Global Economic and business news

AP - The fear on Wall Street is that nervous consumers are going to short-circuit the economic recovery.

AP - How far the Dow Jones industrial average has fallen or advanced each trading day since Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sept. 15. Since Lehman's fall, which touched off a paralysis of the credit markets and deepened the recession, the stock market has gone through an extended period of volatility before kicking into a big rally starting this spring. The numbers are the closing levels for the Dow:

AP - Stocks fell sharply Friday, taking the major indexes down about 1 percent, after investors were disappointed by reports that the Reuters/University of Michigan index of consumer sentiment fell significantly short of expectations for the first part of August. That's a sign consumers may well keep cutting back their spending as they worry about losing their jobs.

Reuters - Wall Street's top cop has a lot to prove and its been taking no prisoners.

AP - The attorney supposed to clean up what the government says was Texas businessman R. Allen Stanford's multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme is managing to anger just about every party involved in the case.

AP - Republic Airways shares rose after it won the bidding to take Frontier Airlines out of bankruptcy, while other airline stocks fell.

AFP - Europe's main stock markets advanced Friday, with London hitting a fresh 10-month high as property stocks jumped on takeover talk within the sector, traders said.

Reuters - Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N)(BRKb.N) underestimated the risks of falling stock prices to its billions of dollars of derivatives bets, yet still believes it is valuing the contracts fairly.

Reuters - Oil prices rose on Thursday to near $71 a barrel after better-than-expected results from U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart reinforced hopes for an economic recovery and pushed up Wall Street stocks.