Saturday Papers: Mozilo pays $67.5m to settle SEC charges - other news

Financial Times

* Angelo Mozilo, the former Countrywide Financial chief executive, on Friday agreed to pay $67.5 million to settle civil charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

* US stocks climbed on Friday on strong Google results; the S&P 500 index was up 0.2%, rising 1% for the week to 1,176; the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.3% to 11,063, bringing down its five-day gain to 0.5%; Nasdaq Composite index added 1.4% yesterday to 2,469, rising 2.8% for the week; Google’s shares rose 11.2% to $601.45.

* Georg Funke, the former chief executive of Hypo Real Estate, has been awarded two months’ salary, or about €150,000, by a court in legal battle against the German bank.

* Gold prices eased from record levels, with spot gold in New York at $1,371 a troy ounce, down from Thursday’s record of $1,387.35.

* Ben Bernanke has supported a new monetary stimulus to battle high unemployment in the US and head off the risk of a downward spiral in prices; he said most of the Federal Reserve officials think inflation should be “2% or a bit below”; the comment on Friday sparked a rise in the dollar index after Bernanke failed to add any detail to the expected programme.

* The US Treasury has announced it will push back a decision about whether to brand China a currency manipulator by delaying the twice-yearly report assessing the exchange rate policies of trading partners.

* Rupert Murdoch has declared his dissatisfaction with Barack Obama and the Democratic party, saying that two $1 million donations by News Corp were intended to encourage change in Washington.

* Cotton prices soared to a nominal record high on Friday amid heavy buying in China and disappointing crops in major producing nations including Pakistan.

* General Electric shares closed down 5%, knocking about $9 billion off its market capitalisation, after the company reported third-quarter net income of $2.2 billion, down 11% from $2.5 billion in 2009.

* The Office of Fair Trading has slapped a £10.2 million fine on Reckitt Benckiser for market abuse.

* Indian exchange operator Financial Technologies has launched its “Global Board Of Trade” in Mauritious to offer trading in commodity derivatives, energy and African currencies.