Colgate-Palmolive is to invest €4.6m in its Dublin operation, it was announced today.

Wall Street today bounced back from its sharp decline a day earlier, boosted by takeover activity ahead of second-quarter earnings reports.

Stocks slumped today as investors sifted through mixed economic data and rumours about big merger deals, including a report that consumer products giant Johnson & Johnson is in talks to purchase a leading medical device maker.

Toothpaste maker Colgate-Palmolive said today it is cutting 4,400 jobs and closing a third of its 78 factories around the world.

Bargain hunters kept Wall Street mixed today, allowing blue chips to rise despite a new record high for oil prices. But fresh warnings from semiconductor firms sent the tech sector falling, and the three major indexes ended the week substantially lower.

A grim combination of higher oil prices and lowered outlooks from companies including Colgate-Palmolive, Unilever and The New York Times Co sent stocks sliding In New York today.

STOCK markets have had a flying start to the year.

Colgate-Palmolive, the world's leading toothpaste manufacturer, has said it is buying Swiss private oral care copany Gaba Holding for a price of between $630 (€508.64m) and $830m (€607.19m), depending on the number of shares acquired.

The European Commission today approved a joint venture between Swiss food giant Nestle and Colgate-Palmolive to develop and market oral-care gums and lozenges in Britain and Ireland.