Economy

December 2, 2008

Stocks Rebound

U.S. stocks rose Tuesday following Monday's huge stock market sell-off that represented the fourth largest point decline on record for the Dow industrials. The broader...

December 1, 2008

Around the Street: Yes, It's a Recession

Now it's official. On Dec. 1, the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research—the widely acknowledged arbiters of when the U.S. ...

December 1, 2008

Dow Plunges 680 Points on Economic Woes

Different month, same stock market. U.S. stocks suffered a sharp sell-off on the first day of December, and closed at their worst levels of the session. The large-cap ...

November 26, 2008

November's Grim Economic Reports

There was nothing but gloom in the slew of U.S. economic reports released Nov. 26, as the organizations responsible for their production raced to get out their data ...

November 26, 2008

Vital Signs: New Plan Could Help Mortgage Market

The drumbeat of bad economic news continues, and policymakers keep coming up with big-money strategies to arrest the damage. The latest move by the Federal Reserve and...

November 25, 2008

Holiday Sales: Just How Bad?

Somewhere, the Grinch is smiling. This holiday shopping season—specifically, the combined months of November and December—will likely produce worse ...

November 25, 2008

Wall Street's Word on TALF

Add another acronym to the U.S. government's alphabet soup of financial relief programs: TALF. Under the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, announced Nov. 25,...

November 20, 2008

Deflation: What Investors Need to Know

Forget inflation for now. Prices are falling on almost everything, including stocks. Investors need to adjust to a new reality: A few months ago, inflation was a top ...

November 20, 2008

October's Drop in Prices and Housing Starts

The current U.S. downturn continues to generate remarkable moves in economic data. Consider the reports on U.S. consumer prices and housing starts for October, ...

November 20, 2008

Vital Signs: Housing and Spending Still Look Weak

Economic reports this week will shed light on three crucial areas that will determine just how far down the U.S. is sinking in to recession this quarter: housing, ...

November 13, 2008

Vital Signs: More Gloomy Economic Reports Are Coming

Get ready for more dismal October economic data this week. It begins with industrial production, moves on to housing starts, and ends with the leading indicators ...

November 7, 2008

Stocks Higher after Jobs, Inventory Data

U.S. stocks moved solidly higher Friday as a weak jobs report failed to prevent a rebound from steep declines earlier in the week. Some observers argue that Friday's ...

November 7, 2008

Around the Street: Labor Pains Worsen

Confirming Wall Street's fears, the U.S. employment report for October, released Nov. 7, showed a worse-than-expected pace of job losses for the U.S. economy. Nonfarm ...

November 6, 2008

The Rise of the Super-Discounters

As the U.S. faces a serious economic downturn, many Americans are seeking out the cheapest possible option when buying necessities. Enter ultra-discounters like Dollar...

November 6, 2008

U.S. Job Losses Poised to Accelerate in October

The October U.S. employment report, scheduled for release Nov. 7, should prove the worst one yet for the current downturn, and will set the stage for the degree of ...

November 6, 2008

Vital Signs: Business Activity Shows a Deepening Recession

It’s been an eventful couple of weeks in both politics and the economy. The data are starting to make it clear that President-elect Barack Obama will inherit the ...

November 6, 2008

Stocks Slammed for a Second Straight Day

U.S. stocks on Thursday extended the steep losses from the previous session, with the Dow industrials logging a second straight decline of over 400 points. A negative ...

November 4, 2008

The Bailout: More Changes, More Questions

Is it too soon to wonder whether the government's $700 billion financial rescue program has gone off track? The U.S. Treasury has taken a lot of flack in the past few ...

November 4, 2008

Stocks: Reading the Post-Election Landscape

Investors will be spending the morning after the election of a new U.S. President figuring out what it means for their investments and the stock market as a whole. (At...

November 3, 2008

Around the Street: The Election Heats Up, the Economy Cools

We're almost there. The U.S. Presidential contest between Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) marked its final full day on Nov. 3 before U.S. ...

November 1, 2008

Better Off? Probably Not

"Are you better off?" It's a question the candidate of the challenging party asks during each Presidential campaign. The economy, of course, is the No. 1 issue this ...

October 30, 2008

Memo to the Fed: Pace Rate Hikes Carefully

In June 2004, Alan Greenspan—remember him?—raised the fed funds rate target from 1% to 1.25%. As BusinessWeek wrote at the time, the then-Federal Reserve ...

October 30, 2008

Vital Signs: Employment Outlook Gets Gloomier

It’s election week, and investors will finally get a look at the political backdrop the markets will be facing for the next few years. However, as important as that ...

October 30, 2008

Around the Street: GDP Drop Confirms the Fed's Gloom

The Federal Reserve said in its Oct. 29 policy statement that "[t]he pace of economic activity appears to have slowed markedly," and a look at the U.S. third-quarter ...

October 28, 2008

Around the Street: Tracking the Fed's Moves

One phrase you probably haven't been hearing in recent weeks: "do-nothing central banker". The U.S. Federal Reserve and its counterparts have been busy slashing rates,...