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Shares of British bank Barclays PLC and Dutch ABN AMRO rose on Wednesday on news that both had agreed to some initial merger terms.

If the merger goes through, it would create a mammoth financial institution with market capitalization of over $150 billion. The merged entity would be world's six largest bank.

Barclays's offer may be close to 33 euros per share of ABN. Although Barclays' offer would primarily be in stock, it may possibly include some cash too.

In a surprising move, energy services company Halliburton announced that it was moving its corporate headquarters and CEO David Lesar, to Dubai.

The company will retain its existing corporate office and legal incorporation in the United States. Thus it still will be subject to US laws and regulations.

According to Halliburton, the move is a part of its strategy to expand presence in the Eastern Hemisphere.

The company has assured that its 1200 employees in Dallas would not see any layoffs.

Till a few weeks back, "subprime" was an almost unheard word on the Wall Street. Today the word is all over the place.

So what is "Subprime lending" all about?

NYSE's Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted more than 400 points on Tuesday on concerns about US and Chinese economies.

Nymex Holdings Inc., the parent company of the New York Mercantile Exchange is planning a secondary stock offering which could be in excess of US$ 1 billion.

The NYMEX is one of the world's oldest and also the biggest energy exchange. NYMEX had made an initial public offer in November 2006, which was a big success. The IPO had been made at $59. At the time of the IPO, the underwriters had been criticized for undervaluing the stock and the stock had doubled on first day of listing. Since then, the NYMEX stock has risen more than 135% from its IPO price.

Microsoft Corp has been asked to pay US$ 1.52 billion in damages to Alcatel-Lucent for violating two patents related to digital music.

The patents are related to conversion of audio to MP3 format on PCs.

The case actually had began in 2003 when Lucent technologies had filed as many as 15 patent claims against Gateway Inc. and Dell Inc, for what it claimed was technology developed by its research arm Bell Labs. Microsoft had also included itself as a defendant because it felt the patents were closely associated with its Windows operating system.

The US consumer price index rose by 0.2% in January raising concerns about the economy's growth prospects. Analysts had expected a figure around 0.1%.

In spite of falling energy prices, rising prices of air travel, food and medical care, pushed inflation to its highest level since October 2006.

Core inflation, which excludes food and energy stood at 0.3% - a figure which again was higher than the expectations.

E*Trade has become USA's first discount brokerage house to offer a global trading platform to investors. Using this platform, US based traders will be able to trade foreign-listed stocks online.

In the initial stages, only 1000 customers have been offered this platform. The customers will be able to buy stocks listed in Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan and UK.

By May, the platform will be available to all customers of E*Trade and as many as 42 markets will be available for trading.

Confirming the bullish sentiment in the Asian region, the Japanese stock index Nikkei, rose in early trade on Monday to touch a seven year high. This rise follows a statement by store operator Daimaru that it will be merging its operations with Matsuzakaya Holdings. Daimaru is Japan's fourth largest retailer and Matsuzakaya is the eight largest.

Many of the other retail stocks also moved higher on expectations that more M&A activity may follow this merger.

According to a top US trade official, US is considering action against China at the WTO over subsidies and video, music and other forms of piracy. Deputy US trade representative Karan Bhatia, speaking at a House of Representatives hearing, stated that last year US had almost filed a case against China at the WTO. However, it had agreed to hold the case as China wanted more time for bilateral discussion.

As a result of rampant piracy by Chinese firms, US software, music and book publishers lose billions of dollars every year.

UK mobile giant Vodafone has reached an agreement with Hong Kong based Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd to buy out its 67% stake in in India’s fourth largest mobile player, Hutchison Essar Ltd.

Vodafone's bid of US$11.1 billion was enough to edge out rival bidders, Reliance Communications and the Hinduja Group. Vodafone's bid values entire Hutchison Essar at US$18 billion.

Vodafone hopes to recover its investment in next five years. Vodafone management has also expressed interest in buying out remaining 33% stake from Essar group.

The NASDAQ once again failed in its bid to take over the London Stock Exchange. This is the second time in almost a year that NASDAQ's hostile bid for the LSE has been rejected by majority of the LSE shareholders.

NASDAQ’s bid of US $5.3-billion found acceptance from only 0.41% of the shareholders controlling the LSE (besides itself). NASDAQ already owns 28.75% of LSE. However it needs acceptance of more than 50% of the shareholders for the hostile takeover to succeed.

According to British takeover law, now NASDAQ cannot revise its offer for a year.

The Indian IT outsourcing industry is now facing a new kind of threat - wage inflation and loss of tax cuts.

Salaries on Indian IT workers are one of the fastest rising in the world. According to a survey by ECA International Indian IT workers will get an average annual salary hike of 12% in 2007. If inflation is taken into consideration, the real wage increase will be around 7%.

Currently there is a shortage of qualified IT workers in India and many of the IT majors are accepting recruits with non-IT qualifications.

According to a report by the Labor Department, the number of people filing claims for jobless benefits rose by 3000 to 311,000 last week.

The four week moving average of new jobless claims data moved higher to 308,250 from 305,000 last week. The moving average is considered a more accurate indicator of employment as it smoothes weekly volatility.

The total number of people who remaining on benefit rolls in US fell 54,000 to 2,490,000 in the week ended 27th January.

A ruling by a federal appeals court has cleared way for US's biggest sex bias case ever. On Wednesday, the court ruled that the world's largest employer Wal Mart Inc. must face a class action suit for discriminating against women in matters of pay and promotions.

At least 1.6 million current and former female employees of Wal-Mart can now sue the company as a single group.

The case was initiated by a former employee of Wal-Mart Betty Dukes, who alleged that even after years of hard work and excellent performance reviews, she was denied promotions.