(Reuters) - The U.S. trade deficit shrank in February as imports fell more than exports, according to a government report on Tuesday that suggested a slowdown in global demand. The monthly trade gap totaled $45.8 billion, down from an upwardly revised estimate of $47.0 billion in January despite another monthly rise in prices for imported oil.

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(Reuters) - Banks need to do more to shift away from a culture of risk and the excessive pay structures that prevailed before the financial crisis, an industry report said. Banks have made progress since 2008 as top management and boards have become more involved in setting risk policy and they developed internal stress testing models, according to the survey of 62 firms released on Tuesday.

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(Reuters) - Allied Irish Banks (ALBK.I) aimed to put the "collective madness" of a homegrown property bubble behind it on Tuesday with a jaw-dropping annual loss of 10.4 billion euros and a plan to axe over 2,000 jobs. A former stock market darling with international ambitions, AIB has been effectively nationalized and saved from collapse by emergency ECB funding after being shut out of debt markets and losing 22 billion euros in deposits last year.

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(Reuters) - The departure of Renault's (RENA.PA) number two executive over a spying-turned-fraud debacle heaps pressure on CEO Carlos Ghosn at a crucial moment in the carmaker's latest strategic initiative. Chief Operating Officer (COO) Patrick Pelata resigned on Monday, taking the flak for an embarrassing fiasco in which Renault fired three employees suspected of leaking information on electric vehicles who turned out to have done nothing wrong.

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(Reuters) - U.S. stock underwriting was the sole strong business in an otherwise bleak first quarter for U.S. investment banks. Both Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) and Morgan Stanley (MS.N) are expected to report lower first-quarter earnings next week compared with the same quarter a year ago.

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(Reuters) - Alcoa Inc (AA.N), the largest U.S. aluminum producer, reported a first-quarter profit that beat estimates, but its revenue missed Wall Street's target and its shares dropped 3 percent in after-hours trading on Monday. Revenue in the quarter rose 22 percent to $5.96 billion, helped by rising prices for aluminum and alumina -- the raw material for the metal -- but it lagged the Wall Street forecast of $6.08 billion.

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(Reuters) - Requiring systemically important banks to hold extra capital is one of many steps regulators must take to make the global financial system safer, a top Wall Street regulator reiterated on Tuesday. With memories of the 2007-2008 financial crisis already fading, some banks were calling for a return to "business as usual", a call that regulators should reject, New York Federal Reserve Bank President William Dudley said in remarks prepared for delivery in Hong Kong.

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(Reuters) - Stocks rose on Monday on hopes of strong corporate earnings as aluminum company Alcoa will be the first Dow component to release first-quarter results. Alcoa, which is due to report after the market's close, rose 1.4 percent to $18.17. The company is expected to report earnings of 27 cents per share on revenue of $6.07 billion, according to Thomson Reuters estimates.

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(Reuters) - Simon Murray, the South Pole adventurer and former Vodafone Group Plc board member, told Reuters on Monday that he's in the running for the chairman role at Glencore International AG, the commodities trading giant planning a roughly $10 billion dual listing in London and Hong Kong. Murray, who lives and works in Hong Kong, has spent 45 years in Asia and has served on the boards of several major companies. Confirming a Sunday Times report that he was among the candidates for the non-executive chair role, the UK-born businessman said he had a long history of successful investment in the mining and resources sectors.

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(Reuters) - The U.S. economy is recovering at such a sluggish pace that the Federal Reserve needs to keep an easy monetary policy in place while the government comes to grip with its debts, the International Monetary Fund said on Monday. "A credible strategy to stabilize public debt in the medium term, and a down payment on fiscal consolidation in 2011, are urgently needed," the IMF said in its World Economic Outlook.

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