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Consumer Spending Posts Better-Than-Expected Gain While Inflation Eases WASHINGTON (AP) -- Consumers shrugged off a rash of bad news to spend more than expected in August while a key measure of inflation eased to the slowest pace in 3 1/2 years. The Commerce Department reported Friday that consumer spending rose by 0.6 percent in August, the best showing in four months and better than the 0.4 percent increase that had been expected. Incomes rose by 0.3 percent last month, slightly lower than had been expected. A closely watched gauge of inflation was up just 1.8 percent in August, compared to...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The bullhorn message from the government to mortgage lenders has been: Bend. Do what you can to help struggling homeowners. The message to troubled homeowners has been: Call your lender. You may be able to work something out. Despite the persistent blare, there is not a whole lotta "loan modifying" going on yet. A survey by Moody's found that most loan servicers this year had modified only about 1 percent of their adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) that had reset to higher rates by the end of July. At the Consumer Credit Counseling Service (CCCS) of San Francisco,...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Demand for big-ticket manufactured goods plunged in August by the largest amount in seven months, with widespread weakness signaling a slowdown in the nation's industrial sector. The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that orders for durable goods, everything from commercial jetliners to home appliances, fell by 4.9 percent in August, the biggest decline since a 6.1 percent fall in January. It was far larger than the 3.5 percent drop that economists had been expecting and resulted from across-the-board decreases in a number of categories. The concern is that the steep downturn in housing and turbulence in financial markets...

September 25, 2007 -- A BIG-mouthed extra working on the new "Indiana Jones" flick has blown his fledgling movie career to smithereens by spilling the film's major plot points. Director Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas made the entire cast and crew of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" sign nondisclosure agreements. But Tyler Nelson - cast as a "dancing Russian soldier" - gave an interview to his hometown newspaper, the Edmond Sun in Oklahoma, in which he revealed that: * Indy, played once again by Harrison Ford, and the Soviet army are both searching for a...

In the face of the rate cuts by the Federal Reserve yesterday, long-term bonds are collapsing. The bond market views the rate cuts as highly inflationary.

NEW YORK - U.S. home prices fell 3.2 percent in the second quarter, the steepest rate of decline since Standard & Poor's began its nationwide housing index in 1987, the group said Tuesday. The decline in home prices around the nation shows no evidence of a market recovery anytime soon. MacroMarkets LLC Chief Economist Robert Shiller said the declining residential real estate market "shows no signs of slowing down." The index tracks the price trends among existing single-family homes across the nation compared with a year earlier .

<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Countrywide Financial Corp Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo said on Thursday the U.S. housing downturn is likely to lead the country into recession, but that the largest U.S. mortgage lender will survive.</p> <p>In an interview, Mozilo also said that to promote liquidity, the U.S. Federal Reserve should cut the rate it charges banks to borrow.</p>

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- In a clear sign that the credit crunch is still affecting the nation's largest financial institutions, the Federal Reserve agreed this week to bend key banking regulations to help out Citigroup (Charts, Fortune 500) and Bank of America (Charts, Fortune 500), according to documents posted Friday on the Fed's web site. The Aug. 20 letters from the Fed to Citigroup and Bank of America state that the Fed, which regulates large parts of the U.S. financial system, has agreed to exempt both banks from rules that effectively limit the amount of lending that their federally-insured banks...

NEW YORK - Bad credit has supplanted terrorism as the gravest immediate risk threatening the economy, a key national research group reported Monday. Borrowers' withering ability to pay their bills and the subsequent fallout in the credit markets this summer topped the list of short-term risks on peoples' minds, according to a survey of 258 members conducted by the National Association of Business Economics. NABE, a Washington-based association, said 32 percent of its surveyed members cited loan defaults and excessive debt as their biggest near-term concern. Only 20 percent of members cited defense and terrorism as their biggest immediate worry,...

Subprime-battered mortgage lenders are shutting down, fewer homes are being built, and even some of the big U.S. retailers are planning conservatively for Christmas holiday sales. It will take a few months to show up in the economic data that Wall Street and the Federal Reserve watch, but the slowing U.S. economy is hitting the job market, and economists say it is only a matter of time before unemployment ticks up. "Growth is skimming along at around 2 percent, and that is not strong enough to keep the unemployment rate from rising," said Brian Bethune, U.S. economist with Global Insight...

Until a few months ago, it seemed that anyone who could fog up a mirror could get a mortgage. Now, with a credit crisis roiling the industry, some consumers might think they have a better chance winning the lottery than finding a home loan. The truth is that you can still get a mortgage. It just may not be as easy--or as cheap--as it was over the past few years. "If you have good credit, can document your income and have money for a downpayment, it’s largely business as usual," says Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com. Borrowers seeking...

Countrywide CEO: Mortgage Crisis Persists Despite BofA Stake Topics:Subprime Lending | Mergers & Acquisitions | Banking | Mortgages Companies:Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc | Countrywide Financial Corp | Bank of America CorpBy CNBC.com | 23 Aug 2007 | 01:31 PM ET Font size: The chief executive of Countrywide Financial told CNBC that Bank of America's $2 billion investment in the struggling mortgage lender was a "priceless endorsement" for Countrywide but said the crisis in the housing and mortgage markets isn't getting any better. "It's a great endorsement of Countrywide," CEO Angelo Mozilo told Maria Bartiromo in an exclusive interview. "It's important...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Jennifer Falke and her family had been in their Columbus, Ohio home for nearly 12 years when they hit a rough patch in 2006. Falke was out of work and fell behind on the mortgage. Falke said a flood of mailings and flyers then arrived at her door promising help from foreclosure rescue companies claiming to act as an intermediary between her and her lender to keep her from losing her home. According to Falke, the company she contacted, Foreclosure Assistance Solutions (FAS), simply took her money and did nothing for her. And by delaying a...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The chairman of the Senate Banking Committee is urging the Bush administration to push through changes in a federal housing program that he says could help save troubled borrowers from foreclosure on their homes. In a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson, Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said the U.S. is experiencing record foreclosures and that it's "essential" that the Federal Housing Administration act to preserve homeownership for as many Americans as possible. The administration is studying the idea of allowing the agency to refinance troubled loans, something it's not...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Ford CEO Alan Mulally became the latest high-profile business executive to suggest that the Federal Reserve needs to cut interest rates, according to a report published Friday. Noting that credit conditions were posing a "big headwind" to the company's turnaround plan, Mulally told the Financial Times he is concerned about the state of the larger economy. Next victim of mortgage mess: Auto sales Video More video Fortune's Sue Callaway reviews and compares the Audi S4 and the BMW M5. Play video "It is a really important job to manage inflation and economic growth [but] focusing on...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Sales of new home increased 2.8% in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 870,000 as the inventory of homes for sale dropped for a fourth straight month, the Commerce Department estimated Friday. Sales were stronger than the 820,000 annualized pace expected by economists surveyed by MarketWatch. See Economic Calendar. In addition, sales in June were revised slightly higher. Sales are down 10.2% compared with last July. Read the full report. Stocks turned higher after the report was released. See Market Snapshot. Inventories of unsold homes fell about 1% to 533,000, the fourth consecutive decline. At...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- In another sign of how dire the subprime mess has become, mortgage lenders shed about 18,000 jobs this month, according to one estimate. But while the crisis has been largely contained to mortgage lenders and financial services firms, some economists see subprime-related labor trouble spreading to other parts of the economy in the months ahead. The number of casualties has already been significant. The collapse of New York-based American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. earlier this month resulted in the loss of nearly 7,000 jobs. On Wednesday, Accredited Home Lenders (up $0.14 to $6.24, Charts) said it...

CHARLOTTE, N.C - At the North Carolina offices of mortgage lender HomeBanc Corp., Archie Clark is the only employee left. But in a few days, he’ll be gone, too. “It’s pretty much a ghost town over there,” Clark said. “Somebody went in and took the furniture from the lobby. I don’t know who did that. I put some of the other stuff in the back and locked it up.” When Clark finishes helping movers from the company’s Atlanta headquarters collect computers and other property, he’ll join the more than 25,000 workers nationwide who have lost jobs in the financial services...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Tens of thousands of frightened homeowners looking to get out from under the crumbling walls of the subprime mortgage collapse have found refuge in a variety of programs. When Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd mentioned the national Homeowner's HOPE Hotline in comments Tuesday, it triggered some 3,000 calls. An announcement in April that the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America would be offering $1 billion in rescue money to beleaguered borrowers has prompted more than 50,000 inquiries, according to the organization. And in Ohio, New York, Massachusetts, Maryland and other states, distressed mortgage holders are clamoring...

The Fed hit the market with a surprise 50-basis-point discount rate cut that caught many traders leaning the wrong way Friday. The rate cut came in response to the subprime crisis and is giving the credit markets the one thing that they need the most, liquidity. Options House Zecco.com Fidelity Investments Charles Schwab E*TRADE FINANCIAL TD AMERITRADE The Fed is hoping that by injecting liquidity into the credit markets, it can avert a meltdown of the financial system. If the Fed has to take further action in response to the subprime crisis and continue pouring in liquidity, we may see...

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- A prolonged U.S. housing slump is causing a surge in the number of job losses announced by U.S. financial services companies, consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. said Tuesday. The financial industry has announced 87,962 job cuts so far this year, 75 percent more than the total of 50,327 in all of 2006. Of this year's cuts, 41 percent related to troubles in the mortgage market, including riskier subprime mortgages, Challenger said. In August alone, there have been 20,957 announced job cuts, including 11,040 since Friday, Challenger said. Since Friday, Bear Stearns Cos Inc. (up...

(Fortune Magazine) -- What could the collapse in the subprime mortgage market possibly have to do with whether Dr. Jeffrey and Madeline Stier get full price for their four-bedroom house in the wealthy New York City suburb of Larchmont? Not much, you would think. After all, the people who live in Larchmont tend to be lawyers, doctors, and Wall Streeters. Generally speaking, they aren't the credit-challenged borrowers who must resort to subprime mortgages to finance their homes. Reduced: The asking price for this house in affluent Larchmont, N.Y., was recently reduced from $2.5 million to $1.99 million. More from FORTUNE...

LONDON (CNNMoney.com) -- Job cuts have begun at Bear Stearns and that could mark the start of a broader wave of layoffs across Wall Street as firms survey the damage caused by the recent downturn in financial markets. Some 240 employees at a Bear Stearns lending unit were laid off Wednesday, according to a company spokesperson. Video More video Carlos Slim: World's Richest Man Play video The pink slips come a little more than a month after two of the firm's hedge funds blew up, ultimately costing Bear Stearns co-president Warren Spector his job. The meltdown in financial markets is...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Earlier this year, a Wisconsin couple won a judgment against Chevy Chase Bank that said the bank deceived them over the terms of their mortgage. The judge ordered Chevy Chase to rescind the loan and certified the lawsuit as class-action, which could potentially release thousands of other borrowers who felt misled. Current Mortgage Rates Type Overall avgs 30 yr fixed mtg 6.24% 15 yr fixed mtg 5.89% 30 yr fixed jumbo mtg 7.08% 5/1 ARM 6.11% 5/1 jumbo ARM 6.57% Find personalized rates: Video More video Tim Hughes of the IG Index joins CNN to talk...

(Fortune Magazine) -- For the past five years risk has been the invisible man on Wall Street. Banks, hedge funds, and lenders behaved as if home prices always rise, borrowers never miss a payment, and companies never blunder into bankruptcy. Now a crisis of confidence that began with subprime mortgage defaults is sweeping the Street, and risk is invisible no more. Banks are wobbling, markets are quaking, and ordinary investors are wondering how badly they'll be hurt. Risk, as always, will exact its revenge. Subscribe to Fortune The Usual Suspects Behind the latest blowups are some of the same faces...

SAN FRANICSCO (MarketWatch) -- Countrywide Financial Corp., reducing costs as part of its effort to weather a credit crunch, has begun laying off employees involved in originating loans, according to a media report Sunday. The email, sent to employees Friday by a Full Spectrum senior official, discussed layoffs made that day but didn't specify the number, the Journal reported.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Housing starts and permits both fell to the lowest levels in more than a decade, as the latest reading on the battered housing and home building markets both came in below expectations Thursday. Housing starts fell to an annual rate of 1.38 million in July from a revised 1.47 million rate in June. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast starts would fall to a 1.41 million pace in June. Housing starts and permits are at the lowest level in more than a decade. The latest reading is the lowest level of starts since January 1997. Building...

1. VMware IPO Debut Dazzles 2. Thornburg Postpones Dividend 3. Top 10 Potential Takeover Targets 4. The Top Buffett Value Stocks 5. The House That Won't Sell: Walk Away? Fidelity Investments E*TRADE FINANCIAL TD AMERITRADE Options House Zecco.com Charles Schwab The run on Countrywide (CFC - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr - Rating) stock intensified Thursday morning after the struggling mortgage lender said it drew down its $11.5 billion unsecured bank credit line. The Calabasas, Calif., lender said it made the move as it "supplemented its funding liquidity position." The announcement came just a day after Merrill Lynch cut its rating...

The Federal Reserve is playing a tricky hand as calls for an emergency rate cut get louder after another day of significant stock market losses. Through its open market activities, the Fed has virtually cut the fed funds rate already, but officially left the target rate steady at 5.25%. "The target funds rate is meaningless for the time being," says James Bianco, president of Bianco Research. The Fed has injected enough liquidity into the banking system to bring the effective fed funds rate, or the rate that banks lend to each other, below 5% for three days now. This average...

LONDON (CNNMoney.com) -- Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the current turmoil in financial markets will slow economic growth but should not spark a recession, according to a report published Thursday. Paulson told the Wall Street Journal that the turmoil "will extract a penalty on the growth rate" of the U.S. economy, but that "the economy and the markets are strong enough to absorb the losses" without triggering a recession. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson expects the current market turmoil will slow U.S. economic growth, but he doesn't see a recession occurring. Paulson, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs (Charts, Fortune 500),...

Stocks dropped sharply in Asia and sold off in Europe as well as the U.S. credit crunch continues to worry investors. 1. VMware IPO Debut Dazzles 2. Thornburg Postpones Dividend 3. Top 10 Potential Takeover Targets 4. The Top Buffett Value Stocks 5. The House That Won't Sell: Walk Away? TD AMERITRADE Charles Schwab Zecco.com Fidelity Investments E*TRADE FINANCIAL Options House Japan's Nikkei dropped 2% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng gave up 3.3%, and those were some of the smaller drops. Stocks dropped 6.9% in Seoul, 5.9% in Jakarta, 4.6% in Taipei and 4.3% in Mumbai. Even China's highflying Shanghai...

Stocks were having another back and forth session Wednesday, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped under 13,000 for the first time in four months, as continuing credit market jitters kept the market on edge. After recovering from an early swoon to rise by as many as 90 points, the Dow gave back all of those gains and more, and was recently down 130 points at 12,899. The index last closed below the 13,000 mark on April 24. Elsewhere, the S&P 500 was losing 13 points at 1413, and the Nasdaq Composite was sliding 26 points to 2473. The action...

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Shares of Countrywide Financial Corp. dropped as much as 19 percent Wednesday on market rumors the mortgage company has been unable to raise money from the commercial paper market. Countrywide officials were not immediately available for comment. "People are buying Countrywide puts very aggressively on Wednesday off of rumors that the commercial paper market could be closed to them," said William Lefkowitz, options strategist at brokerage firm vFinance Investments. Puts are options that allow an investor to sell a stock at a preset price by a certain date. Another trader attributed the drop in the stock...

SAN FRANCISCO - When Linda Martin refinanced the mortgages on three different houses nearly three years ago, she thought the lower monthly payments would help her save more money for retirement. Instead, the Lakewood, Colo. skin-care specialist is sinking in financial quicksand amid a widening mortgage morass that’s pulling down home prices and threatening to drag the U.S. economy into a recession. “I’m hanging on by a thread, not knowing whether I am going to be living in a car in six months,” said Martin, who declined to reveal her age. Martin is among the hundreds of thousands of borrowers...

Accredited Home Lenders (LEND - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr - Rating) sued Lone Star in a bid to force the firm to complete its $400 million buyout of Accredited. San Diego-based Accredited said Lone Star indicated in a filing with regulators that it doesn't expect to complete its purchase of Accredited, based on the assumption that Accredited won't be able to satisfy conditions to the closing. Accredited said it believes all conditions to closing have been satisfied and said it sued "to hold Lone Star to its obligations, and to hold it fully responsible for any damages caused by its...

LONDON (Reuters) -- Big-money institutional investors have turned more risk averse than at any time since August last year, taking positions they typically do not reverse quickly, State Street data showed Friday. The U.S. financial services firm said its clients, who keep some $13.04 trillion with it as a custodian, have moved into what it called a "safety first" regime. More markets news... European stocks in the red for '07 European banks to inject more cash America's most dangerous jobs Video More video Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs International Bob Hormats gives his analysis of the global credit crunch. Play...

Aug. 9: Growing problems in the housing and mortgage markets are putting pressure on borrowers who are trying to sell before losing their homes. Some are even walking away from mortgages. NBC's Josh Mankiewicz reports. Full story

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NEW YORK - The dream of owning a home is fading away for many Americans with less than stellar credit. On Tuesday HomeBanc Corp. said it will not issue any more loans, and Impac Mortgage Holdings Inc. shut down a type of loan called “alt-A” for people with limited documentation or slight credit issues. That followed bankruptcies for two of the country’s biggest home lenders — American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. and New Century Financial Corp. — and tighter terms at most other lenders that are thus far surviving a shakeout in the industry. “Every day I hear about a...

“They’re pulling themselves out of the market to regroup,” is what one of my mortgage broker buddies told me on the phone this morning when I asked how in the heck Wells Fargo Wells Fargo & CoWFC could raise rates on a 30-year jumbo fixed rate mortgage from 6 7/8% to 8% overnight. A jumbo is anything over $417,000, and given today’s home prices, that’s going to hit an awful lot of borrowers. So, since Bank of America Bank of America CorpBAC and others are still at the old rate, no borrower in their right mind would go to Wells...

Diversification -- not putting all one's eggs in the same basket -- has long been a mainstay of investing safely. But it works only so long as all the baskets don't tumble at once. In recent weeks, assets around the world have fallen in lockstep. Stocks, corporate bonds, emerging-market debt and a host of derivatives backed by mortgages and other types of borrowing have been hit hard. Even commodities such as gold and other metals, which investors turn to precisely because their prices typically don't move in sync with other assets, dropped along with everything else in late July. The...

"If every CDO [manager] was forced to mark to market their subprime holdings, it would be - well, I can't think of a strong enough word to describe what it would be," US policymaker quoted in ft.com June 28, 2007 Thomas Midgley Jr. is not a name well known to those in the world of finance. But Midgley shares a distinction with a name the paper boys do know well-Drexel Burnham Lambert-the US investment bank that sold billions of dollars of junk bonds to investors which turned out to be, after all, junk. Midgley's fame came from inventing leaded gasoline-which...

ULY 23, 2007 -- Lawmakers and watchdogs are ringing the alarm on domestic carriers' use of foreign repair stations for aircraft maintenance and repairs. A U.S. Department of Transportation Inspector General report released last month said airlines increasingly are outsourcing aircraft maintenance, and gaps remain in Federal Aviation Administration supervision of some repair stations that they use. "We have emphasized that the issue is not where maintenance is performed, but that maintenance requires effective oversight," DOT Inspector General Calvin Scovel III said in the report. Based on a review of 19 U.S.-based carriers' maintenance vendor lists, the Inspector General found...

WASHINGTON - A standoff in the Senate on Wednesday seemed to doom $3 billion in widely backed funds aimed at gaining control over the porous U.S.-Mexico border. It started with an end-run by Republicans to pass some of the most popular elements of President Bush's failed immigration bill, including a plan to increase security along the southern border. Democrats liked the money but objected to such GOP proposals as allowing law enforcement officers to question people about their immigration status and cracking down on those who overstay their visas. The move put political pressure on Senate Democrats. They killed Sen....

Existing Home Sales Drop to 4-Year Low MoneyNews Friday, May 25, 2007 WASHINGTON -- Sales of existing homes fell by a larger-than-expected amount in April while the median price of a home sold during the month fell for a ninth straight month as the troubles in the subprime mortgage market acted as a further drag on housing. The National Association of Realtors reported Friday that sales of existing homes fell by 2.6 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.99 million units. That was the slowest sales pace since June 2003. The median price of a home...

April New Home Sales Post Highest Monthly Gain in 14 Years WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sales of new homes surged in April by the biggest amount in 14 years, but the median price of a new home dropped by the largest amount on record. The mixed signals left no clear picture of whether the worst of the nation's housing slump is over. The Commerce Department reported that sales of new single-family homes jumped by 16.2 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 981,000 units. That was far better than the tiny 0.2 percent gain that economists had been...

OTTAWA–Fearing the effects of forest fires and tree-destroying insect infestations, the federal government has decided against using Canada's forests in the calculations for totalling up the country's greenhouse-gas emissions. Instead of forests being used as a credit to offset other emissions, the government is now afraid that including forests in the formula could drive up Canada's climate-change burden. Government scientists made the call after learning of the damage that could come to forests from 2008 to 2012 and realizing the forests could become another source of emissions, pushing Canada even further from its Kyoto targets. In addition to destroying trees,...

New Century, the largest independent U.S subprime mortgage lender, has officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection...

John Edwards: March 13th Bennett College Rally at Bennett College with Presidential Candidate John Edwards, March 13th 2007. Edwards on Skipping Fox News Debate: 'I saw absolutely no reason to give Fox a special platform especially given their history on how they treat Democrats and Democrat Presidential candidates' Edwards on Global Warming: 'This is an emergency' 'It's a frightening thing' 'It'll make world war look like heaven'

VietNamNet Bridge – A Vatican delegation led by Monsignor Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Under-Secretary of State for Relations with States, paid a working visit to Vietnam from March 5 to March 11. The Vatican representatives' annual working visit was made following the approval of Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung. During the visit, the Vatican dignitaries held working sessions with a Vietnamese delegation headed by Nguyen The Doanh, Vice Head of the Government Committee for Religious Affairs. The Vietnamese delegation was accompanied by officials from the Foreign Ministry. At these working sessions, the Vietnamese side introduced to the Vatican representatives the...