VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Washington-based tech company Microsoft Corp sold a record offering of USD8 billion of bonds in dollars and euros to fund general corporate purposes, according to regulatory filings today.

U.S. fund managers increased their holdings of stocks in November, riding a global stock market rally that began when the Federal Reserve put off reducing its monetary stimulus.

The S&P jumped around 26% in 2013 with major indexes hitting record high, but investors are wary of the surge in US stocks, citing a potential big drop on the market the following year.

Federal Governor Daniel Tarullo said regulators should put their attention not only on banks but on the shadow banking system as well. He said policy options for shadow banks needed to be reformulated to counter its risks.

The United States could start missing payments on its obligations some time between March and June if lawmakers don't raise a legal limit on borrowing by early February, congressional analysts said on Wednesday.

Federal Reserve officials felt they could decide to start scaling back the U.S. central bank's massive asset purchase program at one of its next few meetings, provided this was warranted by economic growth, minutes of the Fed's October policy meeting showed.

Russia's state-run oil firm Rosneft is looking to acquire Morgan Stanley's oil trading business for an unspecified amount. Morgan Stanley has been trying to sell or spin off the said business unit over a year ago.

Investors remain inclined to take markets higher in the absence of anything that would suggest equities should fall. The market seems to have hit a stage where strong data helps and weak data affirms the Fed's intentions to keep policy accommodative, which also helps stocks.

While banks received USD2.3 billion in quantitative easing, they haven't been lending to small businesses and consumers and have pushed then to peer-to-peer lenders.

Friday is the first day of sales for Sony's PlayStation 4 interactive gaming console. GE holds an meeting for investors and analysts focused on its GE Capital business. The Federal Reserve releases its report on U.S. industrial production.

Cisco is expected to report higher quarterly profit for its fiscal first quarter of 2014. The report may uncover any evidence of sales pressure from the U.S. federal government shutdown and weakness in China.

This is a summary of key economic events and central bank speeches, likely to affect the global economy through the foreign exchange, equity and debt markets.

Traders kept bets for Feds rise in rates by the year 2015.

Various investors and strategists react to the decision of the Federal Reserve.

With the labor market down, private sector employers in the US had hired fewer workers for the past six months.