HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Japanese indexes were unsettled and moved in a tight range early Wednesday, with financials such as Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group dropping on worries about the health of financial markets, while exporters such as Honda Motor Co. rose on a weakened yen. The benchmark Nikkei 225 Average was little changed at 13,949.75 and the broader Topix index slipped 0.1% to 1,358.87, after moving in either direction in the early minutes. Elsewhere, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 inched up 0.1% to 5,816.30 and South Korea's Kospi rose 0.2% to 1,846.35, while New Zealand's NZX 50 index gave up 0.4% to 3,638.79.

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WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Sen. Hillary Clinton won an expected victory over Sen. Barack Obama in West Virginia's Democratic primary on Tuesday, giving her a needed boost in her increasingly tough fight for the party's presidential nomination. Despite Clinton's victory, Obama remains ahead in the delegate count and appears closer than ever to winning the Democratic nod. In West Virginia, 39 delegates were at stake, including superdelegates.

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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Jana Partners LLC said late Tuesday the Supreme Court of Delaware has affirmed a lower court's decision upholding the rights of an affiliate of Jana to nominate directors and propose other business at CNet Network's 2008 annual meeting. Jana is seeking to elect two people to replace board members who are up for re-election at the upcoming meeting.

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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- President Bush will not veto legislation that halts oil shipments to the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve, said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel Tuesday. Earlier, the Senate passed, with a veto-proof majority, an amendment to a flood insurance bill that would temporarily suspend shipments to the reserve. Senators said such a halt will lessen demand for oil, which has been hitting record highs. "We've been asked if the president would veto the bill based on that amendment -- the response is no," Stanzel said. Bush has said he opposed a halt to filling the SPR, given that purchases amount to just 0.1% of global demand. "The president's view remains the same. He doesn't think stopping the fill of the SPR will have an impact on oil or gas prices in a meaningful way," Stanzel said.

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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- MySpace.com won a $234 million judgment over junk messages sent to its members, in what may be the largest award under the 2003 federal antispamming law known as Can-Spam, the Associated Press reported late Tuesday. The ruling was against Sanford Wallace and Walter Rines, two prominent spam defendants, the news agency said. MySpace is owned by News Corp. , which also owns The Wall Street Journal and MarketWatch, the publisher of this report.

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J.M. Smucker Co. bought ConAgra Foods Inc.'s Knott's Berry Farm food brand, a maker of jams, jellies, preserves and gift boxes. Financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed. The acquisition doesn't include the Knott's Berry Farm amusement park, which isn't owned by ConAgra's Knott's Berry Farm. ConAgra said the sale won't affect its full-year 2009 sales and profit growth expectations. J.M. Smucker expects the deal to add about $40 million in annual sales to its portfolio. Production will be transitioned to J.M. Smucker's manufacturing facilities over the next four months.

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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Liberty Media Corp. and IAC Interactivecorp said late Tuesday they have resolved their legal dispute regarding IAC's proposed restructuring. Liberty will drop its appeal of a March 28 decision and will not oppose the proposed spin-offs of HSN, Interval International, Ticketmaster and Lending Tree. Liberty will be limited on its board representation and on its ability to increase ownership stakes in the spun off companies.

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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Fannie Mae said late Tuesday it priced 80 million preferred shares at $25 a share in a $2 billion offering. The company had announced the offering of non-cumulative, non-convertible, perpetual fixed-rate preferred stock earlier in the month as part of a $6 billion securities offering.

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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- ArvinMeritor Inc. will introduce a commodity surcharge starting June 1 in response to "sudden and extraordinary surges" in prices of steel, energy and other commodities. The company will conduct a monthly review and adjustment process on all products. "We remain diligent in the performance improvement actions and cost reduction initiatives we are driving throughout our worldwide operations, however, these will not be enough to offset the level of cost increases we are experiencing," said Chief Executive Chip McClure of ArvinMeritor.

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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Whole Foods Market Inc. late Tuesday reported its fiscal second-quarter net income fell 13% from a year ago to $40 million, or 29 cents a share. A year-earlier, the nation's largest organic grocery-chain earned $46 million, or 32 cents a share. Sales rose to $1.9 billion from $1.5 billion. Whole Foods shares fell 7% on the report as the earnings missed Wall Street's target of 31 cents a share, according to analysts surveyed by FactSet Research. Looking ahead, Austin, Tex.-based Whole Foods backed its fiscal 2008 forecast for comparable store sales growth of 7.5% to 9.5%.

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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Electronic Arts Inc. reported a net loss for its fourth fiscal quarter on acquisition charges while revenue surged past Wall Street's estimates on strong video game sales. The game publisher reported a net loss of $94 million, or 30 cents a share, for the March quarter compared to a loss of $25 million, or 8 cents a share, for the same period last year. Excluding acquisition charges and other items, EA said it would have earned $30 million, or 9 cents a share, for the recent quarter. Revenue surged 84% to $1.13 billion. On a non-GAAP basis, the company said revenue would have been $919 million. Analysts were expecting revenue of $834.8 million with earnings at a break-even level on a per-share basis.

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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - Applied Materials Inc. on Tuesday reported second-quarter net income of $302.5 million, or 22 cents a share, compared with a profit of $411.4 million, or 29 cents a share, for the year-earlier period. Revenue was $2.15 billion, down from $2.53 billion. Adjusted income was 26 cents a share. Analysts expected the chip making equipment manufacturer to report earnings of 21 cents a share on revenue of $2.12 billion, according to a consensus survey by FactSet Research.

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NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stocks tried but mostly failed to reverse course on an earlier slide, with only the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index remaining higher, following a report that billionaire financier Carl Icahn might try to take over the board of Yahoo Inc. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 44.86 points to 12,831.45. The S&P 500 shed 0.57 points to 1,403.01, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 6.63 points to 2,495.12.

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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Shares of Yahoo Inc. jumped nearly 5% in afternoon trading Tuesday following a report that activist investor Carl Icahn may be mulling a proxy battle for control of the Web portal's board of directors. A report on CNBC said the famous activist investor may launch a proxy battle after Yahoo rebuffed a $47 billion acquisition bid from Microsoft Corp. . Yahoo shareholders face a deadline of Thursday to submit alternative proposals and director nominees to the company for inclusion on the proxy for the annual meeting, which will be held on July 3.

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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Craigslist.org filed a lawsuit against eBay Inc. on Tuesday, accusing the online auction giant of unfair business practices. In a complaint filed in Superior Court in San Francisco, Craigslist says eBay used its position as a minority shareholder to "gather proprietary information" about Craiglist's business and "illegally divert Internet traffic" to Kijiji.com - a competing classified listing service owned by eBay. The lawsuit is the latest step in an escalating dispute between the two companies. Last month, eBay sued Craigslist over actions that it claimed had dilluted its ownership stake in the firm.

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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Poor performance of second lien residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) could impact the credit ratings of bond insurers, Moody's Investors Service said on Tuesday. Bond insurers have significant exposure to second lien RMBS, mainly through guaranties on the securities and, to a lesser extent, through exposure to collateralized debt obligations backed by such assets, the rating agency noted. "Moody's loss expectations for this asset class are higher than previously anticipated, owing to worse-than-expected performance trends," the agency explained. "This could have material implications for the estimated capital adequacy of financial guarantors most exposed to this risk." MBIA shares fell 5% to $9.36 during afternoon trading, while Ambac Financial dropped 7% to $4.03.

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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- June crude closed at $125.80 a barrel in New York Tuesday, up $1.57, or 1.3%. Gains in the energy sector were led by a 3.9% rise in June heating oil, which closed at a record $3.70 a gallon. It's "definitely heating oil leading this," said James Williams, an economist at WTRG Economics. "Heating oil prices are up more than 3 times crude oil today on a per barrel basis."

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WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Dallas Fed president Richard Fisher said he voted against the Fed's last three rate cuts, because he was worried the inflation rate might be at too high a level once the economy starts expanding again. "We might come out of this period of slowdown with a much higher base rate of inflation that we would want," Fisher said. A great deal of inflation pressure now comes from overseas, Fisher said. For instance, the price of oil wasn't likely to drop even if the U.S. economy slows, he said. Fisher said he didn't lose sleep over the dollar's value on foreign exchange market, but was confident government officials will take the necessary actions to protect the currency's value over the long-term.

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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- June gold closed at $869.60 an ounce in New York Tuesday, down $15.30, or 1.7%, for the session. "With gold having difficulty sustaining the recent rally, it succumbed to further profit taking when the dollar continued its recent rally (against the euro)," said Mark O'Byrne, executive director at Gold and Silver Investments Ltd.

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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- SkyWest Inc. said Tuesday it April traffic fell 0.9% to 1.46 billion revenue passenger miles from 1.47 billion revenue passenger miles a year ago. A revenue passenger mile is equal to one passenger flown one mile. April capacity grew 1.1% to 1.89 billion available seat miles from last year, the airline said. Load factor, or the percentage of paying passengers in available seats, fell in April to 77% from 78.6% a year ago.

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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Moody's Investors Service on Tuesday cut the ratings of Amgen Inc. to A3/Prime-2 from A2/Prime-1 on expected further erosion of anemia drug sales and the company's high reliance on a late-stage experimental osteoporosis treatment. The rating outlook is stable. "The downgrade results from pressures both near-term and long-term facing Amgen's core products, combined with uncertain growth potential from the late-stage pipeline," said Michael Levesque, a Moody's senior vice president, in a statement.

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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said Tuesday it placed Warnaco Group Inc.'s BB corporate credit rating on CreditWatch with positive implications. "The CreditWatch placement follows the company's earnings announcement for the first fiscal quarter ended April 5, 2008, that indicated a continuation of positive operating momentum for the past several fiscal quarters," said Susan Ding, a credit analyst at S&P. Warnaco's revenues rose 21% over the prior-year period, on the back of gains in all of the company's business segments, especially in its Calvin Klein international division.

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WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Although inflation has "departed from desirable levels," downward pressure from the weak economy should put greater downward pressure on prices going forward, said San Francisco Fed governor Janet Yellen on Tuesday. "My forecast of the most likely outccome over the next couple of years is that total and core inflation will moderate from present levels," Yellen said in a speech in Vancouver. Yellen said she doubted that the U.S. has entered a period of "stagflation," which is slow growth and rising prices. She noted that wage costs gains have been miniscule, rising only a quarter of one percentage point in the first quarter.

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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Mine Safety Appliances Co. on Tuesday named William Lambert chief executive, replacing John Ryan. The Pittsburgh safety product provider said Ryan, who will retire as a full-time employee at the end of June, has been elected nonexecutive chairman. Lambert, currently president and operating chief, will maintain his position as president.

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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - The U.S. Senate Tuesday approved an amendment that requires the government to temporarily halt filling the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve, according to media reports. The amendment won by a bipartisan vote of 97 to 1 after nearly all Republicans voted for it. The legislation was added to a flood insurance bill that hasn't yet been approved by the Senate, but is expected to be voted upon later. President Bush, who has been pushing ahead with the SPR program despite soaring oil prices, said he will veto the bill. Crude futures hit a new high of $126.98 on Tuesday.

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NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Shares of oil producers fell into the red after the U.S. Senate OK'd a measure that could force President Bush to stop buying oil for the strategic petroleum reserve. The Amex Oil Index dipped 0.3% to 1,529. However, other energy stocks held onto their gains. The Amex Natural Gas Index rose 0.6% to 708. The Philadelphia Oil Service Index rose 1.1% to 331.

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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- June crude climbed as high as $126.98 a barrel in electronic trading to mark a fresh intraday record. The contract last traded at $126.50, up $2.27, or 1.8%, in regular trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gains in energy futures were led by a 2.1% rise in June heating oil, which was last at $3.63 a gallon.

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NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The Air Transport Association on Tuesday forecast fewer people flying this summer, down just over 1% to 211.5 million from 214.2 million last year. "We'll face a challenging summer this year," said ATA Chief Executive James May on a call with reporters, citing the softer U.S. economy. Though there are likely to be fewer domestic passengers this summer, the number of people flying between the U.S. and overseas has actually increased, he said. Aircraft is still flying with relatively full loads, however, approaching 85% load factors, the ATA said.

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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Fannie Mae said Tuesday it will issue $3 billion in its three-year Benchmark Notes. The company said it will price the notes on Thursday, with a settlement date of May 19. The notes will mature May 19, 2011.

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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - The death toll in China's Sichuan province from the nation's most serious earthquake in nearly 60 years has risen to 12,000, China's official Xinhua news agency reported Tuesday. Casualties in other nearby provinces were not included. Xinhua also said there were still about 60,000 people trapped in the epicenter of Wenchuan, where basic infrastructure was damaged, disrupting all communication from the county. Separately, China's central government has set aside 860 million yuan ($123 million) for disaster relief, Xinhua said.

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