Bloomberg Carrefour SA, France’s largest retailer, reported higher first-half earnings and maintained its full-year outlook as European revenue held up despite bad weather. Recurring operating income rose 5.3 percent at constant exchange rates to 706 million euros ($781 million), the eighth straight increase, Boulogne-Billancourt-based Carrefour said on Thursday in a statement. Analysts predicted 683.5 million euros, the average of …

  Bloomberg With Americans buying more new homes than at any time since the recession, the cost of the wood used to build them is getting a lot more expensive. Lumber prices are off to their biggest rally in more than a decade, touching a 19-month high last week as demand increased from builders. But almost a third of all …

  Bloomberg Komatsu Ltd., the Japanese maker of construction and mining machinery that last week offered to buy Joy Global Inc. for about $2.89 billion, said first-quarter profit fell 52 percent as demand languished in strategic markets such as the Middle East and Indonesia and the stronger yen crimped overseas revenue. Net income fell to 15.6 billion yen ($149 million) …