Retail experts are predicting one of the most dismal holiday shopping seasons in decades this year – a crucial stretch that will set the stage for poor retail sales throughout 2009.

By grabbing $26 billion in private pension money last month, Argentina may have put itself on track for its second debt default in a decade – ironically, the very situation that country’s government had hoped its bit of leisure-fund larceny had hoped to avoid.

Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) set a U.S. profit record today (Thursday) when it announced its third quarter profit topped $14.8 billion on record-high oil prices.

Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS) shares more than doubled yesterday (Wednesday) after Singapore’s government pledged support for the completion of a local $4 billion casino project.

U.S. equities rallied yesterday (Tuesday) as the U.S. Federal Reserve convened for the first day of a two-day meeting of its monetary policy committee.

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.”

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U.S. markets tumbled Friday as a global sell-off spread from Asia and Europe, as fears of a worldwide recession intensified.

It takes more than a globally competitive economy to have a sound banking system. For the third straight year, the United States finds itself at the top of the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), published by the World Economic Forum (WEF) as part of its annual Global Competitiveness Report.

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 U.S. Federal Reserve yesterday (Tuesday) announced a new program that will provide as much as $600 million in emergency funding to money-market funds should the ongoing global financial crisis once again cause the short-term credit markets to freeze out borrowers.