Boeing Co has been ordered by a jury to pay ICO Global Communications $236 million in punitive damages for breach of a contract under which the aerospace company was supposed to build and launch satellites for the communications company.

According to estimates provided by ICO, Boeing owes the communications company at least $607 million which includes the $371 million in compensatory damages the jury awarded previous week. However after the addition of interest, the total money owed by Boeing to IOC could exceed $700 million.

The jury’s decision comes after a four-week trial in which ICO accused Boeing of tripping the launch of its satellite network by unfairly increasing the costs of the project. ICO Global Communications is owned by cellular phone pioneer Craig McCaw and headquartered at Reston, Virginia. It had initiated a plan of building a fleet of satellites in order to broadcast video and other services to mobile users around the globe.

The lawsuit had been first filed in 2004 at the Los Angeles County Superior Court in which ICO claimed that after acquiring Hughes Electronic - with which ICO had originally entered a contract to build 12 satellites – and inheriting ICO’s contract, Boeing had built only two satellites for ICO and was demanding another $400 to build the rest.

US banking giant JP Morgan Chase & Co has said that it will not initiate fresh foreclosure proceedings against some loans while it seeks to make payments easier on $110 billion of bad mortgages.

The bank also announced that in the next ninety days, it will examine loans and may bring about a reduction of interest or principal amounts in some cases. It will also open 24 counselling centres in areas with high delinquency rates.

New York-based JP Morgan Chase & Co is the largest bank in US by market value. Two weeks ago the bank received a cash infusion from federal funds which is why it has agreed to re-examine mortgage loans and put on hold any new foreclosure proceedings.

Financial services institutions have been urged by the nation’s lawmakers as well as government agencies to work with borrowers and avoid foreclosures which touched a record high in the third quarter this year. Another major bank, Bank of America Corp has already said that it was finalizing plans which will allow at least 630,000 at-risk borrowers to continue to stay in their homes. The states which face the greatest number of foreclosures like Florida, Nevada and Ohio are crucial to the November 4 presidential elections and thus hold a potent combination of politics and economy.

Chairman of US Federal Reserve, Bernard Bernanke has said that the federal government will need to remain an important player in the future of the mortgage financing market.

Bernanke reiterated the continuing role of the federal government in backing mortgage loans at a speech broadcast to an economic symposium in Berkeley, California. He said that while there are several alternatives to deal with the aftermath of the mortgage crisis, the federal government will continue to play a role in each of them.

The Chairman’s’ speech included a detailed analysis of the recent crisis in the mortgage market which eventually prompted the Treasury Department to put Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into federal conservatorship. These firms are two of the biggest US housing finance companies and between them own or guarantee almost half of all mortgage loans in the country, amounting to about $5 trillion. Bernanke said that putting them in federal conservatorship seemed the best choice because if their problems continued to persist, it would have cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars in future losses. Replacing them by totally private firms on the other hand could cause serious problems for the economy during another financial crisis.

Bernanke however stopped short of advocating a complete nationalization of the mortgage companies.

In yet another instance of an international oil company posting record quarterly earnings, Chevron Corp reported a profit of $7.89 billion for the third quarter.

San Ramon-based Chevron Corp is the second-largest oil company in the United States. In the third quarter of the current fiscal year, the company made a record $7.89 billion profit which is more than double its earnings in the same quarter last year. in the first nine months in this year, Chevron’s profits touched $19 billion on sales of $222 billion.

Chevron like other major oil companies owes the most part of its profits to historically-high prices of fuel in the summer. In July, the price of crude peaked to $147 a barrel and industry profits surged accordingly. Exxon Mobil, the largest publicly-traded oil company in the world, made a profit of $14.83 billion in the third quarter. Likewise Royal Dutch Shell posted profits of $8.45 billion and BP reported gains of $8.05 billion for the quarter.

However industry experts warn that the record gains enjoyed by the big oil companies in the third quarter may not repeated for a very long time to come. This is because oil prices have been dropping for months now and on Friday, crude prices closed at $67.81 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

For those who invest money in stocks, it is extremely important to be updated on the trends in the market. Even if your money is in low-risk areas, it is always a good idea to check on the market from time to time in case some immediate or drastic measures need to be taken. Here is where choosing the right stock tracker becomes important.

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