Business News: General

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - General Motors has been in preliminary talks about acquiring Chrysler LLC, but the talks were suspended due to the upheaval in financial markets, the Wall Street Journal reported late on Friday.

By Emily Kaiser and Claudia Parsons
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Finance chiefs of the world's rich nations pledged on Friday to prevent big banks from collapse and to work together to stem the financial crisis after another day of gut-wrenching drops on world markets.

By Mark Felsenthal and Sumeet Desai
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The world's rich nations vowed on Friday to take all necessary steps to unfreeze credit markets and ensure banks can raise money but they offered no collective course of action to avert a deep global recession.

By Frank Tang
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Options traders are betting that gold will run toward $1,200 an ounce by year end, but it looks like they will have to sweat out some extremely choppy markets before seeing if the prediction pays off.

Nothing seems to be stopping the downward spiral in the markets at the moment. So, even when central banks around the world came together and demonstrated a concerted effort to shore up liquidity, the markets all around the world tanked. However, Indian fund managers still see hope.

The country's 10-year bonds completed the biggest weekly gain in more than four years after the nation made the steepest cut since 2001 in the amount of cash banks must hold in reserve, boosting funds in the financial system.

TCS recently announced the acquisition of Citigroup's stake in Citigroup Global Services (CGSL), the India-based captive BPO arm of Citibank for an all-cash consideration of $505 million.

By Doris Frankel
CHICAGO (Reuters) - An index regarded as Wall Street's fear gauge notched record highs again on Friday, reflecting unprecedented investor anxiety after the broad U.S. stock market fell in a turbulent session.

By Leah Schnurr
NEW YORK (Reuters) - High anxiety on Wall Street won't subside next week as the deepening credit crunch pushes the global economy into recession and corporate profits increasingly become an afterthought as investors scramble to raise enough cash to weather the credit crisis.

By Pedro Nicolaci da Costa
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Global stocks dove head first to five-year lows on Friday at the end of a brutal week as even the traditional safe-havens of gold and government bonds suffered as fear-stricken investors sought refuge in cash.

By Matthew Robinson
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices dropped more than 10 percent on Friday and touched 13-month lows in a global flight from risk amid concerns of a worldwide recession and further signs of slumping energy demand.

India's benchmark Sensex was today dragged into the global stampede of selling as the financial turmoil that started in the US spread like a contagion and killed market sentiment across the world.

By Kristina Cooke
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Dow and the S&P 500 dropped for an eighth session on Friday, as a dramatic late-day comeback stalled out to cap the worst week ever for the S&P amid more anxiety about the condition of credit markets and the threat of a global recession.

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Ballard Power Systems Inc said on Friday that it hopes a major supply deal with telecom companies in India for back-up power systems using its fuel cells will pave the way for similar sales.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks turned positive and the Dow industrials jumped more than 200 points in late afternoon trading on Friday, led by financials in a turbulent session with analysts citing bets that the finance chiefs of the world's major economies will take coordinated steps this weekend to confront the financial crisis.

India's main Bombay Stock Exchange's sensitive index, the Sensex tumbled on Friday, joining a global sell off on worries about a recession.

By Daniel Trotta
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street titans buckled under the weight of a global stock market panic on Friday as the finance chiefs of the world's major economies gathered in Washington to confront the inescapable financial crisis.

By Paul Sandle
LONDON (Reuters) - London-listed fuel cell maker IdaTech Plc said it had won a "transformational" deal to supply up to 30,000 units to Indian telecoms infrastructure group ACME, sending its shares higher.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A meeting of finance ministers and central bankers of the Group of Seven major industrialized nations got under way at about 2:15 p.m.

It seems to be raining small cars in India. Makers of electric scooters and bikes under the Oreva brand, Ajanta group of India is all set to roll out its first e-car.