Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Bing search engine has been rapidly rising in popularity since its launch in June of last year. In August, it overtook Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) as the No. 2 U.S. Internet search engine, after Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), for the first time, according to a Nielson report Tuesday. Bing accounted for 13.9% of August searches, compared to 13.1% for Yahoo, Nielsen said in the report. Google still accounted for about two-thirds of all U.S. searches. The Microsoft-owned visual search engine appears to have taken market share from Yahoo since last year. Bing searches increased 30% in the past year while Yahoo searches were down 18%, Nielsen says. –Daily Finance
Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and UBS AG are missing out on Chinese initial public offerings as local investment banks lead record numbers of small companies to sell shares in Shenzhen. China accounts for a third of the $150 billion raised worldwide in IPOs this year — yet the average deal size has shrunk as companies rush to list on Shenzhen’s ChiNext startup board introduced in October. Goldman Sachs, ranked first in overseas IPOs by Chinese companies, has expanded its local investment-banking unit’s workforce by about 40 percent in 2010 as it moves to target smaller domestic offerings. –Bloomberg
Manufacturers in the New York region said business softened further in early September, according to a report released Wednesday by the New York Federal Reserve Bank. The Empire state index fell to 4.1 in September from 7.1 in August — the lowest level since July 2009. The September reading was well below the high of 31.9 in April and 19.6 in June and suggests growth at a tepid pace. In September, 31% of firms said business got worse in September, compared with 22% in August. At the same time, 35% said business improved, up from 30% last month. Readings above zero indicate more firms said business was improving than said it was worsening.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore could intervene to bring down the Singaporean dollar for the second time in a month if the currency rises to S$1.33 to the U.S. dollar, a person familiar with the matter said. The city-state’s central bank is gauging the impact of Japan’s currency-market intervention, which should help other Asian authorities cope. –The Wall Street Journal
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