NEW YORK (Reuters) - Ameriprise Financial Inc., the brokerage spun off last year by American Express Co., said Tuesday an NASD panel ruled against its Securities America Inc. unit in an arbitration, and awarded the plaintiffs about $19.6 million.The arbitration panel handed down the award Read more…

LAGOS (Reuters) - Energy major Chevron and partners including Exxon Mobil have made a first discovery of crude oil in an exploration block 70 miles off the Nigerian coast, Chevron said Wednesday.Chevron ( Read more…

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Gold reversed early losses and rose more than 2 percent to above $700 an ounce on Wednesday as Japanese futures rebounded after falling by the 60-yen daily limit the previous day.Other precious metals also gained, with platinum boosted by record-high platinum futures Read more…

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Verizon Communications Inc. denied earlier media reports that it entered into a contract with the National Security Agency, providing the government office with info about its customer phone calls."One of the most glaring and repeated falsehoods in the media Read more…

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - The former CEO of a Seattle-based video game company has been charged with artificially inflating his company's stock price while he sold personal shares, commonly referred to as a pump and dump scheme.The Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday accused Read more…

LONDON (Reuters) - Diversified miner Xstrata made a counterbid for Canada's Falconbridge on Wednesday with a cash offer valuing the nickel miner at $17.9 billion, trumping a bid by Canadian Inco.Mining shares, including Xstrata, surged following the news and as commodity markets Read more…

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Tuesday stiffer hedge fund regulation could make financial markets less stable, as he backed the current focus on ensuring hedge fund trading partners manage their risks well.In his first comments on the subject since Read more…

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The world's major record companies on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against satellite provider XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., alleging its new Inno portable device which can store music infringes on their copyrights.A spokesman for the Recording Industry Association Read more…

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A big rise in energy costs pushed U.S. producer prices up a sharp 0.9 percent last month, but prices outside the volatile food and energy areas rose a slimmer-than-expected 0.1 percent, a government report showed on Tuesday.The April gain in the overall producer Read more…

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Applied Materials Inc. posted a higher quarterly profit Tuesday as the world's top supplier of equipment for making microchips saw revenue jump by one-fifth amid growing demand for consumer electronics.The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company also said it expected Read more…