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The company has been hit by a pullback in discretionary spending as customers confront the prospect of job losses and home foreclosures and grapple with tighter credit conditions. Intraday data provided by Interactive Data Real Time Services , a division of Interactive Data Corp. Historical and current end-of-day data provided by Interactive Data Pricing and Reference Data . Intraday data delayed 15 minutes for Nasdaq, and 20 minutes for other exchanges. SEHK intraday data is provided by Comstock and is at least 60-minutes delayed. Real-time last sale data provided by NASDAQ. read more

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CHICAGO (AP) — Agriculture futures rose Wednesday on the Chicago Board of Trade. Wheat for March delivery added 10. March oats traded up 2 cents to $2. Beef and pork futures mostly traded higher on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. read more

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COM] Crude oil futures have rebounded from an early loss to sport a 4% gain. Gold is extending the prior week’s advance by climbing 1. Riding the advance in commodities, and that of the broader market, the materials sector is sporting a 2. Subscribe now to Barron's for just $39 for 13 weeks and receive FREE with your paid subscription, the Guide to Building Wealth plus four weeks of Barron's Online. Vantage Point – Market Analysis Software – Forecast Markets with up to 80% Accuracy! read more

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Analysts said that crude futures fell early as the Dow Jones industrial average dropped below 8,000, but a subsequent recovery in stocks prompted short-covering ahead of the weekend. Heating oil futures rallied amid forecasts for colder temperatures in the U. Northeast, the leading heating oil market, and analysts said that helped lift crude. Gasoline futures also rose sharply, aligning the overall performance of the energy complex with rising prices in other commodities, analysts said. CRB, a global commodities benchmark, jumped 2 percent to hit a near 2-week high as oil and other commodities rallied. read more

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Investors are likely to press for comments on its outlook and on Yahoo, whose search business has been the object of the leading software maker’s desires. NYSE and AMEX quotes delayed by at least 20 minutes. Nasdaq delayed by at least 15 minutes. For a complete list of exchanges and delays, please click here . read more

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HE devotion of the millions who descended on Washington DC yesterday – and the optimism of millions watching around the world – cannot be doubted. But for the 44th President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, the challenges of office are only just beginning. As President Obama himself noted in his inauguration address, a man of his race would not have been served in a restaurant in many US states 60 years ago. The idea of a US President with the middle name Hussein was inconceivable even two or three years ago – now an African-American holds the most powerful political office on Earth. President Obama inherits an in-tray full of huge political challenges – sprinkled on top is the weight of public expectation. That won’t happen, but President Obama has the ability and the political skills to transform the debate and take decisive action. read more

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TORONTO, Jan 20 (Reuters) – Toronto’s key stock index could open lower on Tuesday as a slide in commodity prices and news that Suncor Energy is cutting its 2009 spending threatens to weigh on the resource heavy index. Canada is a key exporter of oil and gold, so a drop in the price of these commodities could dictate the overall index’s move in Tuesday’s session as the energy and materials sectors make up about 40 percent of the overall index. Oil fell $3, sliding below $34 a barrel after Russia and Ukraine agreed a deal on Tuesday leading to the resumption of gas supplies to Europe, while gloomy economic news presaged weaker demand for oil products. Thomson Reuters is the world’s largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters. read more

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As a giddy real-life crowd gathered in the National Mall, the figurative crowd that gathers daily in the stock market was newly worried about the state of the financial industry in the U. However, some elements of his plan could take months or even a year to have a real effect on the economy, said analyst Dan Clifton, of Strategas Research Partners, which published an analysis of the plan for its clients on Tuesday. To view or change all of your email settings, visit the Email Setup Center . WSJ Spanish Copyright ©2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. read more

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The commodity murabaha contract is one of the most common financing structures in the Islamic industry and is frequently used to secure sharia loans. The real issue arises when commodity murabaha is undertaken by a conventional financial institution that is not governed by any laws that require a 100 percent sharia compliant business operation as it may result with the product being abused. The abusers normally defend themselves simply by saying the commodity murabaha as a sharia compliant product does not require them to identify how the proceeds from the product are used. It also forces Sukuk issuers to rely solely on conventional riba investors (who control the majority of Islamic funds due to commodity murabaha) to buy their sukuk. The reason for this is because Islamic funds in Malaysia which cannot leak into the conventional market (right diagram above) are forced to chase after Islamic assets thus boosting the demand for sukuk. read more

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