Anti-Wall Street protesters vowed to keep up their fight on Sunday despite the arrests of more than 700 people the previous day for blocking traffic lanes on the Brooklyn Bridge in an unauthorized protest.
Wall Street dropped on worries about a possible downgrade of the United States' top credit rating and signs of economic weakness even as the US Congress passed on Tuesday a bill to avoid a debt default.
US exchanges Nasdaq and ICE have mounted a 11.3 billion US dollars bid for NYSE Euronext, topping a previous offer from Deutsche Boerse. The bid compares with Deutsche Boerse's offer of 10.2bn.
United States Senate has given final approval to the biggest overhaul of US financial regulation in decades. The reforms are intended to avert a repeat of the 2008 crisis that brought the world economy to the brink of collapse.
US President Barack Obama has attacked critics of his banking reforms in a speech which warned that without change the financial crisis will be repeated. Reckless practices and financial firms that acted like “bandits” should never be allowed to operate again, he said.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc said first-quarter earnings nearly doubled, while in London Britain's financial regulator launched a formal probe related to civil fraud allegations against the Wall Street bank.