[10/29/13]  Stocks jumped Tuesday as the Standard & Poor's 500 index and Dow Jones industrial average closed at all-time highs. Investors are expecting the Federal Reserve to further delay the start of a plan to scale back its bond-buying program as policymakers started a two-day meeting Tuesday to discuss monetary policy. The Dow Jones industrial average jumped 111.42 points, or 0.7%, to 15,680.35, it's first record close since Sept. 18 when it hit 15,676.94. The S&P 500 index continued to push further into record territory as it rose 9.84 points, or 0.6%, to close at 1,771.95. The Nasdaq composite gained 12.21 points, or 0.3%, to 3,952.34. The Nasdaq remains far below...

[10/28/13]  Factory output rose less than forecast in September and contract signings for U.S. home purchases fell the most in three years, showing the economy was having trouble gaining traction before the government shutdown. The 0.1 percent advance in manufacturing followed a revised 0.5 percent gain in August that was smaller than initially estimated, figures from the Federal Reserve showed today in Washington. Pending sales of previously owned homes slumped 5.6 percent in September, the fourth straight month of declines, the National Association of Realtors reported. “The economy is in a shutdown-related soft patch in the fourth quarter,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Inc. in Lexington,Massachusetts, who correctly predicted...

[10/22/13]  U.S. construction spending hit a near 4-1/2 year high in August, boosted by increases in both private and public outlays, a hopeful sign for third-quarter economic growth. Construction spending increased 0.6 percent to an annual rate of $915.1 billion, the highest level since April 2009, the Commerce Department said on Tuesday. Construction spending in July was revised to show a 1.4 percent rise instead of the previously reported 0.6 percent gain. The report was originally scheduled for release on October 1 but was delayed after the federal government was partially shut down because of a fight over the budget. The 16-day shutdown ended last Wednesday. Construction spending in August...

[10/22/13]  When the Federal Reserve began open-ended bond buying with newly printed money last fall, it hoped to generate forward momentum in the labour market. And as recently as August it seemed to have succeeded. But the recent data suggest a frustrating reversal of that momentum, with no clear explanation. Non-farm payroll employment rose just 148,000 in September from August, well below Wall Street's consensus expectation of 180,000. This was the second weak reading in a row, and vindicates the Fed's decision not to dial back its $85 billion of bond-buyding, dubbed quantitative easing or QE, last month. Revisions to prior months' payroll gains were roughly offsetting....

[10/22/13]  Even before the federal government shutdown and debt ceiling crisis this month, the nation’s economy was lagging and job growth was sluggish. And the recent dysfunction in Congress seems likely to make the situation worse. The economy added just 148,000 jobs in September, the Labor Department reported on Tuesday in a discouraging economic snapshot taken just before a federal shutdown that resulted in hundreds of thousands of furloughs. That shutdown, which delayed the release of the September employment report by more than two weeks, is expected to weigh on growth when the next monthly job market data is released on Nov. 8, a week behind schedule. “The labor market...