(Reuters) - Stocks edged higher on Thursday after weekly jobless claims fell in the latest week, but gains were limited as investors were reluctant to make big bets ahead of Friday's payrolls report and a recent rally. Coming off a surge of nearly 1 percent in the previous session that built on advances of more than 4 percent in January, some traders said the market might be nearing a top.

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(Reuters) - New claims for unemployment benefits in the United States fell more than expected last week, pointing to more healing in the nation's battered jobs market. Data on jobless claims zigzagged the last few weeks, but the figures suggest employers are less eager to lay off workers, offering hope they could also step up hiring as the economy recovers.

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(Reuters) - Europe's financial crisis still threatens the U.S. recovery, and the Federal Reserve will do everything it can to protect against damage to the economy, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Thursday. Bernanke told Congress he was seeing signs that some of the uncertainty limiting U.S. business investment, including European banking woes, might be waning.

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(Reuters) - Facebook unveiled plans for the biggest ever Internet IPO that could raise as much as $10 billion, but made it clear CEO Mark Zuckerberg will exercise almost complete control over the company, leaving investors with little say. The Harvard dropout, who launched the social networking phenomenon from his dorm room, will control 56.9 percent of the voting shares in a company expected to be valued at up to $100 billion when it goes public. Facebook says it has 845 million active monthly users.

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(Reuters) - Commodities trader Glencore is in talks to buy mining group Xstrata in an all-share transaction that could create a combined group worth more than 50 billion pounds ($79 billion), shaking up the industry with its biggest deal to date. Glencore, the world's largest diversified commodities trader, already owns 34 percent of Xstrata and a tie-up between the two -- a deal which would trump Rio Tinto's $38 billion acquisition of Alcan in 2007 -- has long been expected, as Glencore aims to add more mines to its trading clout.

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(Reuters) - Stocks fell on Tuesday as optimism over a possible deal by Greece in its debt wrangling dissipated after a batch of weaker-than-expected economic reports. Hopes that Greece would reach a deal with private creditors on a debt swap and receive a bailout to sidestep a chaotic default boosted market sentiment initially.

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(Reuters) - Home prices fell more steeply than expected in November, and consumer confidence soured in January, highlighting the hurdles still facing the economic recovery. The S&P/Case-Shiller composite index of single-family home prices in 20 metropolitan areas declined 0.7 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis, a survey showed on Tuesday, a bigger drop than the 0.5 percent economists expected.

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(Reuters) - Apple Inc has hired Dixons Chief Executive John Browett, who revived the British electronics retailer by emphasizing customer service, to lead the iPad maker's global retail expansion. Apple chief Tim Cook, making his first high-profile hire since taking the helm of the world's largest technology company, lured the well-regarded industry executive to fill a critical post once held by Ron Johnson, another outsider who left Target Corp to join Apple in 2000.

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(Reuters) - The U.S. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp, which has responsibility for insuring certain benefits under private defined benefit pension plans, said on Tuesday it believes American Airlines will seek to terminate employee pensions in bankruptcy. The agency said it filed a $92 million lien against American parent AMR Corp (AAMRQ.PK) for the balance of unpaid pension plan contributions. It added the lien was applied to AMR assets outside the United States, mainly in Latin America.

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(Reuters) - An Eastman Kodak employee filed a civil lawsuit against Kodak's board members and other fiduciaries of the photography companies' retirement plans, saying they breached their duties as the company was spiraling toward bankruptcy. Mark Gedek, who continues to work at Kodak, said in the suit that he is a participant in the Kodak Employees Savings and Investment Plan as well as the Kodak Employee Stock Ownership Plan. The board members and directors of those plans continued to sell shares to employees and invest in them ahead of the bankruptcy, he said.

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