As It Happens

The surveillance program reportedly uses data points, such as violations of market-risk limits, to detect rogue workers.

Royal Dutch Shell agreed to buy smaller rival BG Group for $70.2 billion in the first major energy industry merger in more than a decade, closing the gap on market leader ExxonMobil after a plunge in prices.

Procter & Gamble Co. has kicked off the sale of some of its beauty brands as the world’s biggest consumer-product maker seeks to shed laggard assets, people familiar with the matter said. P&G has sent out sale documents to potential bidders for its Wella haircare unit, cosmetics brands and its fragrance business, according to the people, who asked not to be identified as the sale isn’t public. The company has reached out to potential buyers including Henkel AG, Revlon Inc., Unilever, Kao Corp., and Coty Inc., the people said. Officials at P&G, Henkel, Revlon, Coty and Kao declined to comment.

Electric car maker Tesla Motors is going after mainstream luxury car buyers by adding all-wheel-drive and more range and power to the base version of its only model. But the added features at the low end ...

The Fed should look for "a little more proof than usual" that labor markets are tightening, said central bank governor Jerome Powell in remarks prepared for a Wednesday speech.

Greece sold over a billion euros worth of short-term treasury bills Wednesday in a bid to scrape together enough cash to meet is debt obligations.

Global equity markets rose on Wednesday, with European shares hitting eight-year highs on a $70 billion takeover bid by Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L), but shares pared gains after the largest U.S. crude inventory build since 2001 slammed oil prices. Equity markets briefly sold off after U.S. Energy Information Administration data showed stockpiles of U.S. crude surged nearly 11 million barrels last week in their largest weekly build since March 2001.

New York Federal Reserve President William Dudley said on Wednesday the Fed could still hike rates in June despite a weak start to the year, if economic data pick up over the next two months.

Investors are playing it close to the vest ahead of the release of the latest Fed Minutes and the unofficial start to the earnings season. Here's what you need to know about the biggest business stories of the day.

Three Chinese citizens are taking China's Ministry of Agriculture to court in a bid to make public a toxicology report supporting the approval of Monsanto's popular weedkiller, Roundup, 27 years ago. The case, a rare example of a lawsuit by private citizens against the Chinese government, comes amid renewed attention on glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup, after a controversial report by a World Health Organisation group last month found it to be "probably carcinogenic to humans" - a claim denied by Monsanto. It also underlines the deep-seated fears held by some Chinese over genetically modified food. China imports about 65 percent of the world's traded soybeans.

World stock markets were mostly higher Wednesday as Japan's central bank maintained its expansively easy monetary policy and Royal Dutch Shell announced a $69.7 billion takeover of BG Group. KEEPING SCORE: ...

Global tech giants Google, Apple and Microsoft are "under review" by the Australian Tax Office (ATO), senior executives said on Wednesday, as politicians grilled them about corporate tax avoidance. Developed nations are trying to crack down on tax loopholes that allow multinational companies to shift their profits from high tax countries to more relaxed regimes. Australia is following the lead of Britain and the United States in holding a public inquiry into corporate tax avoidance, although the company executives declined to provide full details about their financial structures.

Royal Dutch Shell has agreed to buy British gas producer BG Group for 47 billion pounds ($69.7 billion) in cash and stock, the companies announced Wednesday. The move gives oil giant Shell a greater stake ...

U.S. stocks pared initial gains to trade slightly higher on Wednesday as energy stocks sold off after a large buildup in crude stockpiles sent oil futures reeling. Brent (LCOc1) slid 3.3 percent and U.S. crude (CLc1) lost more than 4 percent after data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed the largest weekly build in oil inventories since March 2001. Energy stocks, which had been supported by Royal Dutch Shell's (RDSa.L) $70 billion bid for rival BG Group (BG.L), fell sharply after the EIA data. Certainly the market is feeling that," said Joe Saluzzi, co-manager of trading at Themis Trading in Chatham, New Jersey.

Wall Street is greeting what is expected to be the worst earnings season since 2009 with a gigantic shrug. Though there has been some selling in recent weeks, there's been no panic dumping of stocks, even though forecasts for S&P 500 first-quarter earnings have tumbled since Jan. 1, thanks to the surging dollar, falling oil prices and another severe winter. The earnings season unofficially kicks off Wednesday with results from aluminum company Alcoa (AA.N). First-quarter S&P 500 earnings are projected to have declined by 2.8 percent from a year ago, which would make the quarter the worst for results since the third quarter of 2009, not long after the United States emerged from the Great Recession, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Iran has been accepted as a founding member of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank , Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported late on Tuesday. The decision was made by existing members, ...

Greece has not asked Russia for money to help cope with its debt and financial problems and wants to resolve them within the European Union, a Greek government official said on Wednesday. "We have not asked for financial aid," the official saidbefore talks in Moscow between Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Greek government official said the two leaders would discuss economic cooperation and bilateral investment and exports, but made clear that Greece would do so within the framework of the EU. European Parliament President Martin Schulz warned Tsipras before the visit not to break with the EU line on sanctions towards Russia over its role in the Ukraine crisis.

U.S. job openings surged to a 14-year high in February but a steady pace of hiring suggested employers are having trouble finding suitable workers, a trend that could put upward pressure of wage growth. Job openings, a measure of labor demand, increased 168,000 to a seasonally adjusted 5.1 million, the Labor Department said in its monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey on Tuesday. The so-called JOLTS report is one of the indicators being closely watched by Federal Reserve officials as they contemplate raising interest rates this year. While employment growth braked sharply in March after 12 straight months of job gains above 200,000, the JOLTS report indicated that the labor market remained on solid ground.

Minneapolis Fed President Narayana Kocherlakota on Tuesday laid out a case for waiting until the second half of 2016 to start raising interest rates, and to then raise them gradually to just 2 percent by the end of 2017. His remarks afterwards to reporters suggest he is increasingly worried that market expectations for nearer-term rate rises, fueled by comments from many of Kocherlakota's Fed colleagues, could knock the wind out of the economic recovery. "That conversation (about raising rates) in and of itself is a tightening of policy," Kocherlakota said. Most Fed policymakers, including Fed Chair Janet Yellen, believe the Fed will need to start raising rates this year as the labor market improves and begins to put upward pressure on excessively low inflation.

Daimler AG on Tuesday said it would expand its cooperation with partner Nissan Motor Co Ltd to develop a mid-sized pickup truck for Mercedes-Benz as the German premium automaker seeks to narrow its sales gap with rival BMW. The new Mercedes-Benz pickup targets commercial and private clients in Europe, Latin America, Australia and South Africa, and will share some of the underpinnings with an all-new Nissan NP300 truck, Daimler and Nissan said in a joint statement. "Entering the rapidly growing segment of midsize pickups is an important step in continuing our global growth path," Daimler Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche said.