserve on track to raise interest rates this year. The Employment Cost Index, the broadest measure of labor costs, increased 0.6 percent after an unrevised 0.7 percent gain in the third quarter, the Labor Department said on Friday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the employment cost index rising 0.6 percent in the October-December period. The ECI is widely viewed by policymakers and economists as one of the better measures of labor market slack.

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Amazon sales rise in holiday quarter, shares jump

Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) reported stronger than expected earnings on Thursday as North American sales surged during the crucial holiday quarter, sending its shares up 9 percent. The online commerce giant, which gets about a third of its revenue from October to December, reported earnings of 45 cents a share, trouncing Wall Street's average prediction for 17 cents. The sharply higher profit was a welcome surprise for Wall Street, which has clamoured for Amazon to come to grips with its growing investments in everything from Hollywood-style television productions, and cloud computing and consumer devices with mixed success.

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Google shares reverse course as traders shrug off Q4 miss

Google shares dipped more than 3% after the firm posted disappointing fourth-quarter profits and sales.

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Futures drop ahead of data; indexes to fall for month

U.S. stock index futures fell on Friday ahead of data on economic growth, consumer inflation and confidence, with major indexes poised for a second month of declines. * Amazon shares jumped 11 percent ...

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Russian central bank makes surprise interest rate cut

Russia's central bank unexpectedly cut its main interest rate on Friday as fears of recession mount in the country following the fall in global oil prices and Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis. It looks like the central bank's hand has been forced," said Nicholas Spiro, managing director of Spiro Sovereign Strategy in London.

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World investors' cash holdings highest since 2012: Reuters poll

World investors increased cash holdings in January as they braced for a choppy year with markets buffeted by conflicting forces such as diverging monetary policy and rising geopolitical risks, a Reuters poll shows. A monthly survey of fund managers in the United States, Japan, Europe and Britain found the average allocation to cash in balanced portfolios jumped 1-1/2 percentage points to 7 percent -- the highest since May 2012. Holdings of property were down to 1.9 percent from 2.6 percent while exposure to alternative assets, such as hedge funds and private equity, rose to 6.4 percent from 5.3 percent. The polling period was dominated by the European Central Bank's announcement last week that it would start buying bonds under a 1 trillion euro quantitative easing program from March with the aim of stimulating euro zone growth and inflation.

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MasterCard's quarterly profit rises 29 percent

MasterCard Inc , the world's second-largest debit and credit card company, posted a 29 percent rise in quarterly profit as customers swiped their cards more often. The company's net income rose to $801 ...

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