Sales of insecticides are surging after years of decline, as U.S. corn planting expands and a genetic modification used to protect crops from pests has started losing its effectiveness.

Clearwire said a special board committee approved Sprint Nextel's latest offer for the wireless broadband provider and recommended shareholders vote for the deal.

Ford plans to increase its North American manufacturing capacity by 200,000 vehicles through a series of production-line expansions and a shortening of its summer shutdowns.

Apple's tax strategies came under harsh scrutiny Tuesday in the Senate, where lawmakers are finding it far easier to call for a simpler tax code than to produce one.

Gold's slump has saddled the second-largest U.S. college endowment with more than $300 million in paper losses.

South Africa's currency stumbled to a four-year low and the country's bonds sold off, signs that escalating labor unrest is starting to outweigh the lure of high yields for many investors.

Beleaguered Hewlett-Packard is a notable beneficiary of this year's reversal, with its shares having beaten once-highflying Apple's by 66 percentage points so far.

To earn yields of 5% or more, investors are turning to more complex fare, such as high-yield corporate bonds, preferred stocks and real-estate investment trusts.

The stock market is expecting a massive new economic boom while the bond market sees the economy remaining in a funk. They can't both be right, but they can be wrong, writes Brett Arends.