Financial related news.
LOS ANGELES — Midterm elections have historically been good for stock investors. With mail-in voting already underway in some states for the Nov. 8 midterms, that's a welcome signal for shareholders, who've seen major indexes drop into bear market territory this year — more than 20 percent below recent highs. "On average, markets do tend [...]
A group of major businesses wants the government to hide key import data — a move trade experts say would make it more difficult for Americans to link the products they buy to labor abuse overseas. The Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee is made up of executives from 20 companies, including Walmart, General Motors and [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) — What keeps driving inflation so high? The answer, it seems, is nearly everything. Supply chain snarls and parts shortages inflated the cost of factory goods when the economy rocketed out of the pandemic recession two years ago. Then it was a surge in consumer spending fueled by federal stimulus checks. Then Russia's [...]
WASHINGTON — Average long-term mortgage rates reached their highest level in more than two decades last week and are likely to climb further as the Federal Reserve has all but promised more rate increases in its battle to tamp down persistent inflation. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac reported that the average on the key 30-year rate [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation accelerated in September, with the cost of housing and other necessities intensifying pressure on households, wiping out pay gains and ensuring that the Federal Reserve will keep raising interest rates aggressively. Consumer prices rose 8.2 percent in September compared with a year earlier, the government said last week. On a month-to-month [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) — Seventy-year-old Cassandra Gentry is looking forward to a hefty cost-of-living increase in her Social Security benefits — not for herself but to pay for haircuts for her two grandchildren and put food on the table. The three live in a Washington apartment building that houses 50 "grandfamilies" — where grandparents take care [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of available jobs plummeted in August compared with July, a sign that businesses may pull back further on hiring and potentially cool chronically high inflation. There were 10.1 million advertised jobs on the last day of August, the government said Oct. 4, down a huge 10 percent from 11.2 million [...]
WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve Vice Chair Lael Brainard said last week that interest rates will likely have to remain high for an extended period to combat inflation, capping a week of tough rhetoric by Fed officials. In remarks at a conference hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Brainard said that international turmoil [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) — Consumers spent a bit more in August than the previous month, a sign the economy is holding up even as inflation lifts prices for food, rent and other essentials. Americans boosted their spending at stores and for services such as haircuts by 0.4 percent in August, after it fell 0.2 percent in [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said earlier this week that stablecoins will need greater regulation as they become more widely used by consumers. Powell also said, in virtual remarks to a conference on digital finance in Paris, that the Fed hasn't yet decided on whether to proceed with a digital dollar. The [...]