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Wall Street cheered as oil prices tested a one-week low. Blue chips rallied 94 points. The S&P 500 rose 14 and the Nasdaq gained 37. Crude oil prices swung wildly touching a high near $127 - - - then falling to a low in the $120 area - - - only to scale back steep losses to finish little changed at $124.12. The early sell-off was tied to a surprise surge in natural gas supplies. U.S. rice prices tumbled for the fourth day in a row and are down 20 percent from the record price set last month. Traders are now expecting a big global rice crop this year. Merger and acquisition news gave stocks a positive bid. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn made moves to apply pressure and force Yahoo to do a deal with Microsoft..... Television network CBS is buying technology Website CNET for $1.8 billion..... And General Electric is looking to sell-off its venerable appliance division, according to the Wall Street Journal. GE declined to comment, but analysts don't think the sale will help the sagging stock price, which edged lower. Looking at other companies......shares of Yahoo and Microsoft moved higher. CBS was down about 2.4 percent, while CNET surged 43-1/2 percent. Economic data had a mixed impact......Industrial production fell in April by its biggest measure in about 2-1/2 years and weekly jobless claims rose more than expected . But in a positive sign, activity in the Mid-Atlantic region contracted less than feared in May. Meantime, the European trading day ended with a whimper. Major markets in Germany and France were little changed. The London FTSE finished higher. Conway Gittens, Reuters
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Added: May 16, 2008 |
| Category: Business |
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