The Traderszone Network

Asian shares edged down on Friday ahead of U.S. Solid gains in employment are projected, and could increase speculation the Federal Reserve could raise U.S. “The market is positioned for a big number,” Chris Weston, chief market strategist at IG Markets in Melbourne, said in a note. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down about 0.2 percent, on track for a weekly loss of about 1.8 percent.

Shares of Disney, which have hit record levels as the company consistently beat forecasts in recent quarters, dropped 2.5 percent in after-hours trading on Thursday. With the TV landscape rocked by a wave of new online viewing options, Chief Executive Bob Iger bucked the trend and insisted Disney would not rush to offer standalone subscriptions to popular content such as its sports behemoth ESPN outside the traditional bundle of channels sold by cable and satellite operators. Disney will experiment with online offerings, Iger said, including ESPN’s planned streaming service of some NBA games.

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Honda Motor Co, facing a U.S. Japan’s third-biggest carmaker said late on Thursday it was adding to its recall an undisclosed number of cars from model years 2001-2006 that were sold or registered in humid areas where the air bag inflators are thought to be most vulnerable to rupture. Honda said “it is not aware of any claimed injuries or fatalities that have been confirmed” related to the issue. The action, upgrading Honda’s “safety campaign” to a formal recall, comes a day after U.S.

The unemployment rate is forecast holding steady at a six-year low of 5.9 percent. The relatively strong pace of job gains also signals that the slack in the labor market is being absorbed. The Labor Department will release its monthly employment report at 8:30 a.m. (1330 GMT) on Friday. Wage growth has been the missing piece of the jobs recovery and without significant increases, most economists say the Fed will be in no rush to lift benchmark lending rates that it has kept near zero since December 2008.

The company, which confirmed the breach in September, said the files that contained the email addresses did not include passwords, payment card information or other sensitive personal information. Home Depot, which had estimated that the theft would cost about $62 million, was one of a string of U.S. Criminals used a third-party vendor’s user name and password to enter the perimeter of its network, Home Depot said in a statement on Thursday.

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The stable of judges on Manhattan’s federal bankruptcy court is undergoing dramatic turnover that could bring more uncertainty to one of the go-to venues for rescuing companies on the brink of financial ruin. In January, Robert Gerber, the judge overseeing litigation stemming from the General Motors’ ignition-switch recall debacle, will assume “recall” status, allowing court administrators to hire a new judge, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

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Regulators are investigating allegations that dealers colluded and manipulated key reference rates in the $5.3 trillion-a-day foreign currency market, which is the world’s biggest and least regulated. Bank of America revised its results to add $400 million to its legal reserves to cover expected settlements related to foreign exchange, adding it was in advanced discussions with U.S. The bank said in a filing it was being investigated by government authorities in North America, Europe and Asia but did not disclose which regulators it was in talks with.

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