Business and Finance news

In a sign that more foreclosures could be on the horizon, 23% of people with mortgages owe more than their home is worth, according to a report released Tuesday.
Almost 10.7 million U.S. mortgages were "underwater" as of September, said research firm First American CoreLogic.
Another 2.3 million homeowners are within 5% of negative territory, […]

Creditor protection for your registered retirement savings plan has been delayed again by political posturing over Ontario’s plan to adopt a harmonized sales tax.
The HST, a combined federal and provincial sales tax totalling 13 per cent on most goods and services as of next July, would also whittle away your retirement savings.
But it would do […]

Broad public support will be required to ensure Canada makes the right moves to expand pension coverage while the shortfall in retirement income is such a hot topic.
The question is whether politicians will hear from many of the potential 3.5 million middle-income workers whom pension expert Keith Ambachtsheer thinks would benefit most from […]

The Hawaii Medical Service Association lost $32 million in the third quarter — a result of continued hits from rising health-care costs and declining investment income.
It lost approximately $19 million during the same period last year.
The state’s largest health plan collected $411.1 million in premiums in the third quarter and paid out $403.9 million in […]

Nasdaq OMX Group said the number of Greater China companies that list on its exchange could double in as little as two years, fueled by a growing appetite for these shares from a wider range of U.S. institutional investors.
Three of the top 10 performing initial public share offerings in the United States this year […]

World governments should consider urgently a levy on banks to fund future bailouts, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Saturday, departing from London’s longstanding resistance to a global tax.
France and Germany have led the way in Europe on seeking to force the financial sector to return some of the billions of public dollars […]

Profits are down at Hillenbrand, America’s largest maker of caskets. Admittedly, this fact sounds like the setup for a punch line, but the cause of the shortage in stiffs contains lessons for politicians and business leaders alike.
Hillenbrand’s CEO, Kenneth Camp, explained his company’s main problem this way in a recent conference call with […]

U.S. foreclosure filings climbed to a record in the third quarter as lenders seized more properties from delinquent borrowers, according to RealtyTrac Inc.
A total of 937,840 homes received a default or auction notice or were repossessed by banks, a 23 percent increase from a year earlier, the Irvine, California-based seller of default data […]

The Japanese government may undermine banks by forcing them to defer debt repayments while easing accounting standards on the loans, the country’s former top financial regulator said.
Shizuka Kamei, Japan’s newly appointed financial services minister, plans to submit legislation next month that would allow ailing small firms to postpone loan repayments for up to […]

Hong Kong Monetary Authority Chief Executive Norman Chan said he will maintain the city’s fixed exchange rate, after the central bank intervened under his watch for the first time to stop the Hong Kong dollar gaining.
Chan, who began work as the head of the HKMA today, said his first task was “to keep […]