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• Labor Market Said to Contract by 1.2 Million People
  The labor market contracted by 1.2 million people in a month, according to research from Zero Hedge, citing Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The government reports that the unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent in January from 8.5 percent in December as the economy has...
• Geithner: US May Close Down Freddie, Fannie
  The Obama administration is studying ways to overhaul government-backed mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae even considering closing them down and bring private capital back into the mortgage markets, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner says. Since the housing...
• Some Economists Predict Recession Despite Lower Jobless Rate
  Despite the declining unemployment, the United States will fall into a recession in the second half of 2012 due to fiscal tightening, one economist predicts. Jim Walker, founder and manager of Asianomics, believes reductions in government spending will slash GDP between 1...
• Risks Remain Despite Rosy Jobs Numbers, Researchers Warn
  Unemployment rates in January may have dropped well below expectations, but the country shouldn't cry victory over a weak economy yet but should remain cautious, experts and researchers say. The Labor Department reports that the economy added a net 243,000 nonfarm payrolls...
• More Parents Delay Retirement to Help Adult Children
  Retirement has become more elusive for many these days, and even those who have amassed savings for their golden years are finding themselves cashing in nest eggs to help their cash-strapped kids. Blame high unemployment rates for the trend. The average unemployment rate...
• FX Concepts’ Taylor: Fed Strategy a 'Tremendous Hit' to Dollar
  John Taylor, founder of currency-hedge fund FX Concepts LLC, said he s betting against the dollar after Federal Reserve policy makers extended their pledge to keep interest rates close to zero and indicated they re prepared to make additional asset purchases. I am shorter...
• Pimco's Gross: Fed to Consider More Easing Despite Jobs Data
  Pacific Investment Management Co. s Bill Gross said the Federal Reserve will maintain accommodative monetary policy and consider more asset purchases even with the U.S. employment market expanding.Gross domestic product in the first half of the year will probably be 2...
• Wharton’s Siegel: Stocks Are Cheap, Euro to Plunge
  Stocks are cheap and the savvy investor should buy now, while the euro will weaken from around 1.3 per dollar and trade one-to-one with the greenback, known as parity, in about a year's time, says Jeremy Siegel, economics professor at the University of Pennsylvania's...
• Robert Reich: Lower Corporate Tax Rates Won't Create Jobs
  Calls for corporate tax breaks won't create jobs because businesses are likely to hire more overseas and not at home, says economist and former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. Lower corporate taxes and fewer regulations won't bring good jobs to America. They might...
• Goldman's O'Neill: Current Slowdown Pales Compared to 2008
  Despite global uncertainty and a few weaker-than-expected earnings, today's market is in much better shape than in 2008, says Jim O'Neill, Chairman at Goldman Sachs Asset Management. The key to this market movement over January is that people were worried about everything...
• Parts of US Actually Prospered During Recession
  The Great Recession left parts of the United States largely untouched, as portions of the country dependent on energy and agriculture thrived during the downturn, a Sentier Research study shows. Texas and Iowa saw median household incomes rise from 2005-2010, which...
• Northeast Costliest Place to Retire, Study Finds
  Thinking about retiring in the Northeast? If the weather doesn't get you, then the cost of living will. And the Midwest isn't much better, either. Connecticut is the costliest U.S. state in which to retire followed by Illinois, Rhode Island, Vermont and Massachusetts,...
• Market Bulls Will Pull for Giants in Super Bowl
  If the New York Giants beat the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl on Sunday, expect stocks to finish the year in positive territory, according to a time-tested metric. The Super Bowl indicator, which has been right 78 percent of the time, shows that when the team from...
• Joseph Grano: Nation Looking for Leadership and Can't Find It
  President Barack Obama has failed when it comes to leading the country to better days by resorting to divisive politics, while Republicans also haven't provided the leadership the country needs now more than ever, says Joseph Grano, author and chairman of Centurion...
• Fed's Fisher Calls Target Rate Forecasts ‘Guesswork’
  Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher described policy makers forecasts for the central bank s main interest rate as little more than speculation. These are not binding commitments, Fisher said Thursday in a speech in Austin, Texas. Fed officials ...
• Senate Passes Insider Trading Ban
  Sagging approval ratings brought Democrats and Republicans together Thursday, as the Senate passed a bill to explicitly prevent members of Congress, their top aides and administration officials from using non-public information for insider trading. New disclosure...
• David Dreman: Stocks at Cheapest Levels Since 1982 so Buy Now
  Star money manager David Dreman says stocks are trading at their cheapest valuations since 1982, making them a very attractive investment now. The averages are way down, he tells Forbes Media Chairman Steve Forbes. In 2000 the Standard Poor s 500 Index traded about...
• Hussman: Welcome to Wild West — Investing Now a ‘Goat Rodeo’
  Economist and fund manager John Hussman says investing is now a goat rodeo:Appalachian slang for a chaotic, high-risk, or unmanageable scenario requiring countless things to go right in order to walk away unharmed. My concern is that an improbably large number of things...
• Former Bush Adviser Boskin: Election Will Be Referendum on Obama
  The 2012 presidential election will serve as a referendum on Barack Obama and his economic policies, says Michael Boskin, former Chairman of President George H. W. Bush s Council of Economic Advisers. Those economic policies include an $800 billion stimulus bill loaded...
• Wall Street Cash Flows to Romney Over Obama
  The captains of Wall Street have picked a presidential candidate for 2012 and it is Republican Mitt Romney, rather than Democratic President Barack Obama, campaign donation records show. The records released by the Federal Election Commission illustrate a basic shift in...
• Pimco’s Gross: 'Dysfunctional' Eurozone Dangerous to Investors
  Pimco co-CEO Bill Gross warns investors to stay away from bond investments in a dysfunctional eurozone. At Pimco we're basically underweight the southern European countries, Gross told CNBC. Greece and Portugal are increasingly on death rows…and (German...
• Christopher Whalen: Big Banks Are Going to Fail
  Big banks will fail because they don't provide the added value that many think, says R. Christopher Whalen, a former banking analyst and now part of the hedge fund Tangent Capital Partners. We don t need to have these behemoths. It s just a total fallacy, say Whalen,...
• Global Strategists Abandon Bearish Views After Missing Rally
  Strategists at the biggest banks are capitulating on their bearish forecasts after the best start to a year for global stocks since 1994 and gains of more than 7 percent in emerging-market currencies. Just two weeks after saying that investors should remain cautious, ...
• Treasury May Let Investors Pay to Lend to US Government
  The U.S. government may ask investors to pay for the privilege and safety of holding short-term debt issued by its Treasury Department. In response to clamor from investors, the Treasury said on Wednesday it was looking closely at allowing negative-yield auctions. This...
• Facebook Files to Go Public in $5 Billion IPO
  Facebook made a much-anticipated status update Wednesday: The Internet social network is going public eight years after its computer-hacking CEO Mark Zuckerberg started the service at Harvard University.That means anyone with the right amount of cash will be able to own...

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