U.S. retail sales unexpectedly fell in June as households cut back on purchases of automobiles and a range of other goods, raising concerns the economy was slowing again.

Citibank is testing on a new digital currency Citicoin at this point, handling a run-through platform and evaluating key measures. In line with this, the premier bank is also suggesting the U.K. government to provide its own digital cash.

The New York Stock Exchange was forced to suspend trading for several hours on Wednesday in the biggest outage to hit a U.S. financial market in nearly two years, unnerving investors already rattled by the meltdown in Chinese stocks and the Greek debt crisis.

Metals company Alcoa Inc reported a quarterly profit that missed expectations due to plunging primary aluminum prices on Wednesday, but revenues topped estimates on an ongoing drive to reduce reliance on the company's legacy commodity business.

The Australian state of New South Wales has proposed changing its mining approval process to give greater consideration to environmental concerns, potentially threatening a colliery expansion planned by mining giant Rio Tinto Ltd.

A dozen of the largest Wall Street banks on Monday published detailed plans to show how they would shut down their business during a crisis without the help of taxpayer money, a crucial step to prevent being broken up by regulators.

China froze share offers and set up a market-stabilization fund on Saturday, the Wall Street Journal said, as Beijing intensified efforts to pull stock markets out of a nose-dive that is threatening the world's second-largest economy.

U.S. job growth likely cooled a bit in June after reaching a five-month high, but still-healthy hiring would suggest the labor market is strong enough to support a September interest rate increase by the Federal Reserve.

With the annual rebalance of the Russell stock indexes just a day away, brokerage firms are shaving the discounts they typically offer to big index funds on what is usually one of the biggest trading days of the year.

The family businesses that make up the global diamond trade have seen their profits wiped out over the past five years, hit by shaky financing, increased costs and uncertain demand from customers who prefer hi-tech gadgets to bling.