Hot finance topics

SunTrust Banks Inc, a U.S. Southeast regional bank ordered by federal regulators to raise $2.2 billion of equity capital, on Monday speeded up a previously announced capital-raising plan, hoping to benefit from recent investor demand for banks’ securities.
The Atlanta-based bank said it plans to sell $1.4 billion of common stock, raise $300 million of […]

Most people think of patents in terms of legal protection for new technological inventions. There is another form of patent, however.
A business method patent is one awarded for a special technique for doing business such as improvements to a company’s accounting or sales department.
Business method patents have proven very controversial in the United States, […]

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 […]

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has asked city agencies to cut another 7,000 jobs as the city’s finances continue to deteriorate in the recession.
In a letter to agency heads, Mark Page, the head of the city’s Office of Management and Budget, said that tax revenues continue to fall short of projections, forcing the city […]

Add Bernie Madoff and Marc Dreier to the long list of excuses grownups now use to buy more time. Think of it as the "dog ate my homework" for federal prosecutors.
The Madoff Excuse entered the legal lexicon in a March 16 letter to U.S. federal judge Loretta A. Preska, who is presiding over the […]

The number of people filing initial claims for unemployment benefits fell last week, but the number filing for more than a week hit a fresh record high, according to a government report released Thursday.
In the week ended March 14, a total of 646,000 people filed initial jobless claims, down 12,000 from the previous week’s […]

United Technologies Corp., saying the downturn in its core markets is worse than expected, cut its 2009 profit forecast 13 percent Tuesday and will eliminate 11,600 jobs, or 5 percent of its global work force.
The announcement by the maker of Otis elevators and Sikorsky helicopters reverses the guarded optimism of a month ago […]

Alarmed by mounting market losses and shunning new purchases of long-term funds, most investors aren’t in a bargain-hunting mood. They’re more likely to be concerned about hanging on to what they have and adding to it slowly and steadily.
This logically leads to fixed-income investing, where high-quality bonds and bond funds are among the main alternatives […]

Just months after dealing with a deadly listeria outbreak involving its deli meats linked to 37 deaths, Maple Leaf Foods Inc., finds itself involved in another potentially damaging recall – this time involving more than 26,000 packages of wieners.
Maple Leaf, Canada’s largest food processor, announced the voluntary recall yesterday on the same day it […]

LaBarge Inc. said Friday that second-quarter profit was hurt by a nonrecurring write-off of inventory and receivables following the bankruptcy of customer Eclipse Aviation Corp.
LaBarge, which makes electronic assemblies for a variety of industries, reported net income for the quarter was $249,000 compared to about $3.4 million one year ago. It also reported […]