GMAC Files to Become a Bank; Unemployment Nears 26-Year High; Mogul Signals Interest in Circuit City; Banco do Brasil Buying Out Rival; Crude Continues Slide; JPMorgan Cuts 3,000 jobs; Stock Market Craters.
Print media companies are moving more and more content online. And shedding staff in the process. Lynn Carpenter says investors should stay clear of newspaper stocks.
In the depths of a bear market that has carved between $500 billion and $2 trillion from U.S. retirement accounts so far this year, as many as two-thirds of all Americans have stopped contributing to their retirement plans, a new study shows.
And that’s precisely the wrong decision to make at the wrong time. No matter how poorly the financial markets are performing, saving for retirement has to remain a top priority.
“It’s not a time for people to stop contributing,” Diane Young, director of retirement and goal planning at TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. (AMTD), the Omaha, Neb.-based brokerage firm that conducted the retirement study, said in an interview with Bloomberg News. “Because time is money, it’s important to stay on track.”
According…
Foreclosures continue to plague the U.S. housing market, but government agencies are working to develop a plan to aid struggling homeowners, and in turn, strengthen the U.S. economy.
The US economy still shed jobs in April — 20,000 of them — but the losses were less than in March. (Twenty thousand Americans loosing their jobs is, apparently, a reason to be optimistic.)
This from the AP news wire:
Employers cut far fewer jobs in April than in recent months and the unemployment rate dropped to 5 percent, a better-than-expected showing that nonetheless reveals strains in the nation’s labor market.
The US economy is on the ropes but it’s not in recession, according to Commerce Department data on growth from January to March.
This from the AP news wire:
The country’s economic growth during January through March was the same as in the final three months of last year, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. The statistic did not meet what economists consider a definition of a recession, which is a contraction of the economy.
According to AP, fears of a deep recession “drove Federal Reserve policymakers to slash a key interest rate last month, meeting minutes show.”