News and Finance

A raft of European bank results did little to lift gloom around the sector on Wednesday, with a recurring trend of falling profits and rising bad debts stemming from the global financial crisis.
France’s biggest bank BNP Paribas (BNPP.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) posted a 56 percent fall in third-quarter profits, Allied Irish Banks […]

Michigan and Georgia lost the most jobs in September, led by a slump in employment at government agencies and manufacturers as the slowdown spread through the U.S. economy.
The count in Michigan dropped by 28,300 employees last month as government agencies eliminated 18,000 jobs and factories cut payrolls by 6,500, the Labor Department reported […]

The European Union's 1.1 trillion euro ($1.5 trillion) plan to bail out the region's banks may have come too late to keep the euro's biggest drop on record from getting worse.
While leaders of the 27-nation EU agreed in the past two days to guarantee bank loans and take stakes in lenders, currency strategists […]

You once could bet on casinos’ luck holding out even in tough economic times, but things are turning dicey now. St. Louis-area casinos saw a nearly 4 percent drop in business last month, according to figures released this week by Missouri and Illinois gambling regulators.
"This is the first time casinos have not been […]

World equities dropped to their lowest level in more than two years and the U.S. dollar hit a one-year high against the euro on Thursday, as investors fretted over global growth and took refuge in safer assets.
A strong dollar and concerns that the slowing global economy would dampen demand weighed on oil and commodity […]

Oil fell below $109 a barrel on 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 $1.40 to $108.31 a barrel by 10:25 a.m. EDT after settling below its 200-day moving average, a key […]

One year into the financial crisis, central bankers and scholars at the Federal Reserve's annual retreat this weekend couldn't agree on how to prevent a repeat.
Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, European counterpart Jean- Claude Trichet, former officials and economists meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, split over whether central banks should be made responsible […]

No one would dare go so far as to say that the Wall Street job market is bright.
Through June, financial firms of all stripes have shed an estimated 63,000 jobs over the past year, according to the latest employment figures from the Labor Department. That’s due in large part to the housing slump […]

Scheduled airlines seats to Hawaii are expected to drop 11.2 percent.
According to the Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, 2.3 million seats are scheduled on nonstop flights to Hawaii from July through September.
U.S. Mainland flights are expected to decrease 11.2 percent to 1.6 million, led by a nearly […]

Growth in U.S. services industries slowed less than economists forecast in May as a jump in new orders offset a decline in employment.
The Institute for Supply Management's index of non- manufacturing businesses, which make up almost 90 percent of the economy, fell to 51.7 from 52 in April; readings above 50 indicate expansion. […]