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Poland’s lawmakers have approved a controversial government plan to raise the retirement age to 67 for most Poles.

The lower chamber of Parliament voted Friday 268 to 185 with 2 abstentions to approve changes sought by the pro-business government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, which argues that delayed retirement will help Poles build up larger pensions and reduce state spending.

Trade unions have vehemently opposed the plan and were staging a noisy protest outside Parliament.

The current law allows women to retire at age 60 and men at 65. The armed forces and some other services have even more lenient regulations which the new law also seeks to toughen up.

The new law still needs approval from the Senate and from President Bronislaw Komorowski.

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Asian stocks swung between losses and gains Thursday, as investors weighed climbing borrowing rates in Spain and political turmoil in Greece against upbeat results at Japanese carmaker Toyota.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index rose 0.2 percent to 9,065.73 after opening lower. South Korea’s Kospi also opened lower before settling flat at 1,950.03. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up less than 0.1 percent at 20,341.49.

But Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.4 percent to 4,292.40 and benchmarks in mainland China and Taiwan also rose.

“The Eurozone crisis remains in the spotlight, keeping sentiment under pressure,” strategists at Credit Agricole CIB in Hong Kong wrote in a note to clients.

World markets have been roiled this week by political instability in Europe. Greece has been left without a government since elections on Sunday, adding to growing worries that it will drop out of the euro currency union or be forced out.

The turmoil shook markets in Spain, where the interest rate that the government must pay on benchmark 10-year bonds rose to an uncomfortably high level of 6.06 percent. Rates of above 7 percent are seen as unsustainable, and forced Greece, Ireland and Portugal to ask for bailouts.

Toyota Motor Corp. rose 2.1 percent, a day after the carmaker said quarterly profit more than quadrupled and it made an upbeat forecast as it recovers from a sales plunge caused by the tsunami in Japan last year.

On Wall Street on Wednesday, the Dow closed lower for the sixth day in a row, down 0.8 percent at 12,835.06. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 0.7 percent to 1,354.58 and the Nasdaq composite average Nasdaq dropped 0.4 percent to 2,934.71.

Benchmark oil for June delivery was down 6 cents at $96.75 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 20 cents to finish at $96.81 per barrel in New York on Wednesday.

In currencies, the euro rose to $1.2952 from $1.2945 late Wednesday in New York. The dollar rose to 79.73 Japanese yen from 79.68 yen.

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Chinese tourists traveling to Europe to take advantage of savings as much as 50 percent on designer clothes and accessories are finding fewer bargains.

LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA (MC) and its peers are raising prices to make up for lost business in China and lower profitability outside the country, even if it puts items like 2,270-euro ($3,000) Lockit handbags further out of reach for Europeans whose disposable incomes are shrinking amid austerity.

Stronger profits from Microsoft, McDonald’s and other major U.S. corporations pushed stocks higher Friday. Optimism from Europe helped brighten the mood.

The Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index had a winning week for the first time this month.

“There’s been a wrestling match all week long between strong earnings and weak economic data,” said Lawrence Creatura, a portfolio manager at Federated Investors, the money-management firm. “At the moment, earnings are winning.”

Before the market opened, McDonald’s posted better quarterly profits, buoyed by warm weather and sales of new menu items like Chicken McBites and oatmeal. Sales picked up even in Europe, McDonald’s’ biggest market, despite economic turmoil and severe weather.

Microsoft beat analysts’ projections with quarterly earnings and revenue, and sales in its Windows division were surprisingly strong. And General Electric posted a profit of more than $3 billion, helped by orders for locomotives, aircraft engines and other equipment.

The Dow rose 65.16 points to close at 13,029.26. The S&P 500 added 1.61 points to 1,378.53.

Corporate earnings results have provided a pleasant surprise, said Sam Stovall, chief equity strategist at S&P Capital IQ. After nine straight quarters of growth, earnings for S&P 500 companies were expected to be nearly flat. But eight of every 10 companies that have reported so far, including Coca-Cola and IBM, have beaten estimates. As a result, first-quarter earnings are now projected to rise 4.4 percent, according to S&P.

In Europe, Germany’s DAX rose 1.2 percent, and stock indexes in France and Spain were higher. A closely watched survey in Germany, the continent’s economic powerhouse, showed business optimism rising for the sixth straight month. Economists had expected a decline.

In other U.S. trading, Apple sank 2.5 percent, helping to tug the Nasdaq composite index down 7.11 points to 3,000.45. Apple, the most valuable company in the world, accounts for 12 percent of the Nasdaq.

The Dow gained 1.4 percent this week, and the S&P 500 index 0.6 percent. But it wasn’t a smooth ride. Better earnings reports and higher retail sales helped drive the stock market up to start the week free credit report and score. The Dow rose 194 points on Tuesday, its best day in more than a month.

Then worries about Europe came storming back. Markets reversed course Wednesday, after the Bank of Spain said that the amount of bad loans held by Spanish banks rose to an 18-year high.

If those banks falter, it would put pressure on Spain’s already troubled government to prop them up. Weak reports on jobs, housing and manufacturing in the U.S. added to the selling pressure, and the Dow slumped 151 points in two days.

“It’s been like the weather here in upstate New York _ unpredictable,” Creatura said. “One day is up, the next day is down.”

The encouraging news out of Germany helped drive oil prices up Friday. Benchmark U.S. crude rose 78 cents to finish at $103.05 per barrel in New York. Brent crude, widely used by U.S. refiners to produce gasoline, added 76 cents to $118.76 in London.

Among stocks making big moves in the United States:

_ Oil services giant Schlumberger Ltd. rose 3 percent. The company’s quarterly profits jumped almost 38 percent as strong drilling activity in the Gulf of Mexico and the Middle East offset a slowdown in North America’s natural gas fields. Schlumberger said that world oil demand appears to have “stabilized” and that the risk of a double-dip recession has declined.

_ E-Trade Financial Corp. jumped 6 percent, the largest gain in the S&P 500. The online broker reported a 40 percent jump in first-quarter profit after the close of trading Thursday, beating Wall Street estimates with the help of a big tax benefit.

_ SanDisk Corp. plummeted 11 percent, the S&P’s biggest loser. The flash memory maker said late Thursday that weak demand and low prices cut its quarterly profit by nearly half. SanDisk warned that it expects the trend to continue.

_ Tempur-Pedic International Inc., the mattress maker, plunged 20.6 percent after posting a disappointing full-year earnings forecast. It cited concerns about competition and foreign exchange rates.

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IBM posted first-quarter earnings Tuesday that beat analysts’ estimates.

The tech giant reported a profit of $3.1 billion, an increase of 7% versus last year. Revenue for the quarter was $24.7 billion, up slightly from a year ago.

Excluding certain charges, earnings per share came in at $2.78, above estimates of $2.65. The company, which is the enterprise world’s largest vendor, is one of the hottest stocks in tech and has consistently topped Wall Street profit expectations for the past few quarters.

However, shares of IBM (, Fortune 500) were down 2% in after-hours trading as sales narrowly missed analysts’ forecasts of $24.8 billion.

IBM expects the future to be brighter: It raised its full-year earnings per share estimates to "at least" $15, up from a previous forecast of $14.85.

"We delivered another excellent software performance, expanded services margins, and continued the momentum in our growth initiatives," IBM CEO Ginni Rometty in a release, citing those factors for IBM’s decision to to raise its guidance.

Rometty, formerly the company’s senior vice president for sales, marketing and strategy, succeeded CEO Sam Palmisano after he stepped down in October.

IBM has made a big push into software and services, two of the more rapidly growing and profitable areas of tech, over the past few years.

"When you look at our offerings in business analytics, cloud, and Smarter Planet, about half of the revenue is software," IBM CFO Mark Loughridge said during a conference call with analysts.

IBM’s earnings report came on a busy day for the tech sector. Intel (, Fortune 500) and Yahoo (, Fortune 500) also both released their latest financial results after the closing bell Tuesday.  

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Oil prices rose to near $104 a barrel Tuesday in Asia after a successful Spanish debt sale eased fears that Europe’s debt crisis could flare again.

Benchmark oil for May delivery was up 62 cents to $103.55 a barrel at late afternoon Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 10 cents to settle at $102.93 in New York on Monday.

Brent crude for June delivery was down 23 cents at $118.45 per barrel in London.

Spain sold euro3.2 billion ($4.2 billion) of 12- and 18-month bonds at an auction Tuesday, a day after a jump in Spanish yields sparked concern that the country may require an international bailout to avoid a debt default.

Stock markets, which oil traders often look to as a measure of overall investor sentiment, rose in early trading Tuesday in Europe.

Most analysts are forecasting a mild recession in Europe this year, but renewed contagion from the continent’s debt crisis could further hurt economic growth.

“Economic conditions in the big developed economies remain weak and there is potential for further downward revisions to crude oil demand,” National Australia Bank said in a report.

Investors are also mulling the impact of meetings last weekend about Iran’s nuclear program. Talks among Iran and six world powers didn’t produce any concrete agreements, but negotiators said the tone was better than previous meetings, and the sides agreed to meet again on May 23.

Concern that a military strike by Israel and the U.S. against Iran’s nuclear facilities would disrupt global crude supplies has helped push crude up from $75 in October. Iranian crude output has fallen in recent months as the U.S. and Europe begin to impose economic sanctions on OPEC’s second-biggest producer.

“While the recent Iran talks were ‘constructive’, they did not offer much in the way of providing markets with any sense of supply certainty,” NAB said.

In other energy trading, heating oil was up 1.2 cents at $3.13 per gallon and gasoline futures gained 0.5 cents at $3.27 per gallon. Natural gas fell 0.7 cents at $2.01 per 1,000 cubic feet.

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Rupert Murdoch’s News International is challenging celebrity phone hacking victim Sienna Miller over her legal bill, a person close to the case said late Wednesday.

Miller was one of the first public figures to take the British newspaper company to court for illegally eavesdropping on her telephone messages.

In May, News International agreed to pay the “Alfie” star 100,000 pounds (about $160,000) to settle her claim, but a person close to the case says there’s been no agreement how much to pay out in legal costs and that the issue is headed to court.

The person provided no detail as to when any potential hearing would take place, speaking anonymously because the information wasn’t cleared for release.

News International spokeswoman Daisy Dunlop declined comment, as did Miller’s lawyer, Mark Thomson.

The scandal over illegal interception of voicemail messages at News International’s now-defunct News of the World tabloid has taken a bite out of parent company News Corp.’s bottom line. In February, Murdoch’s international media company disclosed that legal bills linked to police and parliamentary probes, a judge-led inquiry, and a slew of lawsuits was close to $200 million.

In the last quarter of 2011 alone, the company paid out $87 million, the vast majority of which was for legal and consulting fees.

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Japanese manufacturers remain gloomy over high oil prices, the strong yen and weaker growth in Asia, according to a central bank survey that defied expectations that business confidence is improving in the world’s third-largest economy.

The Bank of Japan’s quarterly “tankan” released Monday showed the main index for big manufacturers at minus 4 for the January-March quarter, unchanged from the last quarter of 2011.

A negative reading indicates greater pessimists outnumber optimists among those surveyed.

Many analysts had forecast an improvement to minus 1, given easing concerns over the crisis in Europe and signs of a rebound in production following last year’s disasters.

Higher costs for energy will further undermine the competitiveness and profits of Japanese manufacturers at a time of uncertainty about growth in Asia.

“It’s not only high oil prices, but overall commodity prices are increasing, and those overall widely affect business conditions,” said Junko Nishioka, an economist at RBS Japan Securities.

“Even though export conditions will improve from now on, it’s difficult to anticipate that business conditions will improve very soon,” she said.

Data released last week showed weaker than expected factory production in February, with industrial output falling 1.2 percent, underscoring the fragility of the economic recovery as growth in Asia slows.

Conditions had been seen as improving thanks to a recovery from the production disruptions caused by widespread flooding in Thailand last year, on top of Japan’s earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters.

Given Japan’s heavy reliance on exports, much depends on conditions elsewhere in Asia.

“It’s a little too early to judge so companies are likely to show some cautiousness in their judgment,” said Masayuki Kichikawa, an economist at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch.

The tankan showed an improvement in most nonmanufacturing industries, with readings for services and telecommunications showing a positive outlook, though energy and construction indices remained in negative territory.

Japan’s exporters are struggling with the strong yen, which surged to post World-War II highs against the dollar as the U.S. central bank pursued stimulus policies that contributed to a weaker greenback. When the yen climbs, it reduces the value of exporters’ overseas profits when repatriated to Japan.

Although the yen has fallen slightly after monetary easing by the Bank of Japan in February, large manufacturers are pessimistic over its likely future course.

Large manufacturing companies assume an average exchange rate of about 78 yen per dollar for this fiscal year that started April 1 compared with current rate of nearly 83 yen per dollar.

The survey forecasts business sentiment among large manufacturers to rise only marginally to minus 3 over the next quarter. Medium-sized and small manufacturers expect business conditions to deteriorate.

“As long as the large manufacturers are at a low level … it is unlikely that the small and medium-size business activity will recover in the near future,” Nishioka said.

The Bank of Japan surveyed 10,894 companies nationwide. About 99 percent responded.

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