WORLD FINANCE UPDATE:
The Australian dollar has maintained most of Wednesday's gains on the back of stronger-than-expected inflation figures.
At 0630 AEST on Thursday, the local currency was trading at 77.63 US cents, down from 77.78 cents on Wednesday.
And the Australian share market looks set to open higher after Wall Street posted solid gains following a big jump in US existing-home sales and a mixed bag of earnings reports from Boeing, McDonald's and others.
At 0645 AEST on Thursday, the June share price index futures contract was up 11 points at 5,835.
ELSEWHERE:
WASHINGTON - US homebuyers flooded back into the real estate market in March, pushing up sales and prices at the start of the spring buying season.
WASHINGTON - Home rental prices are soaring in San Francisco, while pockets of the Midwest and South are also posting big annual increases.
LONDON - US banking giant Bank of America has been fined a record STG13.3 million ($A25.8 million) for failing to properly report millions of transactions.
BERLIN - Germany's biggest bank, Deutsche Bank AG, says it expects to book litigation costs of about 1.5 billion euros ($A2.07 billion) in its first-quarter earnings report.
NEW YORK - Fast-food giant McDonald's is to announce a turnaround plan in two weeks as sinking US sales dragged down profits again in the first quarter.
NEW YORK - Boeing Co delivered more airliners in the first quarter, offsetting sluggish results in the defence side of its business and pushing its first-quarter earnings up 38 per cent.
FRANKFURT - Breast cancer drugs such as Herceptin as well as new uses for multi-cancer drug Avastin helped Swiss pharmaceutical firm Roche grow sales by three per cent during the first quarter.
NEW YORK - Facebook says profit in the first quarter fell by 20 per cent from a year ago to $US509 million ($A660 million), but reported healthy growth in revenue and its user base.
NEW YORK - EBay says it is working to stabilise its marketplaces business as it moves to spin off its PayPal division later this year.
LONDON - Britain's troubled supermarket giant Tesco revealed Wednesday that it suffered a record loss last year as it took a huge writedown on the value of its property.
NEW YORK - Google is launching its own US mobile wireless service, with considerable potential savings for customers using their devices at home and for international travel.
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