-Shares of the online financial services provider E-Trade Financial Corp. (NASDAQ: ETFC ) were up more than 9% to $1.79 in recent trades. Citadel Investment Group LLC’s plan to sell off up to 120 million shares of E-Trade had been set to start Monday, but the hedge fund canceled the plan, saying such a move was in the best interest of E-Trade and its shareholders. See full story.
Merck & Co Inc. (NYSE: MRK) announced plans on Monday for a reorganization once its acquisition of Schering-Plough Corp (NYSE: SGP) closes later this year, including naming leaders for five main divisions (global human health, animal health, consumer health care, manufacturing and Merck Research Laboratories). –Reuters
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy will press fellow Group of 20 leaders to limit the size of banks, regulate the bonuses they pay out and tighten capital requirements, Bloomberg reported.
Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) continued to dominate the global search market in July, with a 68% market share, according to a monthly survey by comScore Inc. (SCOR). The survey also showed a total of 113.69 billion searches were conducted last month, a 41% jump from a year earlier. Google searches jumped 58% to 76.68 billion, according to the research group’s data. Far behind were Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO), No. 2 with a 7.8% share, and Chinese search engine Baidu Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU), with a 7% share. Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ: MSFT), which launched its Bing search engine in June, posted a 41% increase to 3.32 billion searches. –Dow Jones Newswires
Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) agreed to purchase Marvel Entertainment Inc. for about $4 billion in cash and stock, adding the comic-book characters Iron Man and Spider-Man to its lineup of princesses and live-action stars. Marvel investors will receive $30 a share plus 0.745 share of Disney stock, the companies said today in a statement. –Bloomberg
Oil prices fell nearly $3, or 4 percent, to below $70 a barrel on Monday as a big drop in China’s key stock index dented optimism about the pace of economic recovery and a potential rebound in global energy demand, according to Reuters.
-Jutia Group
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