Aaron's Daily WWW Newspaper

(Reuters) - Morgan Stanley lost money in the fourth quarter due to a special charge, but performed better than analysts had expected, sending its shares higher in premarket trading. The Wall Street bank lost $275 million, or 15 cents per share, compared with earnings of $600 million, or 41 cents per share, a year earlier. …

(Reuters) - Eastman Kodak Co, which invented the hand-held camera and helped bring the world the first pictures from the moon, has filed for bankruptcy protection, capping a prolonged plunge for one of America's best-known companies. The more than 130-year-old photographic film pioneer, which had tried to restructure to …

LONDON/ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece and its bondholders have made little progress since resuming stalled talks on a debt swap, three sources close to the talks told Reuters on Thursday, with time to strike a deal and avoid a messy default running out rapidly. Nearly a week after talks hit an impasse, the two sides remain bogged …

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain passed its biggest test of market sentiment so far this year on Thursday, selling far more longer-term debt than expected as the government pressed ahead with efforts to tackle its problems with the help of a European Central Bank backstop. In Paris, France also drew strong demand at its first bond …

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Starbucks Corp , the world's largest coffee company, is finalizing its retail partnership with India's Tata Coffee Ltd and hopes to announce the deal by the end of this month, a senior official of the Indian company said on Thursday. In early 2011, the Seattle-based company signed a pact with the Tata …

MILAN (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund expects the euro zone economy to contract by 0.5 percent this year and warns that tensions arising from the bloc's debt crisis threaten global growth, Italian news agency ANSA reported on Thursday quoting a draft of the World Economic Outlook (WEO). The figure is 1.6 percentage …

The number of people seeking unemployment benefits plummeted last week to 352,000, the fewest since April 2008. The decline added to evidence that the job market is strengthening.

Consumer prices were unchanged last month, the latest sign that inflation remains tame. Lower gas prices offset rising costs for food, medical care and housing.

Bank of America made $2 billion in the last three months of last year, reversing a loss from a year earlier. It sold debt and its stake in a Chinese bank, offsetting losses in its investment banking business and higher legal expenses over mortgages.

Another set of successful bond auctions in Europe and renewed confidence in the continent's banks helped markets rally Thursday as investors awaited developments in Greece's debt-reduction talks with private creditors.

New York investment bank Morgan Stanley posted a fourth-quarter loss of $275 million Thursday, a reversal from its gain of $600 million a year ago.

Is Kodak's moment past?

Union Pacific says its fourth-quarter profit jumped 24 percent as the nation's largest freight railroad increased prices and hauled more cargo.

Revenues from Egypt's vital tourism sector plunged almost 30 percent last year, dragged down by the unrest following the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak, the government said Thursday.

Italian authorities have released the identities of four victims who perished when the Costa Concordia cruise ship ran into rocks off the Tuscan coast.

Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper company on Thursday agreed to pay damages to 36 high-profile victims of tabloid phone-hacking, including actor Jude Law, soccer player Ashley Cole and former British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott.

The number of people in the U.S. seeking unemployment benefits plummeted last week to 352,000, the fewest since April 2008. The decline added to evidence that the job market is strengthening.

Builders ended 2011 with a third straight year of dismal home building and the worst on record for single-family home construction.