Tim Geithner’s departure from Treasury will deprive President Obama of his longest serving financial adviser. (Reuters)

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) settles antitrust charges by the United States with very little penalty. (Reuters)

American car sales hit their highest level since 2007. (Reuters)

Federal Reserve notes show that some governors want to cut back bond purchases. (Reuters)

Competitors of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) say its “low priced” ads are misleading. (Reuters)

Gap Inc. (NYSE: GPS) moves into the luxury market with its Intermix buyout. (Reuters)

Investors move out of managed stock funds and into less expensive index ones. (WSJ)

Inexpensive tablets badly hurt e-reader sales. (WSJ)

Post holiday sales at most retailers are slow. (WSJ)

Liberty Media Corp. (NASDAQ: LMCA) receives approval to take over Sirius XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI). (WSJ)

AMR expects to make a decision shortly on a merger with U.S. Airways Group Inc. (NYSE: LCC). (WSJ)

Unemployment drops in Spain, signaling a possible recovery. (WSJ)

Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) and Audi will show self-driving cars as CES. (WSJ)

Barnes & Noble Inc. (NYSE: BKS) sales of Nooks slow and it is losing market share. (WSJ)

Fiat will increase its stake in Chrysler. (WSJ)

Transocean Ltd. (NYSE: RIG) settles over Deepwater Horizon, paying $1.4 billion. (FT)

BMW tops Mercedes in U.S. car sales in the past year, followed by Toyota’s Lexus. (Bloomberg)

German retail sales are strong in November and unemployment neared a 20-year low. (Bloomberg)

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