The Traderszone Network

All 10 major S&P 500 sectors ended higher, with the technology index .SPLRCT up 1.6 percent and leading sector gainers. The day’s gains also pushed the Dow back into positive territory for the year and snapped four straight sessions of losses in the blue-chip index. Shares of Goldman Sachs GS.N rose 2 percent to $213.13, giving the Dow its biggest boost.

U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm Inc (QCOM.O) said it has appointed old-hand Frank Meng as its chairman for China, a market which accounts for half of the company’s overall revenues but where it has hit rough patches in recent times. Qualcomm also said Wang Xiang would leave his role as president of Greater China. Wang will head for Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Inc [XTC.UL], the Beijing-based five-year-old upstart, which was valued at $45 billion in December, announced in a separate statement.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras held a new round of late-night talks with the leaders of Germany and France and agreed to intensify negotiations with Athens’ creditors ahead of a looming default at the end of the month. As ratings agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded Greek bonds deeper into junk status, questioning whether Athens can pay its debts, the leftist leader emerged early on Thursday from talks on the sidelines of a summit in Brussels with Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Francois Hollande to express confidence.

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Monsanto is hosting meetings across Europe this week to woo Syngenta investors, and two Monsanto top executives said in one of these gatherings that only a due diligence assessment of Syngenta’s operations could tell whether there was room for a higher offer than the 449 Swiss francs per share proposed so far, a person with knowledge of the meeting said on Wednesday. Syngenta confirmed it had not granted the suitor access to privileged business data. “Monsanto is a competitor to many aspects of Syngenta’s business.

Wall Street executives finalized recommendations for guiding trading in the U.S. Treasury market to ensure the safety and soundness of the world’s debt arena.

Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is aiming to more than double its transaction volumes to more than $1 trillion in five years, Executive Chairman Jack Ma told a conference in Chicago …

Warner Music Group Corp has agreed to pay hundreds of former interns more than $4.2 million to resolve a class-action lawsuit accusing the company of underpaying them. The settlement, disclosed in papers filed in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday, is the latest in a series struck by media and entertainment companies over claims they paid interns little or nothing for their work. Warner Music in a statement said it was pleased to settle.