Monthly Archives: February 2013

[02/12/13]  The Federal Reserve may keep interest rates near zero after its bond-buying ends, even after hitting its targets for unemployment or inflation, in order to maintain stimulus, Vice Chairman Janet Yellen signaled. Yellen’s comments today coincide with a Federal Open Market Committee debate over when to bring its bond purchase program to an end, a shift that may prompt expectations of an interest-rate increase. The FOMC said in December it will hold the main interest rate in a range of zero to 0.25 percent so long as inflation isn’t forecast to rise to more than 2.5 percent in one to two years and unemployment exceeds 6.5 percent. The speech...

[02/07/13]  The productivity of U.S. workers fell more than projected in the fourth quarter as the economy shrank, pushing labor expenses up and showing companies are approaching the limit of how much efficiency they can wring from employees. The measure of employee output per hour decreased at a 2 percent annual rate, the worst performance in almost two years, after a 3.2 percent gain in the prior three months, a Labor Department report showed today in Washington. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of 63 economists called for a 1.4 percent drop. Expenses per worker increased at a 4.5 percent rate, more than estimated.

[02/07/13]  Claims for U.S. unemployment insurance payments fell last week, returning to levels seen in the second half of 2012. Applications for jobless benefits dropped 5,000 to 366,000 in the week ended Feb. 2, Labor Department figures showed today. Economists forecast 360,000 claims, according to the median of 53 estimates in a Bloomberg survey.

[02/01/13]  American automakers said new-vehicle sales in the United States rose sharply in January, raising expectations that the industry’s steady recovery would accelerate in 2013. Read moreComments are closed

When it comes to big, round numbers with investment significance, 14,000 is as big as it gets for the Dow Jones industrial average. Indeed, Dow 14,000 is back in play and in the headlines after the iconic 117-year-old blue chip index briefly topped that lofty milestone Friday for the first time since October 2007. The move pushed the world's best-known stock gauge to its best level since the 2008 financial crisis and left it just shy of its Oct. 9, 2007, all-time high of 14,164.53. Around 10 a.m. ET the Dow was up roughly 140 points and popped over 14,000 for a minute, extending its 2013 gains to...

American employers added 157,000 jobs in January compared with a revised 196,000 jobs the previous month, the Labor Department reported on Friday. The unemployment rate was little changed at 7.9 percent, about where it has been stuck since September. On the bright side, revised government data showed that the economy added 335,000 more jobs than originally estimated during all of 2012, including an additional 150,000 in the last quarter of the year. That was on top of the previously reported fourth-quarter job growth of 603,000 and 2012 growth of 2.2 million. The higher revisions, in particular, encouraged traders on Wall Street, sending the Dow Jones industrial average over the...