This is a Real-time headline. These are breaking news, delivered the minute it happens, delivered ticker-tape style. Visit www.marketwatch.com or the quote page for more information about this breaking news.

This is a Real-time headline. These are breaking news, delivered the minute it happens, delivered ticker-tape style. Visit www.marketwatch.com or the quote page for more information about this breaking news.

This is a Real-time headline. These are breaking news, delivered the minute it happens, delivered ticker-tape style. Visit www.marketwatch.com or the quote page for more information about this breaking news.

This is a Real-time headline. These are breaking news, delivered the minute it happens, delivered ticker-tape style. Visit www.marketwatch.com or the quote page for more information about this breaking news.

Hewlett-Packard Co. is bidding $1.5 billion for data storage provider 3Par Inc., offering 33 percent more than what rival Dell Inc. agreed to pay for the company just a week earlier.

Robert Swannell, an investment banker who was a key figure in defending British retailer Marks and Spencer Group PLC from a takeover six years ago, will become its chairman next year, the company announced Monday.

This is a Real-time headline. These are breaking news, delivered the minute it happens, delivered ticker-tape style. Visit www.marketwatch.com or the quote page for more information about this breaking news.

This is a Real-time headline. These are breaking news, delivered the minute it happens, delivered ticker-tape style. Visit www.marketwatch.com or the quote page for more information about this breaking news.

State-owned China Construction Bank Ltd., the country's third-largest commercial lender, said its first half profit rose 27 percent on a surge in fee-based businesses including credit cards and wealth management.

Moody's Investor Service says it has downgraded Bahrain's sovereign rating, citing the country's increasingly high price of oil needed to balance its budget.

South Korea's national pension fund says it is interested in buying Chevron's 23.4 percent stake in Colonial Pipeline. National Pension Service official Kim Hee-seok said on Monday that the fund is in talks with the U.S. oil pipeline operator, but emphasized that nothing has been decided on who will buy the stake.

British bank HSBC Holdings PLC said Monday it is in talks with financial group Old Mutual PLC to buy a controlling stake in Nedbank Group Ltd. of South Africa in a deal worth as much as $6.8 billion.

Stocks slumped to a weak finish Monday as lingering worries about the economy overcame optimism from a fresh round of corporate dealmaking.

Food and Drug Administration officials said Monday that there is no evidence a massive outbreak of salmonella in eggs has spread beyond two Iowa farms, though a team of investigators is still trying to figure out what caused it.

This is a Real-time headline. These are breaking news, delivered the minute it happens, delivered ticker-tape style. Visit www.marketwatch.com or the quote page for more information about this breaking news.

European stock markets rose modestly Monday as the recent pickup in corporate dealmaking helped offset the gloom from disappointing U.S. economic data.