VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Stock markets and the euro started the week on a cautious note on Monday as a Greek debt deal struck last week remained in the balance until Athens drew up a list of reforms to satisfy its creditors.

The Federal Reserve on Thursday awarded $30.0 billion of seven-day term fixed-rate reverse repurchase agreements to 34 bidders at an interest rate of 0.06 percent, the New York Federal Reserve said on its website.

The dollar and U.S. government debt yields jumped on Friday as a strong American labor market report raised expectations that the Federal Reserve will increase interest rates by mid-year.

Wall Street stocks fell on Friday as a better-than-expected U.S. jobs report raised expectations that the Federal Reserve will increase interest rates by midyear, while renewed worries over Greece's debt negotiations added to the bearish tone.

After years of giving investors the cold shoulder, Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) is starting to warm up to Wall Street. The No. 1 U.S. online retailer was unusually forthcoming during its fourth-quarter earnings call on Thursday, saying it will break out results this year, for the first time, for its fast-growing cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services.

The Obama administration is asking Wall Street to explain why the yields investors are demanding to compensate them for inflation have dropped since August, the U.S. Treasury said on Friday.

Revelers ringing in of the new year this week need to watch out for the next day's hangover. And investors may experience a similar feeling early in 2015 after a two-year run that has propelled U.S. stocks up by nearly 50 percent.

Wall Street was generally calmer in 2014 than in previous years, but that doesn't mean the stock market was devoid of drama. Big selloffs in biotechnology and social media stocks had strategists predicting doom in the spring, and the plunge in oil prices has clouded the outlook for the coming year.

World markets are ending their last full week of 2014 on a high, as Wall Street made its biggest two-day advance since late 2011 and European shares headed for their strongest week of the year.

A major capital markets creditor of bankrupt San Bernardino, California, will oppose any exit plan that is more favorable to Calpers, California's public pension fund, a source familiar with the creditor's strategy said on Thursday.

Federal Reserve officials will decide this week whether to make a critical change to their policy statement that would widen the door for interest rate hikes next year and effectively bet the United States will continue to shine in a gloomy global economy.

The U.S. Senate on Friday struggled to pass a $1.1 trillion spending bill that would avert a looming federal government shutdown, postponing a vote until Monday when procedural hurdles begin to evaporate.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday laid out a business-friendly legislative agenda for next year that hinges on whether he and the new Republican Congress can set aside long-simmering disputes and find common ground.

Carl Icahn isn't forecasting a dramatic stock market drop quite yet but the billionaire investor is still bracing for a market sell-off in the next three to five years, he told Reuters on Monday.

Starbucks Corp's (SBUX.O) early re-launch of its popular Pumpkin Spice latte drink failed to heat up business at its U.S. cafes, disappointing Wall Street and sending the company's shares down almost 5 percent.