Wall Street reached another milestone during a muted session today, when the Standard & Poor's 500 index briefly passed its record close of 1,527.46 for the first time in more than seven years.

Ian Guider

US telecoms company Alltel has reached an agreement to buy Meteor Mobile Communications parent company Western Wireless in a stock-and-cash transaction valued at approximately $6bn (€4.6bn).

Bradford & Bingley and American telecommunications company Alltel have agreed to end an information-services joint venture in the UK.