(Reuters) - The number of Americans claiming new unemployment benefits last week dropped below the 400,000 level for the first time since early April, a hopeful sign for the economy which has struggled to regain momentum. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 24,000 to a seasonally adjusted 398,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists had forecast claims falling to 415,000.

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(Reuters) - Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell Plc and other big oil groups reported higher profits on Thursday thanks to high crude prices and showed the only way to combat falling output was by reinvesting the cash in acquisitions and new ventures. Investors have become increasingly worried in recent years about Western oil companies' inability to match natural field decline with new finds, in part because they are shut out of investing in the richest fields by countries such as Saudi Arabia and Russia.

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(Reuters) - Pending sales of existing U.S. homes unexpectedly rose in June from May and rose sharply from a year ago, data from a real estate trade group showed on Thursday. The National Association of Realtors Pending Home Sales Index, based on contracts signed in June, was up 2.4 percent to 90.9 from 88.8 in May. The index was up 19.8 percent from a year ago. Economists polled by Reuters ahead of the report were expecting pending home sales to fall 2.0 percent.

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(Reuters) - Tens of thousands of European bankers are losing their jobs in a deep trading slump that has been compounded by regulatory curbs on excessive risk -- and many more will be out of work before Christmas. As Switzerland's Credit Suisse, which weathered the financial crisis better than most peers, announced 2,000 job cuts on Thursday, some financial recruiters forecast thousands more job losses by next March.

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(Reuters) - James Murdoch looks set to survive a board meeting of BSkyB on Thursday even as questions multiply from other quarters over whether his role in a phone-hacking scandal leave him a fit chairman of the satellite broadcaster. It will be the first meeting of the BSkyB board since the crisis forced News Corp to close the News of the World newspaper, drop a $12 billion bid for BSkyB and offer up James and his father Rupert to answer questions in the British parliament.

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(Reuters) - Chief executives from the nation's largest financial firms on Thursday pressured the White House and Congress to reach a deal on the debt ceiling and deficit reduction, saying the consequences of inaction "would be very grave." JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon, Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein and Bank of America's Brian Moynihan, among others, said in a letter that an agreement needs to be reached this week.

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(Reuters) - In a rundown patch of Detroit, enclosed by a cyclone fence and barbed wire, stands an unremarkable warehouse that investment bank Goldman Sachs has transformed into a money-making machine. The derelict neighbourhood off Michigan Avenue is a sharp contrast to Goldman's bustling skyscraper headquarters near Wall Street, but the two operations share one important element: management by the bank's savvy financial professionals.

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(Reuters) - Stocks dropped for a third straight day on Wednesday, with the Nasdaq off 2 percent, as a political deadlock over the debt ceiling and a decline in durable goods orders kept investors away from risky assets. The S&P 500 .SPX has lost about 2 percent this week on worries of a possible U.S. debt downgrade. Corporate earnings have been coming in relatively weak in recent days, compared to the beginning of the earnings season, also weighing on the market.

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(Reuters) - New orders for long-lasting U.S. manufactured goods fell in June and a gauge of business spending plans slipped, supporting views that the economy will not emerge quickly from its current soft patch. The Commerce Department said on Wednesday durable goods orders dropped 2.1 percent, weighed down by weak receipts for transportation equipment, after a 1.9 percent increase in May. Excluding transportation, orders edged up 0.1 percent after gaining 0.7 percent in May.

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(Reuters) - For more than three years, U.S. securities regulators investigated allegations of accounting fraud at a small telecom firm called China Voice Holding Corp, but could not make a case. Then last November, they got an unexpected break. A Texas-based tax consultant doing work for a firm affiliated with China Voice contacted the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission with information about suspicious money transfers she'd detected.

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