CORRECT: Moody's Downgrades Spain Debt Rating

LONDON (Dow Jones)--Moody's Investors Service Inc. Thursday downgraded Spanish government debt to Aa2 with a negative outlook from Aa1 previously, triggering sharp declines for the euro and European bond prices in early European trading.
The news fanned concerns in European financial markets that high-debt countries in the euro-zone could bring the 17-currency region closer to a new debt crisis. Earlier this week Moody's downgraded Greek government debt.

Cocoa Falls as Gbagbo Orders Companies to Export; Coffee Drops

March 10 (Bloomberg) -- Cocoa fell the most in more than two months in London after President Laurent Gbagbo ordered companies to export beans from Ivory Coast, the world’s largest producer. Coffee dropped.

Companies were told to export by the end of this month, or face sanctions, according to Ahoua Don Mello, spokesman for Gbagbo’s government. Gbagbo refuses to leave office and took control of local cocoa purchases and exports three days ago, escalating a conflict with rival Alassane Ouattara, the internationally recognized winner of a November election.

Tokyo Shares End At 5-Wk Low On Futures Selling, Weak China Data

TOKYO (Dow Jones)--Tokyo stocks fell to their lowest closing mark in five weeks on Thursday, as futures-led selling ahead of the quarterly contract rollover spurred profit-taking in the cash market, where KDDI and real estate shares such as Mitsui Fudosan fell particularly sharply.
The Nikkei Stock Average lost 155.12 points, or 1.5%, to 10,434.38, its lowest closing mark since Feb. 3. The sell-off followed Wednesday's 0.6% rise.
The Topix index of all Tokyo Stock Exchange First Section issues also slipped 13.45 points, or 1.4%, to 930.84, as all 33 Topix subindexes closed in negative territory.

Walgreens to sell pharmacy-benefit unit

Walgreen Co. is selling its pharmacy benefit management business, as the Deerfield-based drugstore giant pushes to get consumers to the pharmacy counter and away from mail order.

The nation's largest drugstore chain said Wednesday that it will sell Walgreens Health Initiatives for $525 million in cash to Catalyst Health Solutions Inc., of Rockville, Md. The deal is expected to close in June.

Walgreens and other retailers are working hard to increase foot

traffic into their stores by adding medical services such as vaccinations and primary care from nurse practitioners. But owning a pharmacy benefit manager is contrary to that strategy.

Foreclosures plunge 27% - biggest drop on record

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Is our long national foreclosure nightmare ending?
The number of foreclosure notices filed in February dropped 14% compared with a month earlier and 27% compared with a year earlier, according to RealtyTrac.
That was the biggest year-over-year decline the company has ever recorded. But the improvement may be
exaggerated, according to RealtyTrac CEO James Saccacio, who traced some of the decline to the fallout over robo-signing issues.
"Allegations of improper foreclosure processing continued to dog the mortgage servicing industry and disrupt court dockets," he said. "The industry is in the midst of a major overhaul that has severely restricted its capacity to process foreclosures."
Another contributing factor was the harsh winter weather that covered much of the country during the month. That delayed some of the paperwork processing and the serving of notices of default, notices of auction sales and other filings.

A fear of fracking may slow natural gas trend

Natural gas could be a major source of low-cost electricity nationwide, as an upsurge in domestic production drives costs down and looming environmental mandates encourage utilities to retire power plants that run on dirtier-burning coal.
But energy experts and executives at the CERAWeek conference in Houston on Wednesday described a landscape of obstacles still standing in the way of natural gas producers. Chief among them: public fears about water contamination from the hydraulic fracturing process that is essential to unlocking natural gas in U.S. shale formations.

Seniors group sues HUD over reverse mortgages

(Reuters) - The largest advocacy group for U.S. seniors sued the Obama administration on Tuesday over policy changes it says make it easier for older Americans to lose their home to foreclosure. AARP, formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons, sued Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan in federal district court through its charitable arm, the AARP Foundation, on behalf of three homeowners facing foreclosure and then eviction.