With the Apple iPhone debut getting all the hoopla it’s easy to forget what a powerful business tool a smartphone can be. The AT&T 8525 is a PocketPC that makes phone calls. This smartphone is a workhorse. Get stock quotes, surf the net’s financial sites, do some calculations in Excel, read a book, and make a phone call too!

Many British investors have been stung by the downturn in the US property market. But it is a different story in one area of the US – Las Vegas. Paul Bowler, a Manchester-born Cirque du Soleil performer is capitalising on this explosion.

Glass historian and dealer Andy McConnell, 54, has been blown away by the rising values of Scandinavian glass, roughly covering the years 1940 to 1975.

Summer officially starts next week. We take a look at what might be the hottest design objects for the garden in Europe this year.

Follow these four steps to see if you’re ready to become a homeowner.

A late slide sent the S&P 500 down 1.4% and the NYSE composite 1.2% as volume rose Wednesday.

A late sell-off pushed stocks down in higher volume Wednesday. But most of the market’s leaders showed scant signs of damage.

The number of new dwellings begun in the U.S. fell 2.1%, the first decline in four months. The permit increase was larger than expected and is seen as a promising sign for future construction.

At Bear Stearns Cos., a group of hedge-fund managers at the Wall Street firm spent the weekend scrambling to line up new investors or lenders to keep afloat their fund, called High Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage fund. The fund, which invests in many securities that are backed by subprime mortgages, suffered heavy losses in recent months.

On Friday, credit-rating firm Moody’s Investors Service slashed ratings on 131 bonds backed by pools of speculative subprime mortgages. -WSJ

Higher interest rates can lead to an array of woes for the stock market. But one of the worst — a downturn in corporate profits — still isn’t among the big worries for most investors and Wall Street pros, even after the latest run-up in benchmark Treasury debt yields. WSJ