LONDON (Reuters) – World stocks rallied to fresh 9-1/2 month peaks on Friday as favorable corporate earnings fueled recovery hopes, while European government bonds also rose as investors grew cautious ahead of key U.S. growth data.

Here is the original:
World stocks power to 9-1/2 month highs

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. government’s $1 billion “cash for clunkers” auto sales incentive program reached its funding limit unexpectedly after an avalanche of business exhausted its funds, an Obama administration official said late Thursday.

See the original post:
New funding sought for U.S. “clunker” program

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Asian stocks pushed higher on Friday and were poised to score double-digit gains in July as investors keep pouring funds on bets the region’s growth engine will lead the global economy out of recession.

More here:
Asia stocks hit 11-month high on recovery hopes

Nokia, Samsung, LG and Motorola have a reason to rejoice: Sales of handsets are starting to pick up. Global shipments of cell phones rose 4.7% in the second quarter, ending nine month of sales declines, according to consultant iSuppli.

“The moderate increase indicates the worldwide mobile handset market is bottoming out and now is returning to growth,” according to analyst Tina Teng, who authored the report. “Much of the growth was generated by two emerging regions: the Middle East and Latin America. Furthermore, several aggressive promotional campaigns boosted sales in North America, with regional shipments rising by 8% during the period.”

Now, the future looks bright. Shipments should rise 6%, to 280.9 million handsets, in the third quarter, and by another 8.3% in the fourth quarter, which is seasonally strongest. Despite the quarterly growth, shipments for the full year are still expected to contract by 9.9%, to 1.1 billion units, down from 1.23 billion in 2008.

Handset shipments declined by 0.3% in the third quarter of 2008, by 2.6% in the fourth quarter of last year and by 16.4% in the first quarter of 2009. By the first quarter of 2009, shipments had fallen by 58.8 million units compared to before the economic downturn began in the second quarter of 2008.

Here is the original:
iSuppli: Handset Shipments Return to Growth

Chevron Corp.’s profit plunged 71 percent in the second quarter to the lowest level in more than five years as reduced oil prices and a vicious global recession took their toll, the San Ramon company reported Friday. But Wall Street took the drop in stride,…

Sponsored Topics:
Wall Street – Chevron Corporation – Business – Global recession – San Ramon California

Read the original post:
Chevron profit plunges 71% in quarter

When Zinio LLC of San Francisco started in 2001, the concept of reading magazines, books and newspapers on a portable device was being derided as cumbersome and expensive. But today, with traditional print publishers struggling to keep up with an accelerating…

Sponsored Topics:
San Francisco – Online magazine – Zinio – Magazine – United States

See the original post:
Online magazines give S.F.’s Zinio a boost

LONDON (Reuters) – British Airways has cut operating costs by around 6.6 percent since last October as it fights to slim down during the downturn, while its debt-pile also fell slightly to 2.3 billion pounds ($3.79 billion).

British Airways costs, debt start to fall

(Reuters) – Eyeing a better price, U.S. auto maker Ford Motor Co is slowing down the bidding process for its Volvo car unit, the Wall Street Journal said, citing a person close to the company.

More here:
Ford slows down Volvo bidding process: report

(Reuters) – U.S. federal regulators have raised the number of struggling banks which they have essentially put on probation, forcing them to fix their problems to avoid potential failures, the Wall Street Journal said.

See original here:
More U.S. banks put on “probation”: report

Go here to see the original:
CARS Program Web Site

Though it operates in 190 countries and 68% of its workforce is outside its home country of Germany, industrial giant Siemens has a top management dominated by white German-born men. That’s a problem to CEO Peter Loescher, has complained that the company’s leadership is too one-dimensional.

So he hired a woman born in Singapore of Chinese descent, Jill Lee, a veteran of Siemens’ Asian businesses, to solve the problem.

Lee puts the problem succinctly: Siemens management does not reflect the diversity of its 2 million customers in the US, China, Latin America and around the world, nor its own work force of 420,000. The fastest growth for Siemens moving forward will come from Brazil, Russia, India and China. “With globalization you see Brazilian customers in China and Chinese customers in Brazil,” says Lee. “All companies need to be more systematic in sharpening their capacity in this area.”

Plus in short order there aren’t going to be enough German men to fill the jobs they’ve got in the homeland. With the population aging, if Germany doesn’t get more women and foreigners into its own work force, it’s going to face a talent shortfall in millions in just five years. Among the company’s most important posts are those in engineering. It employs 100,000 engineers worldwide, half of those in Germany. But the country is expected to have 200,000 unfilled engineering spots by 2017.

Lee’s focused early on increasing the visibility of her 3,000 high potential people worldwide, so they can be considered for jobs on a global basis. She’s also broadened the group doing the interview for key spots to include more women and international staff.

By systematic Lee does not mean quotas. She’s against them. “What we want is for everyone who joins Siemens to know they have every opportunity to get to the very top.”

But Lee herself is often the only woman, or Asian in many of the meetings she attends. The company staff is 25% female, but only 7% of the management ranks are women.

Do you think a rapid diversification of a workforce can be attained without them?

To see Lee’s style in action take a look at this appearance on Fox.

Read more:
Siemens Tries To Diversify Its Ranks

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. government’s $1 billion “cash for clunkers” auto sales incentive program reached its funding limit unexpectedly after an avalanche of business exhausted its funds, an Obama administration official said late Thursday.

See the original post:
U.S. auto “clunker” program reaches limit

The second quarter saw a much slower real GDP decline, an indication that the economy has hit bottom and is ready to grow

See original here:
Beginning of the End of the Recession?

The second quarter saw a much slower real GDP decline, an indication that the economy has hit bottom and is ready to grow

View original post here:
The Beginning of the End of the Recession?

A high school student is suing Amazon.com after the online retailer deleted pirated copies of e-books purchased by Kindle owners, saying his electronic notes were bollixed, too. The lawsuit seeking class-action status was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court…

Sponsored Topics:
GeorgeOrwell – Animal Farm – Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud – Book – Amazon.com

Read more:
Amazon sued over Kindle deletion of Orwell books