Discounts boost US holiday sales

Sales gained in the days after the US Thanksgiving holiday as retailers lured more customers with discounts even as individual shoppers spent less on average.

Aegon raises new business target on margins, volumes

Aegon NV, the largest Dutch insurer after ING Groep NV, raised its value of new business target, a gauge of future sales, by 14 percent on higher margins and volumes in the Americas, Europe and Asia.

IN BRIEF (Page 16)

Business International

Wheat prices rise to 11-week high

Wheat rose the most in 11 weeks on speculation that the dollar's decline will boost demand for US supplies of the grain.

Thanksgiving offers won't avert slowdown

Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Best Buy Co marked Thanksgiving yesterday with online promotions aimed at jumpstarting the holiday sales season. The websites are unlikely to provide the boost they did last year.

UK festive spending set to get a boost

Britons will spend between 2 and 3 percent more on Christmas gifts compared with last year, as low unemployment makes them confident about their finances, according to market research company Mintel.

Shell: Yamal gas could supply planet for decade

Royal Dutch Shell Plc and its partners said Russia's Yamal peninsula and Kara Sea may hold more than 30 trillion cubic meters of gas, enough to supply the world for a decade, in a plan presented in the Kremlin.

It's time for the complaining analysts to shut up

All those analysts who have complained for years that the Federal Reserve can't really be trusted because it hasn't set an explicit inflation target are going to have to shut up.

IN BRIEF (Page 16)

Business International

Fed casts shadow on growth prospects

Federal Reserve policymakers lowered their growth forecast in October and worried about credit-market losses, even as they described the interest-rate cut as a "close call".