US embargo benefits Europe, Canada firms

When Fidel Castro resigned last month, stock prices of US companies that stand to benefit from more business with Cuba rallied.

Six days later, those shares retreated as his brother Raul Castro, Cuba's first new leader in 49 years, was installed and picked old-guard revolutionaries to help him govern.

That dashed forecasts of a rapid transition from communism to capitalism and the end to the embargo the United States has kept against Cuba since 1962, which bars American investment and travel to the island.