Hot finance topics

U.S. President Barack Obama’s task force on the auto industry has hired a bankruptcy lawyer to advise it on its options.
The task force hired Matthew Feldman, a partner in the business reorganization and restructuring department at New York law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, the law firm said in a news release Friday.
Feldman […]

The private sector jobs market deteriorated rapidly in October while the service sector contracted sharply as the worst financial crisis in 80 years hammered the world’s largest economy.
Privately released reports on Wednesday highlighted the economic challenges facing Barack Obama a day after he won the race for the White House and foreshadowed weakness in […]

The U.S. Treasury faces historic financing demands from a weakening economy and the added costs of a $700 billion Wall Street rescue program, the department's top domestic finance official said today.
“This year's financing needs will be unprecedented,'' said Anthony Ryan, the Treasury's acting undersecretary for domestic finance, at a Securities Industry and Financial […]

WASHINGTON — The government will buy an ownership stake in a broad array of American banks for the first time since the Great Depression, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said late Friday, announcing the historic step after stock markets jolted still lower around the world despite all efforts to slow the selling stampede.
Separately, the […]

Home prices dropped in 24 of 25 U.S. metropolitan areas in July, led by declines in Las Vegas and the coastal cities of California, as foreclosures depressed prices and accounted for a fifth of all sales.
Las Vegas had the biggest drop on a per-square foot basis, falling 33 percent in July from a […]

Frugal shoppers cut back again in August, driving down sales at the nation’s retailers for the second month in a row, further proof the economy is losing traction.
The Commerce Department reported Friday that retail sales dropped by 0.3% last month. Economists expected sales to rise by 0.3%.
Sales in July also turned out to be […]

Internet search leader Google Inc. and NBC Universal said Monday they’re teaming up to allow Google to sell advertisements on some of NBC’s cable channels such as MSNBC, Oxygen and the Sci Fi network.
The partnership signals Mountain View, Calif.-based Google’s desire to sell ads in different places besides next to its search engine, and […]

The New York Times Co plans to consolidate some sections in the metropolitan edition of its namesake newspaper to reduce costs, the publisher said on Friday.
Starting Monday, October 6, the paper will blend its Metro section with its main news section on Monday through Saturday and combine its business and sports pages into one […]

Oil prices fell nearly a dollar to below $109 a barrel Wednesday, weighed down by slowing demand in the United States and other consuming nations and signs the U.S. oil sector would recover quickly from Hurricane Gustav.
U.S. crude traded down 96 cents at $108.75 a barrel by 1:00 p.m. EDT, after settling on Tuesday […]

German exports rose more than economists expected in June, defying a stronger euro and pushing the trade surplus to a record.
Sales abroad, adjusted for working days and seasonal changes, increased 4.2 percent from May, when they fell 3.4 percent, the Federal Statistics Office in Wiesbaden said today. That's the biggest increase since September […]