(Reuters) - Home resales retreated in September from a two-year high, a reminder that America's housing sector is a long way from a full recovery despite recent signs of improvement. The National Association of Realtors said on Friday that existing home sales dropped a modest 1.7 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.75 million units, matching the median forecast in a Reuters poll.

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(Reuters) - General Electric Co reported weaker-than-expected third-quarter revenue, hurt by unfavorable exchange rates, and investors shrugged off an 8.3 percent profit increase and sent the company's shares down more than 2 percent. GE, the largest U.S. conglomerate, said on Friday that revenue had risen 2.8 percent. Revenue fell at its aviation and healthcare arms, and the stronger dollar hurt results by diminishing the value of foreign sales.

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(Reuters) - Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O) chief Howard Schultz defended his company's UK tax payments and said he would be happy to co-operate with any official probe of the British unit's finances. Speaking on Friday at the opening of the first Starbucks branch in India, Schultz denied shifting profits out of the UK unit into tax havens. "We don't pay income tax because we are not making money there," he told Reuters

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(Reuters) - Rosneft (ROSN.MM) is poised to secure a tighter grip on Russia's oil industry by buying BP's (BP.L) 50 percent stake in TNK-BP (TNBP.MM), the country's third largest producing company. The British oil company's board was expected to consider a cash and stock offer worth over $25 billion on Friday that would allow it to exit a profitable but troublesome joint venture.

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(Reuters) - Stocks fell on Thursday after three days of gains, following weaker-than-expected data on the labor market, though some recent earnings reports helped limit the retreat. The benchmark S&P 500 index has risen 2.3 percent over the past three days, ending Wednesday just 0.33 percent shy of the year's closing high. Those gains came on better-than-expected results from such companies as Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) and Goldman Sachs (GS.N).

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(Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits spiked last week, reversing a sharp decline in the prior week but still pointing to a labor market that is slowly healing. Other data on Thursday showed a modest rebound in factory activity in the U.S. mid-Atlantic region. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 46,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 388,000, the Labor Department said.

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(Reuters) - Morgan Stanley (MS.N) reported better-than-expected adjusted quarterly earnings on Thursday as it boosted revenue from trading bonds, long a sore spot for the investment bank. The bank's debt ratings were downgraded over the summer to three steps above junk. The cut was smaller than many observers had feared, and Morgan Stanley's trading business picked up steam in the third quarter after sagging ahead of the downgrade, Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat said.

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(Reuters) - UBS (UBSN.VX) managers have sacked two traders involved in unauthorized trading incidents unrelated to accused fraudster Kweku Adoboli, a London court heard on Thursday. In a separate strand of evidence heard at Adoboli's trial, the jury heard that an internal UBS probe into his trades had found "strong evidence of collusion at local desk level".

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(Reuters) - General Motors Co is frustrating the hell out of Wall Street. Many securities analysts have "buy" ratings on the stock and are hopeful that a raft of new cars and trucks hitting showrooms over the next year could ignite growth at the automaker, which was bailed out by the U.S. government in 2009.

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(Reuters) - Exxon Mobil wants to leave its flagship Iraqi oil project after upsetting Baghdad by signing a deal last year with the autonomous northern Kurdish region, which the central government deemed illegal. It wants to leave its contract to develop the giant West Qurna-1 oilfield in southern Iraq , diplomatic sources said on Thursday, because of concerns over the profitability of the project.

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