- The Dow bounced back today closing up 116 points to 13,900. A jump in home sales and strong earnings from Home Depot helped the Dow get back more than half of its losses from yesterday. Improving consumer confidence also brought back buyers to the market. The S&P 500 rose 9 points to 1,497 and the Nasdaq jumped 13 points to close at 3,130.
- The price of oil ended lower today. Benchmark crude finished down 48 cents at $92.63 a barrel. The price dropped below $92 earlier in the session. The price drifted lower as investors weighed the implications of political uncertainty in Italy, the latest assessment of the economy from the head of the Federal Reserve and prospects for growing US crude supplies.
- Best Buy Co. says it is cutting 400 jobs at its headquarters as part of a larger $725 million cost-cutting plan. The electronics chain says the cuts are the first phase of the larger cost-cutting plan that new CEO Hubert Joly announced in November.
- Microsoft is escalating its efforts to bring the latest version of Internet Explorer to more than 700 million personal computers. Today's release of Internet Explorer 10 is aimed at PCs running on Windows 7, the most-used version of Microsoft's flagship operating system for PCs. The final version of Internet Explorer 10 will be automatically sent to all Windows 7 computers set up to get updates.
- Beer drinkers across the nation have filed $5 million class-action lawsuits accusing Anheuser-Busch of watering down its Budweiser, Michelob and other brands. A lead lawyer says the lawsuits are based on claims from former brewery employees who say excess water is added to the beer just before bottling, cutting the stated alcohol content by 3 percent to 8 percent.
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