Business and Finance news

Stocks are closing sharply higher for a third straight day after U.S. retailers reported stronger September sales and the European Central Bank moved to support that region’s lenders.
Target, Nordstrom, Macy’s and other retailers reported sales that beat Wall Street’s expectations. Analysts said the results suggested the U.S. was not in another recession.
In Europe, investors cheered […]

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is reiterating that Congress should not cut spending sharply while the economy is weak.
Bernanke tells the Joint Economic Committee that lawmakers face a delicate challenge: They must avoid making deep spending cuts that could impede the recovery. But he says they must also eventually cut spending more deeply than the […]

As Hurricane Ophelia moves north, forecasters have lifted a tropical storm watch for Bermuda but added one for the entire Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami says the tropical storm watch for Bermuda was lifted early Saturday evening.
At 5 p.m. Saturday, Ophelia had maximum sustained winds near 120 mph (193 kph) and […]

Most personal finance commentators say you need an emergency fund to cushion you from unexpected events, such as losing your job or facing a big unforeseen expense.
For many years I resisted. As the father of two young children, and with a huge mortgage, I didn’t have much spare cash. It always made more sense to […]

ST. LOUIS

Congress gave President Barack Obama’s drive to promote jobs growth a boost Thursday by presenting him with a major overhaul of the patent system that the president has sought as a means to spur innovation and put more people back to work.
The Senate voted 89-9 to pass the patent bill and send it to Obama […]

U.S. stock futures are falling as anxious traders await a key report on hiring and employment in August.
The Labor Department reports at 8:30 a.m. Eastern on the number of jobs created in August. Economists surveyed by FactSet expect that the economy added 93,000 jobs, not enough to reduce the 9.1 percent unemployment rate.
Global markets sank […]

Japan’s parliament elected former Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda as the new prime minister on Tuesday _ the country’s sixth leader in five years.
A fiscal conservative, Noda faces a host of daunting problems, including the post-tsunami recovery and nuclear crisis, and a sluggish economy and the yen’s surge, which hurts Japan’s exporters.
Noda, who was elected Monday […]

Global stocks fell again Friday as fears of a possible U.S. recession combined with ongoing worries over Europe’s debt crisis, which is stoking acute fears over the continent’s banking sector.
However, a better than anticipated opening on Wall Street helped European markets recoup a large chunk of their earlier losses.
“This week has seen a continuation of […]

Fitch Ratings said Tuesday that it would keep its rating on long-term U.S. debt at the highest grade, AAA, and said the outlook remained stable. But it warned that it could lower the outlook to negative if Congress failed to trim future deficits.
Fitch’s rating was the best given by the three major credit rating agencies. […]