By Angela Moon NEW YORK (Reuters) - With the broad S&P 500 Index gliding once again into uncharted territory and posting four straight weeks of gains, the talk of Wall Street's rally inevitably hitting a ceiling is starting to get old. Concerns about a technical correction have been a hot topic for weeks, especially as the rally accelerated in May - the S&P 500 is up 4.4 percent so far this month and up nearly 17 percent for the year. But as the three major U.S. stock indexes inch higher and higher to set record after record, many analysts are shrugging off the pullback worries. ...
Sat, 18 May 2013 04:29:23 -0400

By Sonya Dowsett MADRID (Reuters) - Many duped savers at Spanish lender Bankia are shunning a state-supervised compensation scheme in favor of expensive lawsuits, prolonging a mis-selling scandal and complicating efforts to restore faith in the banking system. The disputes over mis-selling at Bankia and other nationalized banks have created a major headache for the government as it tries to take the next step in their rescue, imposing large losses on holders of junior debt. ...
Sun, 19 May 2013 07:12:37 -0400

LONDON (Reuters) - The single biggest risk to Britain's nascent economic recovery is continued eurozone weakness, the Bank of England's outgoing governor Mervyn King said in a television interview on Sunday. He called for a "credible medium term plan" to get the economy back on track and said automatic economic stabilizers should be allowed to work. He also predicted that North Sea oil output would recover in the next couple of years. King last week predicted that UK growth would be faster and inflation lower than expected three months earlier. ...
Sun, 19 May 2013 06:10:53 -0400

By William James LONDON (Reuters) - An independent Scotland would have a vastly oversized financial sector that would leave it vulnerable to a Cyprus-style banking crisis, Britain's finance ministry says. Before a referendum due in September 2014 on whether Scotland should split from the United Kingdom, the British government is analyzing the impact of independence on Scotland, which has a population of about 5 million. ...
Sun, 19 May 2013 06:11:18 -0400

KUWAIT (Reuters) - State-run Kuwait Petroleum Company (KPC) appointed a new chief executive and suspended other top officials after the country paid $2.2 billion in damages to Dow Chemical Co over a scrapped plastics joint venture. Nizar Mohammad al-Asani replaced Farouk Zanki as CEO at the oil firm and the cabinet approved the nomination of six board members, a statement on state news agency KUNA said. Newspaper al-Rai said that two of the board members were new. The government also suspended officials at KPC unit Petrochemical Industries Co. which pulled out of the $17. ... Sun, 19 May 2013 06:11:42 -0400