(Reuters) - The IMF warned Greece on Wednesday that a drive to shore up its troubled finances would fail unless Athens redoubled its reform efforts, and the ECB hit back at suggestions a debt restructuring might be the solution. European finance ministers broke a taboo this week and acknowledged for the first time that some form of restructuring might be required to ease Greece's debt burden, which at 150 percent of annual output is among the highest in the world.

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(Reuters) - Housing starts and building permits fell in April and factory output slumped as automobile part shortage crimped production, showing the economy off to a weak start in the second quarter. Groundbreaking for new housing dropped 10.6 percent to an annual rate of 523,000 units as a glut of homes on the market discouraged new projects, a Commerce Department report showed on Tuesday. March's starts were revised up to a 585,000-unit pace from the previously reported rate of 549,000 units.

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(Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq falling below their 50-day moving average, as a negative outlook from Hewlett-Packard Co (HPQ.N) and weak U.S. economic data raised jitters about the state of the recovery. Tech stocks fell as investors sold recent winners due to unease about pockets of weakness in the U.S. economy. HP, the world's largest technology company,

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(Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc's U.S. business continues to struggle even though rising food and gasoline costs should be driving customers to the chain, showing that the company must do more to finally turn around a two-year decline in same-store sales. The world's largest retailer's breadth offset the impact of the U.S. slump, as strong international sales, cost-cutting and share repurchases helped it post a better-than-expected 3.8 percent rise in quarterly profit.

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(Reuters) - Hewlett-Packard Co slashed its profit outlook as it boosts spending to resuscitate its troubled services business. The sluggish consumer PC market and the impact of Japan's earthquake are also expected to hurt the world's largest technology company's profits for the rest of the year.

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(Reuters) - Top home improvement chain Home Depot Inc (HD.N) backed its sales outlook and raised its profit forecast for the year despite a slow start to the key spring selling season, sending its shares up. The results came a day after smaller rival Lowe's Cos (LOW.N) cut its forecast for the year after missing both sales and earnings estimates in the first quarter.

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(Reuters) - New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is investigating big banks like Bank of America Corp (BAC.N), Morgan Stanley (MS.N) and Goldman Sachs (GS.N) related to packaging of toxic mortgage loans into securities, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources. The Attorney General will hold meetings with bank executives and has requested related documents from the firms, the Journal said.

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(Reuters) - BP's plan to gain a foothold in Russia's offshore Arctic oilfields through a deal with state-controlled Rosneft has collapsed, opening the way for other oil groups to try to fill its place. The tie-up unravelled because BP failed to mollify partners in its existing Russian venture TNK-BP. They argue the British company had no right to strike a new deal in the country without them.

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(Reuters) - UK competition authorities are to probe the stranglehold of the world's biggest accountancy firms on British blue-chip company audits after finding evidence of anti-competitive behavior. The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) said dominance of the sector by the so-called "Big Four" threw up barriers for rivals and made it hard for firms to switch auditors.

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(Reuters) - Vodafone, the world's largest mobile operator by revenue, surprised investors with an upbeat outlook for 2012 on Tuesday after posting resilient results driven by customers upgrading to smartphones. Analysts had expected the British group to be more cautious after recent weak updates from rivals, but Vodafone said it was gaining or holding market share in most major markets and leading the switch to higher-tariff smartphones.

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