Hot finance topics

When General Motors executives stopped in St. Louis last fall to meet with auto dealers, the economy was entering a free fall.
"We were right in the middle of the meltdown when we were out doing this. We just didn’t know it," said Mark LaNeve, GM vice president for sales. "I mean we […]

Barnes-Jewish Hospital is getting a new leader next month at a time when health care facilities are feeling the pinch of the troubled economy and facing the uncertainties of health care reform.
But Richard Liekweg, who will become president of Barnes-Jewish and Barnes-Jewish West County Hospital on Sept. 14, believes BJC HealthCare is on […]

Stocks rallied Friday, with the Dow and S&P 500 closing at the highest point in nine months, after the July jobs report showed the smallest number of job cuts in nearly a year, adding to recovery hopes.
The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) gained 114 points, or 1.2%, according to early tallies. The S&P 500 […]

CIT Group was expected to announce a deal with key bondholders for $3 billion in funding that would stave off a bankruptcy filing for the cash-strapped lender, according to reports published Monday.
The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, citing people familiar with the matter, said CIT’s board approved the deal Sunday […]

Health care reform should mean all Americans can get coverage while allowing doctors to heal patients instead of being bureaucrats, President Barack Obama told the American Medical Association on Monday.
In a speech to the 158th annual meeting of the doctors’ advocacy organization, Obama called an overhaul of the ailing health care system the most […]

Bank of America Corp’s lead director Temple Sloan resigned from the largest U.S. bank’s board of directors Friday.
Investors have criticized Sloan, who had been on the bank’s board of directors for 13 years, for not doing more to prevent Chief Executive Ken Lewis from buying Merrill Lynch.
The bank said in a statement Sloan’s resignation […]

Questions about whether Bank of America breached its duties to shareholders come at an inconvenient time for embattled CEO Ken Lewis.
According to documents released Thursday by a top state prosecutor, the BofA (BAC, Fortune 500) chief met repeatedly late last year with federal regulators and the bank’s board to discuss the deteriorating condition […]

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has fined Wachovia Securities and First Clearing, both of St. Louis, $1.1 million for failing to provide more than 800,000 notifications to customers over a five-year period ending in 2008. At the time, Wachovia Securities and First Clearing were both subsidiaries of Wachovia Corp. First Clearing also sent confirmations […]

Ten years ago, Chrysler’s pairing with Daimler-Benz AG of Germany was among the largest mergers in industrial history and put the U.S. automaker on the brink of globalization. The future looked bright and the 7,600 Chrysler jobs in Fenton appeared secure.
Now Chrysler LLC is on the brink of another merger. But this […]

Oil prices tumbled more than $10 a barrel Monday - the second biggest drop in dollar terms ever on an active contract - as the government’s proposed $700 billion bailout was defeated by the House, adding to concerns about the spread of economic weakness worldwide.
A stronger dollar also pushed the price of oil […]