NowMyNews

A measure of global equity markets edged lower on Thursday, weighed by a decline on Wall Street following a slew of corporate earnings, while the dollar fell against rival currencies although the dip was viewed as temporary. On Wall Street, the S&P 500 pulled back from record levels following a round of disappointing earnings as financial stocks led the way lower. After a lackluster start to the new year on concerns stock valuations may be over-extended, the S&P 500 had rallied 1.6 percent in the prior two sessions to set its first record high since Dec. 31. "We've made a nice run and the market is entitled to consolidate and use sort of a 'wait-and-see' attitude as far as earnings are concerned," said Terry Morris, senior equity manager for National Penn Investors Trust Company in Reading, Pennsylvania. The MSCI all-country world index was down 0.1 percent at 406.65. The dollar fell against the euro and the yen, pressured by a data showing a jump

Time Warner Inc will relocate its Manhattan corporate headquarters to the Hudson Yards development from Columbus Circle in a move to bring operations under one roof and cut costs, the company said on Thursday. _0"> The media conglomerate that includes HBO and Warner Bros said it sold the space it owns in the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle for $1.3 billion to real estate company Related Companies, an entity owned by the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) and fund management company GIC. Time Warner will lease the office space at Columbus Circle until early 2019. Additionally, the media company made an undisclosed financial commitment to Related Companies and Oxford Properties Group, the developers behind the Hudson Yards, to relocate all of its divisions including HBO and CNN to the west side of Manhattan. "By consolidating our space to Hudson Yards ... we will be able to reallocate substantial savings to our primary business," Jeff Bewkes, chief executi

Britain said on Thursday it will pay France's Veolia Environnement to incinerate 150 tonnes of Syrian poison gas precursors in northern England, the first deal for a private firm to help destroy Syria's chemical arms programme in the UK. Facing the threat of U.S. air strikes, the government of Bashar al-Assad last year promised to dismantle its chemical arsenal, telling the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) it had 1,300 tonnes of such weapons. Foreign powers have scrambled to find countries to destroy the chemicals. The most toxic are first to be processed on board a U.S. ship. Less dangerous precursor chemicals are to be destroyed commercially at industrial facilities. Britain agreed in December to destroy part of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile and to escort Scandinavian ships transporting the toxic cargo. The industrial-grade chemicals, which are of the type used routinely in the pharmaceutical industry, will be processed at Veolia's

Johnson & Johnson said on Thursday it would sell its ortho clinical diagnostics unit to buyout firm Carlyle Group LP for $4.15 billion, shedding a slow-growing business to focus on more lucrative products. A major deal in the private equity world, the sale is small change for J&J, which has a market value of $267 billion and assets spanning pharmaceuticals, medical devices and consumer products. Analysts said the move highlighted J&J's determination not to waste resources on unloved divisions. "Now with this divestiture nearly complete, we're inclined to believe (J&J) will continue to strategically prune its business segments and use the proceeds to return cash to shareholders or invest in higher-growth assets," Leerink analyst Danielle Antalffy wrote in a note. J&J's diabetes business, which includes LifeScan blood glucose meters and Animas pumps, could be the next business to go, given slowing sales growth and weak margins, Antalffy said.

Mexican low-cost airline VivaAerobus filed a prospectus on Thursday to list shares on Mexico's stock exchange for the first time. _0"> The Monterrey-based group launched in 2006 and is a venture of Mexican transport company Grupo IAMSA and the family behind the Irish low-cost airline Ryanair. Vivaaerobus gave no details on when it hoped to offer the shares nor how many it would sell. The airline in October said it had ordered 52 Airbus A320-family jets worth $5.1 billion. Barclays, Banorte and HSBC are co-bookrunners on the deal.

The Bank of England discussed with top London currency dealers their process for setting foreign exchange rates more than a year before a global investigation into alleged manipulation, according to a document provided to Reuters by the bank. The document, supplied in response to a freedom of information request for details of a meeting on April 23, 2012 of the chief dealers subgroup of the London Foreign Exchange Joint Standing Committee, said there was a brief discussion of "processes around fixes" - referring to the daily setting of benchmark exchange rates - and "extra levels of compliance". Two sources with knowledge of the meeting said the traders told the BoE about online chatroom use in the run-up to the daily rate-setting. It was not clear how much detail of this the traders provided at the meeting. The subgroup, set up for banks and brokers to discuss broad currency market issues, met at the London offices of French bank BNP Paribas. The time lag betw

A U.S. bankruptcy judge on Thursday rejected a deal for Detroit to end costly interest-rate swap agreements with two investment banks, potentially eliminating a source of cash for the bankrupt city. _0"> Ending the swaps with UBS AG and Bank of America Corp's Merrill Lynch Capital Services for $165 million - a 43 percent discount - was a key component of Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr's plan to adjust the cash-strapped city's finances through the municipal bankruptcy process. Judge Steven Rhodes, who is overseeing the city's historic bankruptcy case, said Detroit was likely to succeed with some potential challenges to the validity of the swaps, which were used to hedge interest-rate risk for some of the $1.4 billion of pension debt the city sold in 2005 and 2006. He also said the $165 million payment to end the swaps was "too high a price to pay." Rhodes denied Detroit's plan to finance the swap termination through a $285 million loan wi