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Mortgage applications fell last week for the third week in a row, even as interest rates edged lower, an industry group said Wednesday.
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said its index of mortgage application volume fell 12.3% in the week ended Oct. 23 from the prior week.
The drop in activity came as a […]
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Hugh McGee is cutting the price of Guinness by about 20 percent at his bars and hotels in the Irish town of Letterkenny to keep customers coming across the border from Northern Ireland after the euro’s surge against the pound.
McGee reduced the price for a beer this month to 3.50 euros ($5.18) at […]
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South Korea’s consumer confidence rose to the highest level in more than seven years in October as the nation’s economic recovery strengthened.
The sentiment index climbed to 117 from 114 in September, the Bank of Korea said in Seoul today. The figure matched that of the first quarter of 2002, when the bank published […]
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Malaysia cut income tax for a second straight year, aiming to spur consumer spending and private investment and help the economy recover from a recession.
The top personal tax rate will be reduced to 26 percent in 2010 from 27 percent, Prime Minister Najib Razak said in his budget speech in Kuala Lumpur yesterday. […]
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Compensation curbs announced yesterday by the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve thrust the U.S. government into decisions about pay and performance traditionally reserved for corporate boards.
The Treasury’s special pay master, Kenneth Feinberg, slashed the salaries of the most highly paid executives at seven companies that received taxpayer aid, including Citigroup Inc. and […]
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The Swiss economy is probably past the worst of the recession and deflation risks have eased, the government’s head of economic affairs said.
“The recession has probably bottomed out but the situation isn’t without risks,” Jean-Daniel Gerber, who heads the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, said in an interview in his office in Bern […]
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The Czech central bank should further loosen monetary policy as inflation may be significantly below its target next year, Vice-Governor Miroslav Singer said.
The bank has “several tools” available to ease conditions, Singer said in an interview in Prague yesterday. He declined to elaborate or say whether an interest-rate cut is on the cards […]
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European exports declined the most in seven months in August as the region struggled to emerge from the deepest recession since World War II and the euro’s appreciation threatened to undermine the recovery.
Exports from the 16-nation euro region fell a seasonally adjusted 5.8 percent from July, when they rose 4.7 percent, the European […]
Bank of Korea Governor Lee Seong Tae said any future increase in the benchmark interest rate can be bigger than the bank’s usual 25 basis points, indicating he may raise rates at a faster pace in the coming months.
“It’s difficult to say the increase will be by 0.25 percentage point each time” as […]
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Mortgage applications in the U.S. fell last week from the highest level in four months as borrowing costs increased.
The Mortgage Bankers Association’s index of applications to purchase a home or refinance a loan declined by 1.8 percent to 742.9 in the week ended Oct. 9 from 756.3 a week earlier. The group’s gauge […]
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