(Reuters) - Disappointed investors dumped shares of several large U.S. industrial and transport companies after they warned of weak consumer markets, especially in the United States. 3M Co's (MMM.N) earnings met Wall Street forecasts, and the global conglomerate reported strong industrial demand, but sharply lower sales in its display and graphics division. Its shares fell more than 4 percent on Tuesday, dragging down the Dow Jones industrial average .DJI.

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(Reuters) - The United States edged closer on Tuesday to a devastating default as President Barack Obama's Democrats and their Republican rivals were deadlocked over competing plans to raise the debt ceiling, one week before a deadline to act. With no compromise in sight and the threat of a far-reaching U.S. credit downgrade looming, IMF chief Christine Lagarde urged swift resolution of the political impasse in Washington, warning that failure to reach an agreement would have serious consequences for the world economy.

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(Reuters) - Switzerland's UBS (UBSN.VX) (UBS.N) will slash jobs and review the future of its fixed income business after the underperforming unit hit second-quarter profits and forced it to push back targets. The bank said on Tuesday it would cut costs by 1.5 billion to 2.0 billion Swiss francs ($1.9 billion - $2.5 billion) in the next two to three years and would likely book "significant restructuring charges" later this year.

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(Reuters) - Stocks tumbled on Monday as political brinkmanship in Washington over the debt ceiling sparked fears of a U.S. rating downgrade, sending world equities lower and pushing gold to a record high. A divided U.S. Congress pursued rival budget plans that appeared unlikely to win broad support, pushing the country closer to a debt default. While analysts expected a deal to raise the debt ceiling by August 2, the United States moved one step closer to losing its coveted triple-A credit rating.

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(Reuters) - BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd plans to cut about 11 percent of its workforce to slash costs as it struggles to compete against Apple Inc and Google Inc. The announcement of 2,000 job cuts on Monday came a month after the Canadian company revealed that it would reduce headcount for the first time in a decade.

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(Reuters) - A sharply divided Congress pursued rival budget plans on Monday that appeared unlikely to win broad support, pushing the United States closer to a ratings downgrade and debt default that would send shock waves through global markets. With an August 2 deadline little more than a week away, lawmakers have steadfastly refused to compromise, and talks once again collapsed in acrimony at the weekend. Democrats and Republicans split into two camps to work on their own proposals.

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(Reuters) - Chrysler Group LLC and the United Auto Workers union expect to reach a deal on a new labor contract without resorting to arbitration, officials for the company and union said on Monday. "If arbitration happens, if anything like that happens, then I'd say we haven't done our job," said Bob King, president of the UAW, which represents about 112,000 U.S. production auto workers, of which about 20,000 are at Chrysler.

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(Reuters) - Moody's cut Greece's credit rating further into junk territory on Monday and said it was almost certain to slap a default tag on its debt as a result of a new EU rescue package. It was the second rating agency to warn of a default after euro zone leaders and banks agreed last week that the private sector would shoulder part of the burden of a rescue deal that offers Greece more cash and easier loan terms to keep it afloat and avoid further contagion.

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(Reuters) - Kimberly-Clark Corp (KMB.N) said 2011 earnings could come in toward the low end of its forecast, even as it topped Wall Street's second-quarter expectations, as the maker of Kleenex tissues deals with higher prices for oil-based materials. Kimberly-Clark said on Monday that it expected to pay an extra $650 million to $750 million for materials such as polymer resin, superabsorbent, adhesives and other packaging materials. In April, it had expected input costs to rise $450 million to $550 million this year.

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(Reuters) - Not for the first time, asset managers may be playing a high-risk game as they face the threat of a U.S. debt default without concrete contingency plans. It highlights the investment community's reluctance actively to seek insurance for a low probability or "tail risk" event, even after suffering huge losses following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. This was the tail risk that materialized.

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