Libya: A survivor under siege
Etiketler:
Bleak history lessons for Libya’s future
Plotting the way forward in Libya
Obama to defend actions in Mideast
Talking Libya in London
Libyan rebels sweep westwards
International air raids targeted Muammer Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte for the first time on Sunday night as rebels made a high-speed advance towards the regime stronghold.
Postal Service: 7,500 workers, $20,000 buyouts
Bernanke to meet the press
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Tight-lipped Ben Bernanke is coming further out of his shell.
The Federal Reserve Chairman will start holding press briefings four times a year, the central bank announced Thursday afternoon.
Budget pain taking a toll
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- After six months of coping with stop-gap funding measures, federal agencies have quietly started instituting hiring freezes, withholding grants and curtailing work on critical projects.
The uncertainty caused by Congress' inability to pass a budget cuts across many corners of the government.
What's next for nuclear power?
The human suffering iTech earnings lift stocks
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- U.S. stocks posted solid gains on Thursday, as positive earnings in the technology sector offset ongoing concerns related to Japan and spreading unrest in the Middle East.
The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) gained 85 points, or 0.5%, to 12,171; the S&P 500 index (SPX) edged up 12.1 points, or 0.9%, to 1,310; and the Nasdaq Composite (COMP) jumped 38 points, or 1.4%, to 2736.
About 4.8 million box fans recalled for fire risk
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- About 4.8 million box fans are being recalled by a Pennsylvania company because they pose a fire hazard, the government said Thursday.
Lasko Products Inc. of West Chester, Pa., is recalling the fans as an electrical failure in the fan's motor can lead to a fire, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said.
Treasuries: Yields mired in a tight range
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Treasury prices fell Thursday as investors parsed through a mixed bag of economic reports.
Yields, which move in opposite direction to price, have largely been stuck in a rut as investors continue to keep a wary eye on spreading unrest in the Middle East and Japan's recovery efforts.
First-time unemployment claims fall
Americans filing first-time unemployment claims fell to 382,000, in the week ended March 19, the Labor Department said Thursday. That was down from the previous week's revised 387,000.
Big banks hunger for corporate debt
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Looking for a loan? If you're a company with a decent investment grade rating, you're in luck.
Earlier this week, "A"-rated AT&T (T, Fortune 500) lined up near-record amounts of debt for its $39 billion dollar deal with Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile USA.
Oil - near $106 and rising
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Crude oil prices moved above $106 a barrel again Thursday before retreating, as a confluence of war, natural disasters and Japan's nuclear problems unnerved investors.
The benchmark U.S. contract, West Texas Intermediate, dropped 15 cents, or 0.55%, to settle at $105.60 a barrel for May delivery. In early trading, the price peaked at $106.69.
Brent crude, pegged to oil prices in the North Sea, rose 4 cents to $115.59.
U.S. oil prices have surged more than 20% since mid-February, when pro-democracy movements reached Libya, Africa's third-largest oil producer.
Libya is just the start of the worries. A bomb exploded on a Jerusalem bus Wednesday. Escalating violence between Syrian security forces and anti-government protesters left 15 dead. The governments of Bahrain, Tunisia, Yemen and Egypt are all in various stages of disarray. Portugal's debt crisis continues unabated.
"The truth is we have very strong fundamental justification for where the price of oil is at and where it is probably going," Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at PFG Best, wrote in a research note.
Prices could be going much higher.
If all oil production ceased in Libya, Bahrain and Yemen, oil prices could rise to $125 a barrel, according to Moody's Analytics economist Chris Lafakis. If Iran reduced production by 50%, prices could rise to $150.
One mitigating factor is the reduced demand in Japan after the twin natural disasters that rocked the country earlier this month.
With business shuttered and manufacturing plants closed, the country is using less oil. For the moment, that's actually a helpful phenomenon for world oil markets struggling with reduced exports from Libya.
For Japan, the temporary drop in demand coincides with a diminished refining capacity. The earthquake and tsunami damaged a number of Japanese oil refineries, sparking concerns about whether Japan would need to import refined products.
But the refineries are starting to open. ExxonMobil (XOM, Fortune 500) said Wednesday that it had restarted all of its Japanese refineries for the first time since the March 11 quake.
Three of the four refineries operated by Cosmo Oil are online, and ramping up production. However, the company's largest refinery, located north of Tokyo in Chiba, is still offline.
In the longer term, experts expect Japanese demand for oil to spike as the country starts reconstruction efforts, especially with a nuclear capacity reduced by the quake damage at the Fukushima plant.
Household wealth down 23% in 2 years - Fed
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The average American family's household net worth declined 23% between 2007 and 2009, the Federal Reserve said Thursday.
A rare survey of U.S. households, first performed in 2007 but repeated in 2009 in order to gauge the effects of the recession, reveals the median net worth of households fell from $125,000 in 2007 to $96,000 in 2009.
Titled "Surveying the Aftermath of the Storm," the report offers a broad look at how the financial crisis impacted individual households.
It is widely known that the 2008 financial crisis resulted in the vaporization of trillions of dollars in household wealth. But Federal Reserve officials said Thursday the new report offers a look at exactly how hard the recession hit families, and how they reacted.
The numbers paint a stark picture.
Families that owned stock saw their portfolios drop by more than a third to $12,000 from $18,500, on average. The value of primary real estate holdings decreased by an average of $18,700.
And families took on more debt, pushing median total debt levels to $75,600 from $70,300. They also made less money. Media household income dropped from to $49,800 from $50,100.
Interestingly, families below the median national income in 2007 actually saw their earnings increase by 2009. Meanwhile, families that started above the national average in 2007 saw their incomes decline.
Families in the top 10% of net worth in 2007 saw their incomes decline by 13% on average, a phenomenon the Fed attributed to large declines in capital gains and in business, farm or self-employment income.
The report also reveals that some families are doing quite well.
"Although over 60% of families saw their wealth decline over the two-year period, a sizable fraction of households experienced gains in wealth," the report says.
But it's hard to pin down what made those families successful. "Shifts in wealth do not appear to be correlated in a simple way with families' characteristics," the authors write.
The report's authors also make the point that Americans appear to be reacting to the recession in a counterproductive way.
"[F]amilies' behavior may act in some ways as a brake on reviving the economy in the short run," the report says.
The data shows that Americans have increased their savings rate across the board, regardless of how they are weathering the storm. That means less money is being pumped into the economy.
