Business News

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on Wednesday as surprisingly strong data on durable goods orders soothed some concern about the sluggish economy while Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac led a rally in financial shares.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office is probing the relationship between Fidelity Investments and Goldman Sachs Group Inc in connection with the broker's sales of auction-rate securities, people familiar with the investigation said on Wednesday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the largest U.S. housing finance companies, rallied for a third straight day on Wednesday as investors grew more confident their shareholdings would not be wiped out by a government intervention.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury on Wednesday shot down financial market rumors that an announcement regarding mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was imminent.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A man accused of trying to extort millions of dollars from his son-in-law, an executive of the Blackstone Group LP, on Wednesday blamed the private equity firm for his "malicious" arrest and charges.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Energy companies in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico began evacuating staff from offshore platforms on Wednesday as Tropical Storm Gustav barreled toward the oil and natural gas-rich region.

BANGALORE (Reuters) - Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc may post a loss in the third quarter on likely pre-tax writedowns of $3.5 billion, while Goldman Sachs Group Inc may incur $1.5 billion in writedowns, according to an analyst at Morgan Stanley.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit accusing the now-bankrupt mortgage lender IndyMac Bancorp Inc of inflating the appraised values of homes and misleading borrowers into paying higher closing and financing costs.

ATLANTA (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve must be "very vigilant" amid strained financial markets while exercising patience over interest rates as it waits for inflation to ease, a top Fed policy-maker said on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New orders for long-lasting U.S. manufactured goods jumped a surprising 1.3 percent in July as businesses ramped up spending plans and demand for a wide array of items rose, a government report showed on Wednesday.