Wall Street was up at midday on Wednesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average 0.32 percent higher to 12,573.46, the Nasdaq Composite up 1.09 percent to 2,457.80, and the S&P 500 adding 0.41 percent to 1,433.79. Positive earnings reports from both Yahoo and Sun Microsystems helped the gains, while the previous evening’s State of [...]

In London this week, the FTSE 100 was up 4.5 percent for the largest weekly percentage gain since March 2003. Friday’s gain was 0.8 percent, and the 100 closed out the week at 5,974.9.
Not all companies posted gains on the week, however. In the insurance sector, Prudential lost 3 percent over the week [...]