10:00PM Frankfurt, 4:00PM New York, 8:00AM Sydney – U.S. stocks closed nearly unchanged ahead of Fed rate decision on Wednesday. Visa reported 28% rise in earnings after the close.

Global Markets Update

Wrigley has agreed to be acquired by Mars for $80 per share or $23 billion. The deal will be partly financed by Goldman Sachs and Berkshire Hathaway. Wrigley offer is 28% premium from Friday closing price. On the earnings front Humana reported revenue and earnings rise of 12%. RadioShack first quarter sales declined 4% and earnings fell to 30 cents per share. Royal Bank of Scotland is likely to eliminate 25% of its staff.

Verizon reported first quarter revenue rise of 5% to $23.8 billion and operating income gain of 14% to 57 cents per share. The company added 1.5 million net customers and churn rate in the quarter was 1.19%. Medical Insurer, Humana rose 12% to $6.96 billion and earnings per share gained 12% to 47 cents. Mexico based Femsa SA reported revenue rise of 8.4% and robust volume rise of 7%.

Visa Inc, the recently listed credit card processing reported second quarter earnings rose 28% to $314 million on revenue gain of 21% to $1.45 billion compared to $1.19 billion or $246 million. Earnings per share were 39 cents per class A share.

Visa (V: chart) fell $3 in the after-hours trading to $72.63 cents and in the regular hours traded as high as $77.29 but settled 53 cents higher at $75.63. Visa priced its offering at $44 per share on March 18.

UK home prices fell 0.6% in April from March and dropped 0.9% from a year ago. The prices in London fell 0.7% in the month. UK refinery strike continues for the second day. The Office of Fair Trade is likely to expand its investigation of price fixing between consumer companies and consumer products manufacturers. Several retailers including WM Morrison, Asda and Sainsbury are likely to be contacted by the OFT.

March retail sales in Japan rose 1.1% from a year earlier and added 0.5% from February. Local media report suggested that Matsushita Electric may take a stake in Sanyo Electric and purchase 300 billion yen of preferred stocks from Goldman Sachs at a discount. Stocks in Japan gained on the speculation that credit market related losses are not likely to rise after UBS upgraded its opinion on U.S. banks. Yahoo Japan fell 10% and led decliners in the Nikkei 225 index.

China Life Insurance reported first quarter earnings declined 61% on recent weakness in stock market volatility. Earnings in the quarter fell to 3.47 billion yuan from 8.89 billion yuan on 5.5 billion yuan loss in its investment portfolio. China Life relies on the stock market gains for most of its portfolio and Shanghai market has lost nearly 33% of its value in the quarter. Gross premium in the quarter rose 39.5% to 101.5 billion yuan. Bank of China earnings rose 85%.

European Markets indexes

In London FTSE 100 Index closed lower 1.00 or 0.02% to 6,090.40, in Paris CAC 40 Index increased 34.54 or 0.69% to close at 5,012.75 and in Frankfurt DAX index higher 28.75 or 0.42% to close at 6,925.33. In Zurich trading SMI increased 40.66 or 0.54% to close at 7,550.14.

North American Markets indexes

Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 20.11 or 0.16% to a close of 12,871.75, S&P 500 closed down 1.47 or 0.11% to 1,396.37, and Nasdaq Composite Index increased 1.47 or 0.11% to close at 2,424.40. In Toronto TSX Composite closed down 18.02 or 0.13% to 14,085.85.

Of the 30 stocks in Dow Jones Industrial Average, 21 closed higher, 14 closed lower, and none was unchanged.

General Motors led gainers in the Dow Jones index with a rise of 2.6% followed by gains in Verizon Communications of 2.46%, in Merck of 1.77% and in Caterpillar of 0.95%.

Microsoft led decliners in the Dow Jones with a loss of 2.8% followed by losses in DuPont of 1.4%, in IBM of 1.13%, in AIG of 1.03%, and in Pfizer of 0.98%.

Of the stocks in S&P 500 index, 241 stocks increased, 251 declined, and 8 were unchanged. Of the stocks in the index, 11 stocks fell more than 3% and 65 gained more than 3%.

RadioShack led decliners in the S&P 500 index with a loss of 14% followed by losses in Goodyear of 6%, in Loews of 5.3%, and in Broadcom Corporation of 4.3%.

Wrigley led gainers in the index with a rise of 23% followed by gainers in the S&P 500 index of Ford Motor of 9.5%, in Sysco of 8.5%, in Tenet Healthcare of 8.2%, and in Ambac Financial of 7.77%.