(Reuters) - Stocks edged higher in early trading on Friday, with miners rising on higher commodity prices and the S&P 500 index finding technical support. Major indices opened lower but quickly turned higher, reflecting the volatility that has rocked market action in the past weeks. "Commodities are trading well with the weakness in the dollar," said Peter Boockvar, equity strategist at Miller Tabak & Co in New York.

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(Reuters) - Shares in Hewlett-Packard slumped by more than a fifth to a six-year low early on Friday, a day after the world's biggest PC maker signaled a major shake-up in its business and cut its annual forecast. The decline wiped some $14.5 billion off the company's market value. Shares of HP fell to $22.76 in heavy early morning trading, making it the biggest loser on the New York Stock Exchange. The broader S&P 500 Index fell nearly 1 percent.

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(Reuters) - The best thing to be said of the recent stomach-churning turmoil on Wall Street is that it's taking place in August, a time of year when many people are lounging at the beach or camping in the woods and not paying attention to stocks. But for everyone else not on a 'stockation,' watching the markets rise and fall like giant ocean swells has been an unnerving experience that some finance professionals worry could reshape investor behavior for months and years to come.

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(Reuters) - The economy is growing so slowly that it will take years to wrench lofty unemployment rates back to normal levels, Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank President Sandra Pianalto said on Friday. Speaking to a community bankers' group, she said growth in 2011 was likely to be about two percent and forecast it will rise only to three percent in 2012 and 2013 -- unlikely to make much of a dent in the current 9.1 percent jobless rate.

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(Reuters) - Technology company Apple is now worth as much as the 32 biggest euro zone banks. That's the stark result from a steep fall in the share price of banks including Spain's Santander, France's BNP Paribas, Germany's Deutsche Bank and Italy's Unicredit, compared to a steady rise in Apple's valuation, according to Thomson Reuters data.

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(Reuters) - Soaring costs for borrowing dollars to fund the daily business of Europe's banks is hitting their shares and feeding worries that the continent's spiraling debt crisis could trigger the next funding crisis for lenders. Though staying a long way below their 2008 levels when Lehman Brothers collapsed, key indicators such as interbank borrowing rates for dollar funds and the cost of swapping euro interest payments into dollars are on the rise.

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(Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve is keeping an eye on European banks struggling with the continent's debt crisis because of the turbulence in financial markets, one of the central bank's most influential policymakers said on Friday. William Dudley, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, was responding to report this week in the Wall Street Journal that the bank is taking a closer look at the U.S. units of Europe's biggest banks, out of concern that a euro zone debt crisis could spill into the U.S. banking system.

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(Reuters) - Apple Inc is working with component suppliers and its assembler in Asia for the trial production of the next version of the iPad from October, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the situation. Apple has ordered components such as display panels and chips for a new iPad and plans to debut it in early 2012, the paper said.

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(Reuters) - Stocks tumbled more than 4 percent on Thursday after data pointed to a stalled economy and as bank shares sank on a report regulators were scrutinizing the U.S. units of big European lenders. The decline was broad as well as steep, with just a small handful of the S&P 500's components in positive territory. The KBW bank index slid 5.5 percent, with Citigroup Inc off 9.6 percent at $27, and Morgan Stanley down 7.5 percent at $15.75.

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(Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve Bank is treating foreign banks the same as their U.S. peers, a policymaker said, putting himself at odds with a report that it was keeping a closer eye on European banks struggling with the continent's debt crisis. Fears about bank funding were one of the reasons for another dismal trading day for bank stocks in Europe after heavy losses in the last two weeks, with the main bank stocks index giving up 7 percent in late trading.

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