 | Good afternoon |  |  | Oracle shares plummeted on Wednesday, a day after its results fell short of expectations, dragging down the tech sector as investors feared the rare miss was a sign corporate America may be pulling back on tech spending.
More troubling news for the tech sector as Nokia's long-awaited Windows phones may be too little, too late in the smartphone war dominated by Apple and Google, despite positive reviews by handset critics.
Its first Windows model, the Lumia 800, has won little interest from consumers, with only 2 percent of Europeans in the market for a smartphone saying they would pick it, according to a survey by Exane BNP Paribas.
One of the sectors most recent punching bags actually received some positive news as RIM finally delivered on a promise made by co-founder Mike Lazaridis. The widely popular game Angry Birds, where birds destroy the pigs who stole their eggs with the help of a slingshot is finally available on the PlayBook tablet.
Facebook has agreed to improve its privacy policy for hundreds of millions of users after a three-month investigation by Irish authorities at the U.S. group's international headquarters in Dublin.
CNET's Roger Cheng says that even though 2011 was a chaotic year for mobile devices, 2012 promises to be even more exciting.
Finally, the Vatican said an unknown buyer had snapped up the internet address vatican.xxx, a domain combining its name with an extension reserved for pornographic content.
"This domain is not available because it has been acquired by someone else, but not the Vatican," a Vatican spokesman said. | | | Wall Street retreats after rally, Oracle sinks Nasdaq | | December 21, 2011 02:36 PM ET | | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks declined modestly on Wednesday as equities retreated from recent gains, while weak earnings from Oracle raised concerns about the health of the tech sector, pressuring the group and pushing the Nasdaq down more than 1 percent. | Full Article | | BofA's Countrywide to pay $335 million over bias case | | December 21, 2011 03:14 PM ET | | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp's Countrywide Financial unit agreed on Wednesday to pay a record $335 million to settle civil charges that it discriminated against minority homebuyers, a historic settlement for the Obama administration in the wake of the subprime mortgage morass. | Full Article | | Exclusive: Italian banks tap 116 billion euros of ECB loans | | December 21, 2011 01:39 PM ET | | ROME/MILAN (Reuters) - More than a dozen Italian banks, including top lenders UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo , tapped 116 billion euros ($143.52 billion) of new three-year loans offered by the European Central Bank, nearly a quarter of the total, three sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. | Full Article | | | BUSINESS NEWS
| | Obama calls Boehner, urges deal on payroll tax | | December 21, 2011 02:46 PM ET | | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a bid to end a worsening standoff over extending a tax break for Americans, President Barack Obama urged Republican House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner on Wednesday to pass a short-term extension and return to talks on a year-long deal in the New Year. | Full Article | | Iraq PM warns Sunnis could be shut from power | | December 21, 2011 02:51 PM ET | | BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's Sunni Muslim minority rejected a call for all-party talks on Wednesday, ignoring U.S. pressure for dialogue to resolve a sectarian crisis that has erupted since American forces left the country this week. | Full Article | | Banks gorge on ECB loans, market cheer short-lived | | December 21, 2011 01:35 PM ET | | FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Banks gobbled up nearly 490 billion euros in three-year cut-price loans from the European Central Bank on Wednesday, easing immediate fears of a credit crunch but leaving unresolved how much will flow to needy euro zone economies. | Full Article | | | | U.S. TOP NEWS | | | | | RELATED VIDEO | | |  |  | | A daily digest of breaking business news, coverage of the US economy, major corporate news and the financial markets. Register Today. |  | | Your daily briefing on the latest tech developments from around the world from Reuters expert tech correspondents. Register Today. |  | | The latest Reuters articles on M&A, IPOs, private equity, hedge funds and regulatory updates delivered to your inbox each day.. Register Today. | | | » MORE NEWSLETTERS | | | ODDLY ENOUGH | | | | | | |
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