It’s the silly season for financial predictions about Apple Inc. With history as our guide, it is folly to place much faith in them. Nearly every day brings deeply researched reports from stock analysts on their Apple sales forecasts. And this is not about the next quarter or two. The most pressing question analysts are trying to answer is how …

Bloomberg Barclays Plc’s clients may have to pay as much as 350,000 pounds ($455,000) to get the top service package from its equities analysts once free research is banned in Europe, the first price for stocks coverage to emerge from a major bank. The firm is proposing three levels of service — bronze, silver and gold — with the premium …

Bloomberg A London judge rejected an application by a group representing 46 million consumers to pursue a lawsuit against Mastercard Inc. that would have been the largest of its kind since U.S.-style class actions were introduced in the UK. The 14 billion-pound ($18 billion) lawsuit initiated by Walter Merricks, a lawyer who once led the UK organization that handles consumer …