Starbucks Corp's (SBUX.O) early re-launch of its popular Pumpkin Spice latte drink failed to heat up business at its U.S. cafes, disappointing Wall Street and sending the company's shares down almost 5 percent.

Ukraine, Russia and the European Union signed a deal on Thursday on the resumption of Russian natural gas supplies to Ukraine for winter after several months of delay during the conflict in Ukraine.

Automakers in Brazil are facing the sharpest slowdown since 1999 and it could be a year or more before things turn the corner.

With just five months left before Governor Haruhiko Kuroda's self-imposed deadline for banishing deflation, the Bank of Japan is preparing for failure, and the first casualty could be its facade of board unity.

Finance ministers and tax chiefs from 51 countries signed an agreement on Wednesday to automatically swap tax information, which Germany's finance minister said heralded the end of tax evasion via secret bank accounts.

A boardroom tussle brewing for months at Sanofi came to a head on Wednesday when France's top drugmaker fired its chief executive, wiping more billions off its share price.

Japan's Fujifilm Holdings Corp said it was difficult to estimate the profitability of its influenza drug Avigan, which has been earmarked to fight Ebola, given the uncertainty over the spread of virus, a company executive said on Thursday.

A robust pace of business spending likely buoyed U.S. economic growth in the third quarter, a sign corporate chieftains have confidence in the sustainability of the recovery.

The dollar surged to a three-week high, bond yields rose and gold fell on Thursday after the U.S. Federal Reserve ended its six-year quantitative easing bond-buying program.

A group of funds that threw a monkey wrench in Bank of America Corp's (BAC.N) proposed $8.5 billion settlement with investors in mortgage-backed securities will object to JPMorgan Chase & Co's $4.5 billion offer to settle claims over similar investments, according to the lawyer that represents them.