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Hewlett-Packard chief executive officer Mark Hurd, one of the highest-profile CEOs in America, resigned Friday following a sexual harassment claim against him and the company.

HP said an investigation found Hurd didn’t violate its sexual harassment policy. But he did violate its standards of conduct policy, the company said.

HP (HPQ, Fortune 500) shares were down more than 9% in after-hours trading following a slight decline in regular action.

Executives said Hurd, who is married, failed to tell the board about a personal relationship with a female marketing contractor who was hired by his office. He repeatedly filed inaccurate expense account reports in a bid to keep the relationship secret, HP said.

"It was about integrity and honesty," general counsel Michael Holston said on a conference call with analysts and investors.

Hurd conceded in the HP press release that "there were instances in which I did not live up to the standards and principles of trust, respect and integrity that I have espoused at HP," Hurd said.

The Palo Alto, Calif., company said its chief financial officer, Cathie Lesjak, will take over as CEO on an interim basis.

HP will search for a new CEO and will consider candidates from within the company as well as outsiders, the company said. It didn’t give a timeline, but said Lesjak wouldn’t take the full-time CEO job.

Hurd has been credited with reviving Hewlett-Packard since joining the company in 2005 following the tumultuous tenure of his predecessor, Carly Fiorina. Hewlett-Packard shares have more than doubled since he took the reins in April 2005.

Hurd has been held in high regard on Wall Street Payday advance. He has been extremely successful in helping to boost the company’s profit margins.

To allay fears that his departure was financially driven, HP also said in the release announcing Hurd’s resignation that it expected to exceed analysts’ earnings expectations for the fiscal year.

Asked about the timing of that statement, Lesjak said on a conference call with reporters said it was "important for people to fully appreciate the announcement today has nothing to do with the operational performance of the company." She added that the resignation was "all about Mark’s behavior and judgment."

HP said the investigation started June 30, a day after the company received a letter from a lawyer representing a marketing contractor employed by the company. The company said the investigation found a "pattern" of expense account improprieties by Hurd, but wouldn’t offer more detail except to say the amounts weren’t material.

That’s not surprising, given that HP bills itself as the world’s biggest information technology company, with fiscal 2009 revenue of $115 billion.

HP said it entered a legal agreement with Hurd "related to his exit." It didn’t say whether this agreement would preclude litigation with him.

Hurd, who has been making upwards of $30 million annually, could collect $53 million in severance pay, stock and restricted units under his separation plan with the company, HP said in its most recent proxy filing. 

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Ohio Attorney General Rich Cordray has struck a $725 million settlement with American International Group to resolve charges of bid-rigging, accounting fraud and other practices that officials said led investors nationwide to lose millions.

New York-based AIG through the settlement has agreed to put up $175 million upon preliminary court approval of the deal. According to information from Cordray's office, the company plans to fund the remaining $550 million of the settlement through stock offerings.

At the center of the settlement are a range of fraud allegations over the company’s conduct from October 1999 through April 2005. The Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, State Teachers Retirement System and state Police and Fire Pension Fund served as lead plaintiffs in the national class-action suit, roots of which stretch back to the tenure of former Attorney General Jim Petro paperless payday loans.

The former AG sued AIG in 2004 after New York officials probed charges of bid-rigging among the firm and other insurers.

That probe uncovered new charges and led to the ouster of Hank Greenberg, AIG’s longtime CEO and a case against a reinsurer tied to AIG, General Reinsurance Corp. Four former General Reinsurance executives and a former AIG executive have since been convicted of conspiracy and fraud charges tied to a deal that allegedly helped AIG inflate its loss reserves.

A number of parties tied to AIG, including Greenberg, have struck settlements with Ohio totaling $284.5 million since the litigation began.

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The leaders of the Group of Eight world economic powers have taken the first steps toward a "broad consensus" on the need to balance growth with shrinking deficits, a senior White House official said Friday.

President Obama attended a luncheon at the G-8 summit in Toronto to discuss economic policies with the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United Kingdom, according to the official.

The official acknowledged that there were different "points of emphasis" among the leaders at the meeting, which is in its early stages. But he said there is a "convergence of views" and that the president is "confident" about the upcoming meetings of the Group of 20 nations, which includes China, India and other developing economic powers.

"There is broad consensus among G-8 leaders on how to maintain durable growth while reaffirming our shared commitment to fiscal consolidation going forward," the official said.

President Obama has stressed the need to keep economic stimulus measures in place to prevent a global slowdown. But European nations have been moving toward more conservative fiscal policies as the region grapples with an ongoing debt crisis.

In a letter to G-20 leaders sent earlier this week, the president wrote that safeguarding and strengthening the economic recovery should be "our highest priority in Toronto lowest fee payday loans."

"This means that we should reaffirm our unity of purpose to provide the policy support necessary to keep economic growth strong," he wrote. "In fact, should confidence in the strength of our recoveries diminish, we should be prepared to respond again as quickly and as forcefully as needed to avert a slowdown in economic activity."

Meanwhile, European nations have been cutting back on public spending and raising taxes to cope with massive budget deficits. The euro has been in a tailspin as investors bet against the proposed austerity measures and worry the European Union could slide back into recession.

On Tuesday, the United Kingdom unveiled one of its harshest budgets in decades. The five-year budget, widely anticipated by fiscal experts, may hold lessons for U.S. policymakers who will face similar quandaries about how to rein in debt.

"The president sees deficit reduction as part of a long-term growth strategy," the White House official said. 

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The Latin Business Association is among the latest groups adding its support to those boycotting Arizona as thousands of people marched in protest of the state’s new immigration laws Saturday at Steele Indian School Park in Phoenix.

The group on Friday praised the National Minority Supplier Development Council in moving its location for the 2010 conference from Phoenix to Miami Beach.

“The Latin Business Association board and members continue to stand against Arizona’s SB1070 and applaud the efforts of numerous organizations who stood in solidarity to encourage the NMSDC to move its October conference payday advance lenders. I am certain it was not an easy step for the NMSDC to take, but it was the appropriate action in support of all minority business owners,” said Ruben Guerra, chairman of the Latin Business Association

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Stocks plunged around the world Tuesday as fear spread that Europe’s attempt to contain Greece’s debt crisis would fail. The euro fell to its lowest point against the dollar in a year.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 225 points, its biggest drop in three months. The Dow and broader indexes each fell more than 2 percent. Meanwhile, Treasury prices rose on increased demand for safe investments.

Stocks have seesawed in the past week as European countries’ efforts to agree on a bailout package for Greece proceeded in fits and starts. An agreement finally came together over the weekend, but its ballooning size of $144 billion has investors worried that Europe would have an even tougher time assembling an aid package if a larger country such as Spain or Portugal were to get in trouble. Traders are concerned that problems in Greece and other countries could spill over to the rest of Europe and in turn, the U.S.

The stock drop was a reminder that it doesn’t take much to rattle investors who are on alert for anything that could disrupt the recovery. The avalanche of selling could continue while investors await answers on Greece. But analysts said most drops were likely to be mild because buyers had been using pullbacks as opportunities to buy.

Tuesday’s slump marked the fifth time in six days that the Dow rose or fell by triple digits. The market’s moves are reminiscent of the fearsome swings in the fall of 2008 and early in 2009 when investors panicked over how bad the recession would get.

Scott Fullman, director of derivatives investment strategy for WJB Capital Group in New York, said sudden turns in the market were to be expected as traders wrestled with concerns that stocks were overheated. "The market has kind of gotten itself into a volatile trading range," Fullman said.

Investors are worried that other cash-strapped European governments could also ask for emergency loans while the economy of the entire region is still recovering.

"It’s not as though even the strongest economies of Europe are doing particularly well," Mike Shea, managing partner at Direct Access Partners LLC in New York, said. "Why is a plumber in Germany going to bail out Greece or Portugal?"

Investors rushed to safer holdings such as Treasurys, pushing interest rates sharply lower. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell to 3.61 percent from 3.69 percent late Monday.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange’s Volatility Index, which is known as the market’s fear gauge, soared 18 percent. That is a signal that more investors are betting on big drops in the market.

The euro again fell against the dollar as traders turned away from the currency used by 16 European Union countries including Greece. When investors start doubting a country’s economic strength, they tend to sell its currency.

Anthony Chan, chief economist at J.P. Morgan Private Wealth Management in New York, said that Greece’s troubles weren’t enough to spoil a global rebound but that investors were concerned that this small hole in the world economy would become bigger.

"My suspicion is that this won’t end up being large enough to really cause the kind of problems that the market is obsessed with," he said.

The dollar rose against other major currencies, especially the euro. The euro sank as low as $1.2994 in New York, its weakest point since April 2009. It was worth $1.3212 late Monday and had traded as high as $1.51 last November.

The stronger dollar is a negative for investors because it would cut into profits for U.S. companies with sizable foreign operations. When the dollar is up, overseas profits translate into less money. The rising dollar also makes it more expensive for foreign buyers to purchase commodities like oil. That hurts demand.

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Despite signs that the real estate market might be lurching forward, prices are expected to fall further this year and next.

The average home price in the United States will fall by about 6% by September 2011, according to a joint report between Fiserv and Moody’s Economy.com. And that’s after plunging more than 27% in the past three years.

Most of the projected home price decline will occur during the usually slow summer months of 2010. After that, prices should begin to stabilize, according to Fiserv, and stay almost flat through fall of 2011.

The main reason for continued decline, according to Mark Zandi, economist and co-founder of Economy.com, is foreclosures — the same thing that’s plagued markets for the past three years.

"Foreclosure sales will pick up this spring as mortgage servicers figure out who can qualify for a modification and who can’t," said Zandi.

He figures there are at least 4.5 million mortgage loans either in foreclosure or clearly headed in that direction. When that additional inventory hits the market, it will provide numerous choices for buyers and encourage sellers to drop their listing prices.

The end of two federal programs, which have been propping up markets, will also tamp down prices.

The Federal Reserve has been purchasing mortgage-backed securities since early 2009, scooping up as much as $1.25 trillion worth. That has dampened rate increases by providing a ready market for the securities. But the Fed’s program lapses on March 31, when it cedes the playing field to private investors, who will almost surely demand higher rates.

Any resulting rise in rates will cause some buyers to withdraw from the market and others to look for lower priced homes guaranteed online payday loans. Either way, demand for homes drops and so do prices.

A month after the Fed bows out of the mortgage-buying market, the homebuyer tax credit will start to expire. To qualify for the $8,000 credit, homebuyers must sign a contract before April 30 and close by June 30. When the first date passes, many buyers are expected to vacate the market, weakening the demand for homes.

In a broader sense, home prices are ultimately decided by employment. "If [the job market] improvement is stronger than expected, prices will get better. If it’s weaker than expected, prices will be worse," Zandi said.

Worst of the worst

The worst performing market will be Miami, Fla. Moody’s projects prices there to drop a heart-stopping 29.2% by Sept. 30. That follows a 47.7% decline the metro area recorded in the past three years. Grand total: 64% drop.

Other disastrous performances will be turned in by the Hanford, Calif., metro area, where prices are projected to plummet 27.2% through Sept. 30, 2010 following their 36.9% drop for the previous 36 months. Ft. Lauderdale and West Palm will also register steep drops.

There’s some good price news coming out of California’s Central Valley for a change; prices will begin to emerge from their free fall toward the end of this year.

In Merced, for example, which crashed and burned by 71.8% in the past three years (through last September), they’ll only fall only another 6.2% in the next six months before bouncing back with a rise of 10.1% by Sept. 30, 2011. 

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Prime Minister Gordon Brown will pledge today to make Britain’s tax system attractive to large multinational companies in an effort to secure the backing of business leaders before this year’s election.

Brown’s government will propose a set of principles that include promises to ensure new taxes aren’t too complex and a commitment to hold consultations before introducing new corporate taxes. The plan will be published by Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling at a conference in London.

“By maintaining a world-class environment for business to do business we can attract the investment that will underpin our move from recession to recovery to growth,” Brown said in his weekly podcast yesterday.

Brown’s Labour Party and David Cameron’s Conservatives are competing to win credibility with business leaders before the election, which Labour Party documents suggest will be held on May 6. So far, the campaign has centered on which party has the best recipe for tackling Britain’s record peacetime budget deficit.

Darling began talks with company leaders in April 2008, establishing a panel of more than 10 executives from international companies who meet regularly with Treasury ministers and civil servants.

Brown, Darling and Business Secretary Peter Mandelson will be joined at the London conference by executives from companies including Bombardier Inc., China Merchants Bank Co. Ltd., Burberry Plc and Lockheed Martin Inc.

Bank Stakes

The Conservatives pledged yesterday to sell U.K. government stakes in Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Lloyds Banking Group Plc to voters as their support continued to slip in opinion polls.

The plan to sell shares at a discounted price, outlined by Conservative Treasury spokesman George Osborne, came as opinion polls show the party’s lead slipping after it called for spending cuts to start this year to reduce the deficit and the economy exited recession in the fourth quarter of 2009.

A poll by YouGov Plc in the Sunday Times newspaper showed the Conservative lead over Labour at its narrowest since December 2008.

YouGov said the Conservatives had the backing of 39 percent of those surveyed, down one percentage point from a month ago, while Labour were backed by 33 percent, up two points. Details of when the poll was taken and the margin of error weren’t given.

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European leaders ordered Greece to get the bloc’s highest budget deficit under control and promised “determined” action to staunch the worst crisis in the euro currency’s 11-year history.

The agreement, brokered by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet, called for closer monitoring of the Greek economy and stopped short of offering concrete steps to help Greece handle a debt load exceeding annual economic output. Greek bonds rose and the euro fell after the deal was announced at a European Union summit today.

“It’s a political message that we wanted to send out,” EU President Herman Van Rompuy told reporters in Brussels. “The Greek government will take the responsibility for cleaning up its public finances.”

The declaration, which Merkel called a “clear political signal” to Greece, left open how the EU would respond to a fresh wave of speculative attacks against Greece or countries such as Spain and Portugal, which are also struggling to cut their budget deficits. The statement echoes prior calls for Greece to get its accounts in order and gave the International Monetary Fund a monitoring role.

Finance ministers are working on measures such as setting up a lending facility for Greece, with each country paying in according to its size, an EU official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it’s premature for a European bond.

‘Breathing Space’

“Markets will only normalize once they outline more detailed measures,” said Andreas Rees, an economist at UniCredit MIB in Munich. “The statement won’t be enough to reassure investors. It’s some breathing space.”

Greek bonds, which have plunged since December on concern the country will be unable to tackle its deficit, extended a three-day rally, with the yield on the two-year government bond falling 35 basis points to 5.11 percent at 7:45 p.m. in Brussels.

Concern about the costs of a hazily worded commitment by Europe’s richer countries pushed the euro down 0.4 percent to $1.3685. Its slide to a nine-month low of $1.3586 on Feb. 5 forced Greece to the top of the EU agenda out of concern that market turmoil might spread.

Called by Van Rompuy to sketch out a 10-year economic strategy, the summit turned into a crisis-management exercise that tests Europe’s ability to run a common currency with 16 separate national fiscal policies.

Rescue Talks

The main event came before the 27-nation EU meeting, when Merkel piloted the Greek rescue talks with Papandreou, Trichet, Van Rompuy, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who heads the panel of euro-region finance ministers paydayloan.

Under pressure from political allies at home who are opposed to giveaways to countries that live beyond their means, Merkel pressed for strict conditions on any European financial lifeline for countries that spend too much and save too little.

Demonstrating Germany’s sway in the euro region, the declaration was issued in the EU’s name before other leaders were consulted. Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen said there was “no detailed discussion” over the Greek backstop.

U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the main mover behind the EU-wide rescue of banks in October 2008, also wasn’t involved. In London when Merkel’s crisis meeting started, Brown later said Greece is in the hands of countries using the euro.

Greek Deficit

Greece, representing 2.7 percent of the bloc’s $13 trillion economy, posted a budget deficit of 12.7 percent of gross domestic product in 2009, the highest in the euro’s history and more than four times the EU’s 3 percent limit.

Papandreou’s government needs to sell 53 billion euros ($72 billion) of debt this year, the equivalent of about 20 percent of GDP. Greece’s credit rating was cut by Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings in December.

Greek plans to cut public-sector wages, trim welfare provisions and raise taxes have provoked street protests that threaten to throw the government’s aim of slicing the deficit by 4 percentage points in 2010.

By living under EU strictures, Greece no longer controls its own economic destiny, Papandreou said. Speaking after the summit, he said: “We have lost a part of our sovereignty because of this loss of credibility. We are determined to regain this lost credibility. We will do anything necessary.”

Resisting IMF

EU leaders resisted putting Greece in the sole hands of the IMF, concerned that recourse to outside assistance would expose Europe’s inability to get its own house in order.

EU treaties bar the ECB or national central banks from bailing out members countries through buying their debt or offering loans, while rules on government-to-government support are more flexible.

Whether from individual countries or the EU as a whole, a financial lifeline for Greece would open a new chapter in the euro experiment by breaking with the orthodoxy that each country has to steer its own economy.

“I don’t think there is any bluff here. This is a very, very serious commitment to back up Greece,” said Jacques Cailloux, chief European economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Plc in London. “This is once in a lifetime moment for monetary union.”

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SunPower Corp. hired Jim Pape to run its residential and commercial business group as part of a reorganization of responsibilities at the company.

Howard Wenger, to whom all SunPower’s business units previously reported, is now president of just the utilities and power plants business group.

The San Jose solar power company (NASDAQ: SPWRA) gave both Pape and Wenger greater responsibility for all profits and losses in their business units.

“Our new business groups have full responsibility for the business results for their groups, not just sales, or just construction,” said company spokeswoman Helen Kendrick no fax needed payday loans.

Pape’s position — president of residential and commercial — is a new job at the company. No one else was hired directly as part of the reorganization, Kendrick said, although existing employee teams will be assigned to the new business groups.

Pape worked previously at Trane Commercial Systems.

SunPower, led by CEO Tom Werner, has a large facility in the rehabbed Ford Point factory in Richmond.

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Since cratering at 12-year lows in March, the S&P 500 has staged a powerful rebound as investors turned what could have been an abysmal 2009 into the second best year of the decade for stock returns.

Between war, recession, corporate malfeasance, and the collapse of the housing market, investors have had a tumultuous 10 years. The S&P 500 plunged 23%, seeing its first losing decade in close to a century.

But the decade could have been even worse, if not for the turnaround in 2009.

In the just-completed year, the S&P 500 gained 23.4%, the Dow industrials gained 18.8% and the Nasdaq added 44%. That’s trumped only by 2003, when the S&P 500 gained 26.4%, the Dow added 25.3% and the Nasdaq climbed 50%.

Like 2009, 2003 marked a big turnaround for the stock market as the economy emerged from a recession brought on by the 9/11 attacks and the collapse of the tech bubble.

For 2009, the big recovery has come in the aftermath of the housing market collapse and credit crisis and the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Although 2009 gains are strong historically, gains are even more substantial since stocks bottomed in March at the height of the financial market crisis. Since closing at a 12-year low on March 9, the Dow has gained 59% and the S&P 500 has gained 65%. Since closing at a 6-year low on the same date, the Nasdaq has risen 79%.

All 10 S&P 500 economic sectors managed gains this year, with technology the leader, rising 62% versus a year ago. Materials took second place, rising 47.1% from a year ago. The biggest losers were telecom, up just 3.6% and utilities, up just 8.4%.

Gains this year were driven by several factors, notably the government injection of trillions in fiscal and monetary stimulus into the economy.

A weak dollar also played a big role, boosting commodity prices and shares as well as the stocks of big blue chips that do a lot of business overseas who benefit when the U.S. currency is weaker.

Investor psychology also contributed, as investors went from factoring in another Depression to a recession to an eventual recovery.

But the year ahead is unlikely to see similar gains, either for the major indexes or the individual sectors, as investors look for signs that the slow-growing economy can charge ahead without unusual assistance.

"The biggest question is employment and whether the economy can start creating enough jobs to create a sustainable economic recovery," said Michael Sheldon, chief market strategist at RDM Financial Group business card design.

He said that as this issue works its way through the market, stocks could be vulnerable, particularly if the dollar continues to firm up, as it has through most of December. The other potential catalyst for a selloff later in the year ahead could be rising interest rates, although the Ben Bernanke-led Federal Reserve is unlikely to change its policy stance until the second half of next year.

"I think that prices will drift moderately higher in the year ahead, at least until Ben Bernanke decides to land the helicopter," said Mark Travis, president and CEO at Intrepid Capital Funds. "We could end up as much as 8% higher by this time next year."

Next year also starts what is likely to be a better ten-year period for Wall Street, after a rough decade.

The awful 00s: A tumultuous 10 years brought two recessions, two major wars, one contested presidential election, terrorist attacks in the U.S. and abroad, the credit crisis, the housing market bust and the near collapse of the financial market.

In light of the events that took place, perhaps its unsurprising that the stock market experienced its worst decade in nearly a century. The S&P 500 plunged 23%, seeing its first decade of losses in 90 years. Compare that to the 1990s, when the S&P 500 gained 316%.

The Dow lost 8% this decade after gaining 418% in the 1990s and the Nasdaq, still reeling from the bursting of the tech bubble, is down 44% in the 10-year period. In the 1990s it gained 794%.

For a look at the best and worst stock performers of the decade, click here

The best-performing sector of the decade was energy, up 104%, according to Standard & Poor’s. That’s roughly the same gain it made in the 1990s, but in that decade, nine of the S&P’s 10 sectors added at least 100%, with utilities the lone exception. Utilities gained 37%.

In this decade, only half of the ten sectors gained, with the rest sliding. Telecom and technology were the two worst performers of the decade, notable in that both were stars of the 1990s, in particular tech. Telecom lost 66% in this decade after gaining 223% in the 1990s. Technology lost 57% this decade after gaining 1,148% in the 1990s, the decade it defined. 

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