U.S. Economy: Durable Goods Orders Unexpectedly Drop

Demand for U.S. durable goods unexpectedly fell in August and sales of new homes rose less than forecast, restraining the pace of the economic recovery.
Orders for goods made to last several years dropped 2.4 percent, the biggest decline since January, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. Consumer sentiment improved, a separate report […]

Obama Sees Job Losses Ending, Vows to Push on Wall Street Rules

President Barack Obama said job losses are “bottoming out” and the U.S. economy looks to be growing again even as he warned against cutting off government aid “so soon that the recovery doesn’t take flight.”
Obama, speaking to Bloomberg News one year after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. crippled the economy, voiced […]

Japanese Companies Cut Spending for a Ninth Quarter

Japanese businesses cut spending for a ninth quarter as the global recession squeezed profits, underscoring the challenge for the incoming government to sustain a recovery from the country’s worst postwar slump.
Capital spending excluding software fell 22.2 percent in the three months ended June 30 from a year earlier, after dropping a record 25.4 […]

Employees aim for up to 5 percent stake in VW

The roughly 370,000 employees of Volkswagen and Porsche are striving initially to acquire a stake of up to 5 percent in the automotive group, VW’s labor chief told a German newspaper.
“I don’t know how much we will end up with. It certainly won’t be 10 percent overnight, but between one and five percent to […]

Economy is on ‘pretty decent recovery path,’ figures show

The U.S. economy took a first step toward recovering from the worst recession since the 1930s in the second quarter as companies reduced inventories, spending started to climb and profits grew.
Gross domestic product shrank at a 1 percent annual rate from April to June, less than the 1.5 percent decline projected by […]

Existing Home Sales in U.S. Jump to Two-Year High

Sales of existing U.S. homes jumped more than forecast in July to the highest level in almost two years, signaling the housing crisis that crippled the world’s largest economy is easing.
Purchases climbed 7.2 percent to a 5.24 million annual rate, the most since August 2007, the National Association of Realtors said today in […]

Korea Keeps Interest Rate at Record Low a Sixth Month

South Korea’s central bank kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged at a record low for a sixth straight month amid “favorable” signs of economic recovery.
Governor Lee Seong Tae and his board left the seven-day repurchase rate at 2 percent in Seoul today, as expected by 12 of 13 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The […]

U.K. Producer Prices Unexpectedly Rose in July

U.K. producer prices unexpectedly rose in July, a sign the recession may be easing enough for companies to charge customers more and rebuild their margins.
The price of goods at factory gates climbed 0.3 percent from June, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. Economists predicted no change, according to the median […]

IMF Approves $2.5 Billion Loan to Sri Lanka, Ambassador Says

The International Monetary Fund, which has mounted rescues from Iceland to Ukraine in the past year, approved a loan of about $2.5 billion to Sri Lanka, the country’s ambassador to the U.S. said in an interview.
The IMF earlier this week said it reached a staff-level agreement for a stand-by loan to help the […]

Asia’s Export-Reliant Nations May See Economic Recovery ‘Fade’

Asia’s export-dependent nations may see their recoveries falter in the second half of the year as overseas demand remains subdued, economists said.
“Recovery in Asia does not look especially durable,” said Michael Taylor, a senior economist at Lombard Street Research Ltd. in London. “Sustainable Asian growth still depends on a global recovery lifting demand […]