Hot finance topics

A federal court has approved the distribution of more than $843 million to harmed investors at insurer American International Group, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Tuesday.
The court estimates that checks will soon be mailed to more than 257,000 AIG investors that were affected by an alleged accounting fraud at the company, the […]

More employers are citing the recession for shifting a bigger portion of their health care costs to employees in 2009, an industry report said Monday.
American workers have seen an average increase of 10.6% over the past year in the amount they spend on health care services, according to health care consulting firm Milliman’s fifth […]

Last month I wrote about Debbie Dusenberry, owner of Curious Sofa, a home-furnishings boutique in Kansas City, Kans. The store has a reputation for great products and imaginative display, and its revenue had been growing nicely for eight years.
But when Dusenberry sent me her financials, she included this plaintive note: "Our January was […]

More evidence emerged Friday that the recession is easing, with output by the nation’s factories, mines and utilities falling at the slowest pace in six months.
At least one area of the economy is flat, but that’s welcome news. Consumer prices were level in April after a slight dip the prior month.
[…]

The nation is becoming even more diverse: More than one third of its population belongs to a minority group, and Hispanics are the fastest-growing segment.
The U.S. Census Bureau reported Thursday that the minority population reached an estimated 104.6 million - or 34% of the nation’s total population - on July 1, 2008, compared […]

Banks lining up to repay bailout funds are easing away from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s debt insurance plan, a program that helped banks through last fall’s financial storm — and has made money for the FDIC to boot.
Since the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program, or TLGP, took effect last November, financial firms have […]

Advocating preventive care and streamlining administrative costs are among the steps being promised by the health care industry to help cut $2 trillion in health care expenses over the next decade.
A number of leading industry trade groups — including those representing insurers, doctors, health care workers and drugmakers — made that pledge to […]

Three of the largest banks operating in St. Louis flunked the government’s stress test last week and will have to raise new capital. They include Bank of America, ranked No. 2 in St. Louis market share, along with fifth-ranked Regions Bank and sixth-ranked PNC Financial, the new owner of National City Bank.
What […]

U.S. consumer borrowing fell more than expected in March, plunging a record $11.1 billion, a Federal Reserve report showed Thursday.
March consumer credit fell at an annual rate of 5.2% to a total of $2.55 trillion. This was the biggest percentage drop since December 1990.
February’s decrease was revised to $8.1 billion from an originally reported […]

Chrysler LLC will not repay U.S. taxpayers more than $7 billion in bailout money it received earlier this year and as part of its bankruptcy filing.
This revelation was buried within Chrysler’s bankruptcy filings last week and confirmed by the Obama administration Tuesday. The filings included a list of business assumptions from one of the […]