OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- Billionaire Warren Buffett's holding company bought nearly 2.8 million shares of Dow Jones & Co. earlier this year before Rupert Murdoch sealed his deal to buy the Wall Street Journal's publisher.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. filed its quarterly summary of its $61.1 billion portfolio of U.S. stocks with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday. The filing did not state how much Berkshire paid for the Dow Jones shares, which closed at $36.33 the day before news of Murdoch's $60-per-share offer became public May 1.

Berkshire bought the Dow Jones shares sometime in April, May or June, so it could have paid as little as $34 a share. Berkshire held 2.78 million shares of Dow Jones stock, worth about $159.8 million, at the end of June.

The Dow Jones purchase runs counter to Buffett's well-established opinion that newspapers face long-term challenges because the economics of the business are

Daily FX
Sharp Losses Continue for the Australian, New Zealand and Canadian Dollars
Wednesday August 15, 5:15 pm ET
By Kathy Lien, Chief Strategist strategist@dailyfx.com

Next to the Japanese Yen crosses, the biggest losers were the Australian, New Zealand and Canadian dollars. More Australian hedge funds are being hit by the US subprime crisis. Basis Capital told investors today that one of its hedge funds have lost over 80 percent of its value. As of March, the fund had a $1 billion in holdings, which means that now they probably now have less than $200 million.

More skeletons will probably becoming out of the closet as the hedge funds in Australia prove to be up to their necks in risk. The New Zealand dollar is tracking the Australian dollar lower, having sold off aggressively for the past five trading days. The Canadian dollar also continued lower on the back of continued weakness in economic data. We could see a bounce in the CAD however after Coventree announced that they have found buyers for their asset backed commercial paper, which suggests that they may lift their funding freeze. The Bank of Canada also injected further liquidity to calm the markets.

Daily FX
British Pound Slips as Bank of England Moves Further Away from Raising Rates
Wednesday August 15, 5:19 pm ET
By Kathy Lien, Chief Strategist strategist@dailyfx.com

The British pound dropped for the third straight day in a row after the minutes from the latest Bank of England meeting revealed a unanimous vote to keep interest rates unchanged. According to the minutes ""Most members emphasized that they had no firm view on whether rates needed to rise further."

Rate hike expectations have already been downgraded after the surprisingly soft consumer price report released yesterday. The lack of support for a rate hike at the last meeting pushes the central bank even further away from raising interest rates to six percent by the end of the year. Do not be mistaken however as the market has not given up on hope for another rate hike, especially after Bank of England member Sentence stressed that one consumer price report will not mean much to the BoE. Meanwhile UK employment data was slightly worse than expected with average earnings including bonuses declining in the month of June and jobless claims falling less than expected.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Biotechnology company Amgen Inc. said Wednesday it will cut up to 14 percent of its work force and has lowered its profit guidance because of slimmer than expected sales of its anemia drug Aranesp.

The company said it plans to reduce its work force by 12 percent to 14 percent, or between 2,200 and 2,600 positions, and will get hit with a restructuring charge between $600 million and $700 million.

Amgen also reduced its adjusted earnings per share guidance for the full-year to between $4.13 a share and $4.23 a share from previous guidance of $4.28 a share.

The Thousand Oaks-based company said it would also reduce capital

NEW YORK (AP) -- Now that toy companies have issued recalls for millions of Chinese-made toys that are either tainted with lead or otherwise hazardous to children, they are scrambling to figure out what to do with them.

Mattel Inc., which on Tuesday recalled about 19 million toys worldwide, said it was working on a "responsible approach" but could not provide details.

Amid the lack of clarity, many parents are confused about how to dispose of the toys. That may mean many of them will end up in the trash and eventually in landfills, where they could possibly leach

NEW YORK (AP) -- Now that toy companies have issued recalls for millions of Chinese-made toys that are either tainted with lead or otherwise hazardous to children, they are scrambling to figure out what to do with them.

Mattel Inc., which on Tuesday recalled about 19 million toys worldwide, said it was working on a "responsible approach" but could not provide details.

Amid the lack of clarity, many parents are confused about how to dispose of the toys. That may mean many of them will end up in the trash and eventually in landfills, where they could possibly leach

Daily FX
Australian, New Zealand and Canadian Dollars all See Sharp Losses
Tuesday August 14, 5:34 pm ET
By Kathy Lien, Chief Strategist strategist@dailyfx.com

The New Zealand, Australian and Canadian dollars are the day?s biggest market movers. All three of the commodity currencies are down sharply due to the combination of weaker economic data and continued flight to safety out of high yielding currencies back into the greenback.

The big surprise was in New Zealand, where retail sales dropped for the second month in a row. Consumer spending is the backbone of any economy which makes the recent weakness extremely important. There are reports that over $3 billion of New Zealand bonds are set to mature this month. Most New Zealand bonds are owned by foreigners which suggest that the losses in the kiwi could exacerbate when the bond investors repatriate their funds. Australian business confidence was also weaker than expected in the month of July. Australian companies are also being hit by the subprime debacle with Rams Home Loans Group warning that profits would be weaker. Meanwhile over in Canada, the combination of a weaker trade balance and news that Coventree, the largest non-bank issuer of commercial paper in Canada was forced to seek emergency funding when it failed to refinance debt that matured yesterday.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A big drop in the cost of gasoline in July contributed to the smallest rise in consumer prices in eight months, providing a hopeful sign that inflation is easing.

Consumer prices, which had been surging earlier in the year, edged up a tiny 0.1 percent last month, the smallest advance since prices were flat last November, the Labor Department reported Wednesday. Core inflation, which excludes volatile energy and food, was also well-behaved, rising by just 0.2 percent, the same as June.

Both increases were in line with Wall Street expectations and should bolster investors' hopes that declining inflation pressures will give the Federal Reserve room to cut interest rates if needed to deal with the recent turbulence in stock and credit markets.

At its meeting last week, the Fed continued to state that its biggest worry was that inflation pressures will not ease. However, hopes for a Fed rate cut, possibly as soon as September, have been growing since that time given a global sell-off of stocks spawned by worries that spreading credit problems could derail the current