Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) said its license to operate its Internet-search service in China was renewed by the country’s authorities. In January the tech giant had warned that it might cease operating in China and a couple of months later began redirecting users of its China site to its Hong Kong site. The company ended that redirection last week. In other news, UBS upgraded Costco Wholesale (NASDAQ:COST) to buy from neutral, saying that recent weakness in the share price, which has fallen 9% since April, is a good entry point for what it believes is "one of the world’s best retail business models." –MarketWatch
Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) is handing over its listings of homes for sale and local real estate advertising to Zillow.com, a real estate website. Zillow will oversee a network that will place homes-for-sale listings and real estate advertising on both Yahoo and Zillow.com, The Associated Press reported. Yahoo will continue to sell real estate ads bought by financial services and the company is increasingly focusing on core businesses in news, finance, entertainment, sports and email, while turning to outside companies to handle other services. Zillow’s home-value estimates have been displayed on Yahoo’s real estate site since 2006. –Daily Finance
Best Buy (NYSE:BBY), the world’s largest consumer-electronics retailer, was cut to “hold” from “buy” at Jefferies & Co, which cited weaker sales trends compared to the first-quarter. The 12-month share-price estimate is $36. Also, Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) fell 0.7 percent to $19.96. The world’s largest chipmaker was cut to “perform” from “outperform” at Oppenheimer & Co. which cited concern about a slowdown in the personal computer market –Bloomberg
The euro and higher-yielding currencies fell back, as this week’s rally for riskier assets began to run out of steam. The exception was the Canadian dollar, which gained strongly against its U.S. counterpart after better-than-expected Canadian employment data. After substantial gains earlier in the week for currencies tied to growth, investors were likely readjusting positions heading into the weekend, analysts said. "The euro’s had a nice run up" over the past week, as some concerns over the euro-zone sovereign debt crisis have eased, said Brian Kim, currency strategist at UBS in Stamford, Conn. –The Wall Street Journal
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