WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House, following a trading loss of more than $2 billion by JPMorgan, wants to ensure a tough interpretation of a regulation aimed at preventing banks from making bets with their own money, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. Citing people familiar with the matter, the report said White House officials have stepped up talks with the Treasury Department in the several days since the staggering loss was disclosed by the bank. The discussions, according to the report, represent the first tangible political impact from the trading debacle. ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Occidental Petroleum was among the first major U.S. oil drillers to make a big bet on the resurgence of domestic production, spending billions to grab oil patches from Texas to North Dakota. Now, as it bemoans steep costs and moves its rigs out of the Bakken shale oil fields, some analysts wonder if the company has lost its clairvoyance. After two years of unyielding gains, costs are bound to fall, they say. The California-based energy giant is beset by escalating labor costs in North Dakota, which has the lowest unemployment rate in the country. ...

SINGAPORE/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Royal Bank of Canada and Credit Suisse are among suitors who have put in initial bids to buy the non-U.S. wealth management business of Bank of America in a deal that could be worth about $2 billion, sources said. Swiss bank Julius Baer was also keen to bid for some of BofA's units in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia excluding Japan, the sources, who had knowledge of the matter, told Reuters. It was not clear whether Switzerland's third-biggest bank had submitted an initial bid. ...

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's economy bounced back in the first quarter from a year-end lull, powering ahead of other major industrial nations thanks to rebuilding of the tsunami-battered northeast, solid private spending and some improvement in exports. The world's third-largest economy grew 1.0 percent in the January-March quarter, just above a median forecast of 0.9 percent. A 0.2 percent contraction in the economy reported for the final three months of 2011 was revised up to flat in the government data released on Thursday. ...

(Reuters) - It's the biggest parlor game on Wall Street: Estimating how large JPMorgan Chase & Co's trading loss will be from a hedging strategy that went wrong. The biggest U.S. bank by assets has already disclosed $2 billion of paper losses, and Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said it could lose another $1 billion or more. The losses will grow, some traders say, because it appears JPMorgan has only sold a small portion of its position, leaving it vulnerable to price swings in a thinly traded market. Others are not so sure the bank will suffer much more than it already has. ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - They are the few, the brave, the unloved, and among big investors, their number shrinks by the month. They are the last of the bond bulls, the investors who believe long-term U.S. government bonds will extend a historic run that has already pushed interest rates to multi-decade lows. Recent surveys show broad disdain for Treasuries among market cognoscenti. ...

National foreclosure trends took a positive turn in April, as the number of homes seized by banks declined and fewer properties entered into the foreclosure process.

What only weeks ago was seen as a serious threat to the economic recovery could now turn into a stimulus everyone can love.

Ford is taking on Toyota in the hybrid market.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares on Thursday recovered a bit of the ground lost in the previous day's sell-off, but investors found no reason to bet on risk amid deepening turmoil in Greece and fears of contagion to other stressed euro zone economies. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.5 percent on short covering, after sliding more than 3 percent - its biggest one-day drop in six months - on Wednesday. The index hit a new 4-month low on Wednesday, and has shed 9.6 percent since May 2. ...