On Wednesday, the euro hit an 11-month low against the dollar and stocks eased after the Federal Reserve issued a warning that the sovereign debt crisis of Europe could hurt the U.S. economy but failed to signal fresh action to stimulate growth.

Euro/dollar slumped to its lowest level since January at $1.3005.

“If we get a further deterioration of the euro zone debt crisis, if we see a lot of countries being downgraded, or more problems in the banking sector, this $1.30 is not going to hold,” said Arne Lohmann Rasmussen, chief analyst at Danske in Copenhagen.

The dollar index .DXY that tracks the dollar’s value against a basket of currencies rose as high as 80.407.

Reliance Industries Ltd has started lining up content for its proposed 4G rollout.

A subsidiary of RIL, Infotel Broadband Services Ltd, bought a 38.5 per cent stake in Extramarks Education Pvt Ltd, an online education portal that focuses on school education and digital learning.

From in.finance.yahoo.com:

According to a media release by RIL, the investment in Extramarks has been made through an affiliate company Reliance Strategic Investments Ltd.

Sources said this acquisition would offer the company’s 4G users access to this education portal.

The company declined to talk about the size of the investment.

A media release by RIL said, “The investment by Infotel will help Extramarks to pursue its aggressive growth plans in further developing services and wider market penetration. Extramarks’ digital distribution model will provide invaluable service to the student community across age groups, including education support and study help at affordable prices.”

On Thursday, European leaders were preparing for the possibility of Greece leaving the euro zone to preserve the 12-year-old single currency.

Greece Prime Minister George Papandreou was told by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a torrid meeting in Cannes that Athens would not receive a cent more in aid — Greece was due an 8 billion euros aid payment this month — until it votes to meet its commitments to the euro zone.

From news.yahoo.com:

In Athens, Greece’s powerful finance minister broke ranks with his prime minister, rejecting a proposed referendum on staying in the euro, hours after they received an ultimatum from France and Germany to make up their minds.

The growing chaos in Greece and uncertainty over the euro zone sent stocks and commodity prices lower in Asia, and fueled a rush into safe-haven German bonds.

On his return with Papandreou to Athens from Cannes, Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos issued a defiant statement, saying Greece’s euro membership was a historic achievement and “cannot depend on a referendum”.

“Greece is something we can get over, something we can live without,” France’s Europe minister, Jean Leonetti told RTL radio in an interview.

A study on Thursday revealed that thirty large and profitable U.S. corporations paid no income taxes in 2008 through 2010.

Among the 280 Fortune 500 companies studied, Pepco Holdings, a Washington, D.C.-area power company, had the lowest effective tax rate, at negative 57.6 percent.

From news.yahoo.com:

The statutory U.S. corporate income tax rate is 35 percent, one of the highest in the world, but over the 2008-2010 period, very few of the companies studied paid it, said the report.

The average effective tax rate for the companies over the period was 18.5 percent, said Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, both think tanks.

Their report also listed General Electric Co, Paccar Inc, PG&E Corp, Computer Sciences Corp and NiSource Inc as among the 30 that paid no taxes. All 280 corporations examined were profitable over the period.

“But that does not mean that low-tax corporations bear no responsibility … The laws were not enacted in a vacuum; they were adopted in response to relentless corporate lobbying, threats and campaign support,” the report said.

The newest iPhone from Apple Inc left Wall Street and fans wishing for more than a souped-up version of last year’s device at a time when rival smartphone makers are nipping at its heels.

Fans of Apple were disappointed to note that the new iPhone 4S is identical in form to the previous model as they hoped for a thinner, bigger-screened design.

From in.finance.yahoo.com:

It remains to be seen whether the iPhone 4S can stem market share gains by phones running Google Inc’s Android software. Samsung Electronics, notably, is growing global shipments several times faster than Apple and is now estimated at within a hair’s breadth of catching up in worldwide market share.

“It’s been 16 months and all you’ve got is an A5 processor in the existing iPhone 4,” BGC Partners’ analyst Colin Gillis said of the new Apple phone. “It’s a mild disappointment, but they’re still going to be selling millions of units.”

The iPhone 4S’s voice commands — for sending messages, searching for stock prices and other applications — caught the attention of several analysts who argued it could profoundly change the user experience.

The shares of Apple fell as much as 5 percent, before recovering with the broader market to close down 0.6 percent.

The chief executive of Ford Motor Co., Alan Mulally, said recently that the company is planning to add 7,000 jobs in the United States over the next two years.

Mulally, speaking to a small group of reporters in Bangkok, however declined to comment on progress in negotiations on a new labor contract in the United States with the United Auto Workers.

From in.finance.yahoo.com:

Asked if he was worried about a double-dip recession in the Unites States, Mulally said he expected the economy to continue to expand.

He said Ford, the second-largest U.S. car maker, would not be slowing its expansion in Asia, despite slower economic growth in China and India.

Joe Hinrichs, the head of Ford’s operations in Asia, said the company was keeping a close watch on capacity in China but he remained confident in the market there.

Hinrichs added that he expected to see “tremendous” growth in the Indian market.