Traders are piling into risky bets after a better than expected US labour market report reinforced hopes that the US economy can avoid sliding back into recession.

BP said it had spent almost $2bn in the last month responding to its Gulf of Mexico oil spill, even as it plugged the leak, taking its total bill for the catastrophe to $8bn.

Canada’s Goldcorp has launched a C$3.6bn (US$3.4bn) cash-and-stock takeover offer for Andean Resources, trumping a C$3.4bn bid made public only hours earlier by Eldorado Gold, another Canadian miner.

Fears of a double-dip recession in the US were allayed on Friday by data showing that the private sector had created 235,000 jobs in the past three months

China and the US stage near-simultaneous naval exercises this week in the oceans around the Yellow Sea in one of the most open displays of the rising competition between the two rival forces in north Asia

Wheat prices have risen further in the wake of Russia’s decision to extend its grain export ban by 12 months, raising fears about a return to the food shortages and riots of 2007-08

Hewlett-Packard won the bidding battle for data storage technology company 3Par after Dell said on Thursday it would not raise its offer and was ending talks

The Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed to negotiate a ‘framework’ for peace talks and to hold a second direct meeting in two weeks’ time

Warning given over British banks moving their headquarters abroad if UK government-appointed Commission on Banking were to decide that big groups should be broken up

Leading UK and continental European companies eschewing banks from Spain, Italy and even Germany because they do not believe the Europe-wide assessments gave a true picture of their financial health

Traders are again adding to risky bets following a batch of supportive US data, but the mood is markedly less ebullient than witnessed during the previous session’s “melt up”, when better-than-expected Chinese and American factory data powered a wholesale rush into stocks

Wall Street is backing the right-hand man of Elliot Spitzer, its previous scourge, in the race for one of the most powerful financial law enforcement jobs in the US, the New York attorney-general, according to new analysis of campaign contributions

The European Central Bank forecast that the eurozone would expand this year and in 2011 much more strongly than previously expected, ruling out a double dip back into recession

Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve chairman, expressed regret for not being “more straightforward” with Congress in 2008 when he avoided saying that the central bank had no means to save Lehman Brothers.

Foreign companies are losing market share in China across a broad range of industries because of discriminatory treatment by the government and regulators, according to the European Chamber of Commerce in China

President Barack Obama and his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, said they had ‘a very productive discussion”’ at the start of the US administration’s most concerted push yet for a Middle East peace accord

Stock markets surge as investors took global surveys of manufacturing output to show the world economy was recovering rapidly and chances of double-dip recession had receded

Former UK prime minister reveals the delight of his government ministers when France voted to reject the European Union’s draft constitution

Apple made its most serious bid yet for the internet-connected television market, slashing the price and size of its AppleTV product by more than half and providing it with movies and television shows to rent.

The first fall in US private sector payrolls since January has not been able to shift traders from the belief that a fresh month deserves a sunny disposition, as positive manufacturing data out of the US and Asia provides risk assets with a good start to September