U.S. stocks struggle for direction
U.S. stocks struggled for direction in quiet trading Monday, with many traders still on summer vacation and investors waiting for signals from the Federal Reserve about help for the economy. The Dow Jones industrial average fell to a small loss, the Standard & Poor’s 500 darted between small ups and downs, and the Nasdaq composite [...]
World stock markets rose Thursday after the U.S. Federal Reserve pledged to keep interest rates low until late 2014 to nurture the country’s stubbornly slow economic recovery. The Fed cut rates to near zero in December 2008 during the financial crisis and has held them there ever since. The announcement that it expected rates to [...]
Continue reading …The Federal Reserve paid a record $78.4 billion in earnings to the U.S. government last year, reflecting gains from the central bank’s unconventional efforts to lift the economy. The payment to the Treasury Department is the largest since the Fed began operating in 1914. It surpasses the previous record $47.4 billion paid in 2009, the [...]
Continue reading …Banks loosened lending standards for small businesses over the past three months but demand for loans remained weak, the Federal Reserve said Monday. It marks the second time in nearly four years that banks have made loans easier for small businesses to obtain, according to the Fed’s new quarterly survey. The first breakthrough came in [...]
Continue reading …President Barack Obama has sidestepped a question of whether the Federal Reserve may have weakened the value of the dollar by purchasing $600 billion worth of government bonds to aid the economy. Obama noted at a news conference in New Delhi that the Fed “doesn’t take orders from the White House,” saying it would be [...]
Continue reading …The Federal Reserve is poised to adopt a new plan to jolt the economy. It’s a high-stakes gamble that could shape Chairman Ben Bernanke’s legacy. The Fed is all but certain to detail its plan for buying more government bonds when it wraps up its two-day meeting Wednesday. Those purchases should further lower interest rates [...]
Continue reading …Traders pushed shares higher Tuesday after minutes from the latest Federal Reserve meeting kept hope alive that the central bank would take more action to stimulate the economy. The Fed had said after its Sept. 21 meeting that it was concerned that inflation was too low, and suggested it could step up its purchases of [...]
Continue reading …Two new members have been installed on the Federal Reserve, which has enormous power over Americans’ pocketbooks. Janet Yellen becomes vice chairwoman, the Fed’s second-highest ranking official, and Sarah Bloom Raskin is now a governor. Both were sworn into their jobs on Monday. They were tapped by President Barack Obama to fill vacancies on the [...]
Continue reading …The Federal Reserve, meeting for the last time before an election that hinges on the weak economy, edged closer Tuesday to jumping in to help and suggested it’s more worried about prices falling than rising. The central bank gathered as new figures showed some improvement in home construction. But those same figures showed the pace [...]
Continue reading …The Federal Reserve offered a dim view of the economy Tuesday and signaled it’s prepared to provide new relief if necessary. At the end of its meeting, the Fed held off on taking any new steps to rejuvenate the economy and drive down unemployment. Instead, the Fed is prepared to see if the economy can [...]
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