Mark Brooks

The jump adds to signs of a comeback in the once-battered housing market.

The three-judge panel ruled Tuesday that the FCC had the legal authority to issue the "data roaming rule."

Benchmark crude is down 94 cents to $88.15 just after 10 a.m. in New York.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Tuesday that the banking industry earned $37.6 billion in the third quarter, up 6.6 percent from $35.3 billion in the third quarter of 2011.

Governments, hungry for money to prop up their struggling economies, are accusing the technology giants of incorporating themselves in low-tax countries so they can avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars to countries such as Germany, Britain, and France -- where most of their European income is derived.

Copper for March delivery rose 0.85 cent Monday to finish at $3.6585 per ounce. That's the highest price since Oct. 18.

The storm added 20,000 to 30,000 sales industrywide in November, mostly from people who planned to buy cars during the October storm but had to delay their purchases, Ford estimated.

The proposal is a response to Obama's offer last week to hike taxes by $1.6 trillion over the coming decade but to exempt Medicare and Social Security from cuts to beneficiaries.

It's a game of political chicken as the clock ticks closer to the end-of-year deadline, when George W. Bush-era tax cuts expire and automatic, across-the-board spending cuts kick in, sending the nation over a proverbial "fiscal cliff" that some economists say could plunge the fragile economy back into recession.

Riskier currencies, such as the euro, tend to rise when traders think the economy is getting better.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said Monday it has started proceedings against the Chinese affiliates of all so-called Big Four accounting firms, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers, and a fifth major firm, BDO.

Plano, Texas-based Denbury said that in the first of two closings ExxonMobil paid $1.3 billion in cash and transferred to Denbury its operating interests in Webster Field in Texas and Hartzog Draw Field in Wyoming.

Lending to small companies rose 11 percent from September's level, according to a survey released Monday by PayNet, which provides credit ratings on small businesses.

Around midday, benchmark oil rose 25 cents to $89.16 per barrel.

Vibram filed suit against Fila this summer in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts claiming Fila's "Skele-Toes" shoes violated the patent rights of Vibram's "FiveFinger" shoe designs.

Coffee for March delivery fell 3.7 percent Friday to end at $1.506 per pound.

With the acquisition, Cleveland-based Eaton is seeking to expand its reach in the global electrical power and distribution business.

The market analyst said roughly 70 percent of the nation's cattle herd has been affected by drought this year, the fourth in a row with drought in at least some key cattle-producing areas.

CME said it issued a report late Thursday showing 164 wheat shipment certificates, when there were actually 2,000 not included in that count.

Texas-based oilfield services company Baker Hughes reported Friday that 1,386 rigs were exploring for oil and 424 were searching for gas.