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...

The economy unexpectedly contracted in the fourth quarter, but analysts said there was no reason for panic given that consumer spending and business investment picked up. Gross domestic product fell at a 0.1 percent annual rate, its weakest performance since the economy emerged from recession in 2009, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday. If it were not for the hit from slower inventory growth and the deepest plunge in defense spending in 40 years, the economy would have grown at a respectable 2.5 percent rate. In addition, economists said Superstorm Sandy, which struck the East Coast in late October may have reduced GDP by about half a point. "Obviously, the headline number is...

Inventories of previously-owned US homes fell to a 11-year low in December as eager Americans keen to take advantage of record low mortgage interest rates and depressed house prices snapped up existing supplies. Total housing inventory at the end of December fell 8.5 per cent to 1.82m existing homes available for sale last month – the fewest since January 2001 – the National Association of Realtors said on Tuesday. The inventory-to-sales ratio fell to a 4.4 month supply at the current sales pace, down from 4.8 months in November. This is the lowest housing supply since May 2005, near the housing boom peak, when it was 4.3 months. Slow and steady...

Five years ago, the world economy seemed to be doing fine. Read moreComments are closed