The Traderszone Network

The U.K.’s benchmark stock index heads into the Easter holidays on an upbeat note on Thursday, with shares of Marks & Spencer leading the charge north after a well-received earnings report.
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Greece may have put together an updated list of reform proposals, but there are still fears the country could crash out of the euro zone.

Secret contracts, covert real-estate deals, scurrying around after nightfall to avoid detection: this is how far big-bank brokers are prepared to go when they plan to go independent. The Botkin Group, a team of brokers in Pittsburgh who produced $1.6 million in revenue last year for Morgan Stanley, went so far as to require non-disclosure agreements from contractors who made new signs, installed phones and delivered furniture to their new office. “We felt like we worked for the CIA,” said Lester H. Botkin, 35, the youngest of the group, which also includes his father, Lester P.

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U.S. drugmaker Pfizer Inc (PFE.N) said on Thursday it will cease its vaccines sales operations in China after an import license for one of its top-selling treatments, the only vaccine it sold in the country, was not renewed. A Pfizer spokeswoman declined to say why the Chinese import license for Prevenar, an anti-bacterial treatment, had not been renewed. The China Food and Drug Administration regulatory agency could not immediately be reached for comment. The move comes as drugmakers face growing difficulties obtaining approvals for medicines in China, the world’s No.

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JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) is on track to meet its mandate to provide billions of dollars in consumer relief to struggling homeowners as part of a settlement it reached over bad residential mortgage-backed securities it sold before the financial crisis, an independent monitor said on Thursday. Joseph Smith, the monitor overseeing the settlement the largest U.S. bank reached in 2013 with the federal government and five states, credited Chase $2.2 billion out of the $4 billion goal it is required to provide to consumers by 2017.

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General Motors Co (GM) (GM.N) on Thursday said its labor costs have risen nearly 50 percent over the past five years in South Korea, where it makes nearly one-fifth of its global output, but that it does not plan to shut any of its four plants there. GM earlier this year said it plans to end production in Indonesia and cut operations in Thailand as part of broader restructuring. GM classifies South Korea, the world’s No.5 carmaker, as one of its “high-cost” countries, Rocha said.

investors sitting on the sidelines ahead of U.S.

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