WASHINGTON — JPMorgan Chase faced intense criticism Friday for claiming that a surprise $2 billion loss by one of its trading groups was the result of a sloppy but well-intentioned strategy to manage financial risk.
WASHINGTON — Content for now with the current course, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke left open the possibility Wednesday that the Fed will take further action to stimulate the economy and reduce unemployment — but not at the cost of high inflation.
WASHINGTON — In a long-awaited surge of hiring, companies added 243,000 jobs in January — across the economy, up and down the pay scale and far more than just about anyone expected. Unemployment fell to 8.3 percent, the lowest in three years.
NEW YORK — If Chairman Ben Bernanke decides the economy needs more help from the Federal Reserve this year, he probably won’t face as much resistance as he did last year.
Last week in a procedural vote to move along a piece of legislation, the U.S. Senate voted by an overwhelming margin of 79 to 19 to establish a mechanism to retaliate against countries that consistently and intentionally undervalue their currencies. While the legislation may seem evenhanded in its treatment of every currency manipulator, it is squarely directed against the Chinese government which is, to the surprise of nobody, keeping the yuan undervalued so as to encourage both production and employment in their domestic export sector. Needless to say, if the yuan is undervalued, then the U.S. dollar is overvalued, and if the Chinese artificially expand their export activity, then the U.S. will see its export sector unfairly restrained.
WASHINGTON — The jobs crisis isn’t getting worse. But it isn’t getting much better, either. The economy added just enough jobs last month to ease fears of a new recession. But hiring is still too weak to bring down unemployment, which has been stuck at about 9 percent for more than two years.
Given the way the financial world is holding its collective breath, one might suppose Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is cut from the same magical cloth as his predecessor, “Maestro” Alan Greenspan. In earlier times, every word that dropped from the lips of Chairman Greenspan was treated as though it came from the Delphi Oracle given his seemingly inexhaustible ability to fine tune a faltering economy. It was only after he left the central bank that markets realized just how misdirected his loose monetary policy actions were. While still denied by Mr. Bernanke (one of Greenspan’s confederates at the time), most analysts agree that excessive money growth, low interest rates, and a loose regulatory environment contributed to the housing crisis that caused the U.S. and world financial markets to nearly implode.
NEW YORK (AP) — A growing belief that the U.S. economy may be headed toward recession gave the stock market its fourth straight week of losses.