Bad Paper

NEW YORK (Reuters) – General Motors Corp’s chief executive told a U.S. bankruptcy court on Tuesday that the sale of GM’s main assets to government-backed “New GM” must win court approval in order for the automaker to survive.

Citigroup has sharply increased interest rates on up to 15m US credit card accounts just months before curbs on such rises come into effect, in a move that could fuel political anger at the treatment of consumers by bailed-out banks

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Stocks fell on Tuesday as an unexpected drop in consumer confidence cooled recent optimism about an economic recovery, but Wall Street still closed out its best quarter in a decade.

HOUSTON (Reuters) – A federal judge on Tuesday ordered Texas financier Allen Stanford, accused of a $7 billion fraud, held without bail until trial.

Abrupt retreat by Beijing hours before policy for software was due to start

RBS was ‘highly dangerous’ to Europe’s single market and too complex to understand, Neelie Kroes, EU competition commissioner, warned as she stressed the need for significant asset sales there and at Lloyds

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks fell on Tuesday after U.S. consumer confidence data showed a surprise drop, raising doubts about the speed of an economic recovery, and falling oil prices sank energy shares.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. consumer confidence took an unexpectedly steep slide in June, figures released on Tuesday showed, suggesting the 18-month-long recession had yet to loosen its grip on the economy.

Confidence among US consumers dropped in June after two months of building optimism, surprising economists and knocking the wind from stock markets.

The UK and Chinese companies beat ExxonMobil, the US oil company, which had partnered with Malaysia’s Petronas. BP clinched the contract when it agreed to reduce its fee from $3.99 to $2 a barrel

Eurozone annual inflation has turned negative for the first time, complicating the job of the European Central Bank as draws a line under emergency measures to tackle continental Europe’s recession

US stocks fell after consumer confidence unexpectedly slid and delinquencies on the least risky mortgages more than doubled

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stock futures were modestly higher on Tuesday ahead of a new round of data that may give investors insight into the state of the recession-hit economy on the last day of the second quarter.