Hot finance topics

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner Friday proposed clamping down on dealers in freewheeling markets for little-understood derivatives, the complex securities that helped create a crisis in U.S. and world financial markets.
In testimony at a joint hearing by two congressional panels that will play a role in writing legislation on derivatives, Geithner set out proposals […]

When do you know that the economy is on the mend?
When the wealthy start spending again. And the rich aren’t expected to start digging into their Birkin bags anytime soon.
The luxury market, historically resilient to economic downturns, is forecast to drop an unprecedented 10 percent this year, according to a June report […]

A bank’s abrupt change of heart on a bond refinancing proposal is squeezing Kellwood Co., the Town and Country-based maker of Phat Farm, Sag Harbor and other clothing brands, a company executive said Friday.
Eric Hunter, Kellwood’s senior vice president of marketing, said Deutsche Bank had indicated it would agree to the refinancing plan […]

Oil dropped more than 4% near $60 a barrel Wednesday after a U.S. government report showed that distillate stocks have risen near a 25-year high, reinforcing worries about a potential economic rebound.
U.S. crude fell $2.79, or almost 3%, to settle at $60.14 a barrel Wednesday.
That’s the lowest settle price since May 19, when crude […]

The federal minimum wage is set to increase later this month as the job market shows signs of further decay.
The federal minimum wage will go to $7.25 an hour on July 24 from its current level of $6.55, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
The impact will be felt in 29 states, and many […]

Getting an electronic health record system in place by 2014? Tough.
Getting hospitals to pay millions now for systems that comply with unknown standards and implement them by October 2010? Yikes!
That’s President Obama’s plan to get a centralized, digital medical record system up and running nationwide in five years.
It’s an ambitious plan, but one […]

When New Frontier Bank failed in April, regulators failed to find a buyer, forcing the FDIC to absorb the roughly $2 billion in assets that were once owned by the Colorado-based lender.
But what the FDIC may not have anticipated at the time was that the agency would be stuck with a grab-bag of other […]

Japan ordered Citigroup to suspend sale promotions for a month at its retail bank for lax oversight against money laundering, in the struggling U.S. bank’s second brush with Japanese regulators in five years.
The Financial Services Agency said Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) had not developed adequate systems to detect suspicious transactions such as money laundering, […]