RDS.A

Forget Austin Powers. The real "international man of mystery" is President Umaru Yar'Adua of Nigeria, who hasn't been seen in public for weeks. The absence comes at a tricky time for U.S.-Nigerian relations, as a Nigerian has been charged with trying to blow up a U.S. airliner and Obama needs Nigeria's help to counter Al-Qaeda's growing influence in the region.

OPEC is expected to keep oil supplies flat in 2010, but could gamble that international events will drive up prices.

What's one way you can hedge against a near-inevitable rise in oil prices? Buy shares of integrated oil companies, which are at their lowest price levels, on a price-to-earnings basis (P/E), in more than a decade. Oil and gas producers in the MSCI World Index traded at a P/E of 7.84 in June,...

There's a new number one in town, and it's a bit of a surprise. According to the Fortune Global 500 ranking of the world's largest corporations, Royal Dutch Shell (RDS) leapfrogged over Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) and ExxonMobil (XOM) to take the top spot. Royal Dutch Shell pulled in $15 billion more in...

Alcoa (AA), the aluminum giant, said late Monday that it will chop its dividend to 3 cents a share from 17 cents a share, sell $1.1 billion worth of shares in a public offering and cut costs by more than $2.4 billion annually by 2010 to cope with the economic downturn. It hopes its actions will...