Business News

BANGKOK - Asian stock markets were mostly lower Tuesday despite gains on Wall Street as China's warning to banks to control lending dragged down financial stocks in Hong Kong.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Hewlett-Packard Co tripled the size of its share repurchase program to $12 billion as China sales and better profit margins on its services boosted quarterly earnings.

The stock market ended a three-day losing streak Monday, closing broadly higher as a weaker dollar and upbeat home sales numbers encouraged investors to take on more risk.

SAN FRANCISCO - Hewlett-Packard Co.'s cost-cutting and push into new markets is helping soften the blow from weakness in the company's mainstay businesses.

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Networking gear maker Brocade Communications Systems Inc. said Monday its fourth-quarter profit fell 6 percent as hefty costs offset a surge in revenue, but reiterated its guidance for fiscal 2010.

MINNEAPOLIS - Paint and coatings maker Valspar Corp. said Monday its fiscal fourth-quarter profit climbed as the company trimmed the cost of sales and research and development expenses.

TOKYO (AFP) - Japanese high-tech giant Hitachi Ltd. plans to build railway cars in Britain in a multi-billion-dollar deal that would also create hundreds of new jobs, a company spokesman said Tuesday.

DETROIT - General Motors Co. has sued a supplier, saying it has spent more than $30 million fixing problems in the steering systems of the Chevrolet Cobalt, its best-selling small car, and other vehicles.

ALISO VIEJO, Calif. - Valeant Pharmaceuticals said Monday it began selling a generic version of Librax, a treatment for irritable bowel syndrome drug.

It's been a hard year to work at General Electric . Salary freezes have hit its famously performance-driven employees, with some managers taking pay cuts. The price of GE stock, which once made millionaires out of even hourly workers, has gone nowhere as the rest of the market has risen. A 68% dividend cut -- the first in 71 years -- has stung execs who rely on a heavy dose of restricted shares.

About a year ago, observers of the UK commercial property market would not have been shocked to see the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse riding around the corner.

I am not your typical MBA student. I chuckle thinking about the havoc I will wreak on the incoming class pie charts that the admissions office will prepare at the Georgetown McDonough School of Business (McDonough Full-Time MBA School Profile), where I will start this fall. How will they categorize a gay Bosnian Muslim refugee, a former chemist who writes about sexuality in Islam while counseling college students?

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - A cutting-edge French warship sailed into St. Petersburg Monday to show off its capabilities to potential buyers in the Russian navy, whose pursuit of an amphibious assault capacity is frightening some neighboring countries.

WASHINGTON - Home sales surged for the second month in a row in October, climbing to the highest level in 2 1/2 years as first-time buyers rushed to take advantage of an expiring tax credit.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sales of previously owned U.S. homes rose in October at a faster-than-expected pace to the highest in more than 2-1/2 years as buyers rushed to take advantage of a popular tax credit, a survey showed on Monday.