Grave business - my financial world

Confidence among U.S. consumers sank to a 26-year low in April as the labor market continued to deteriorate and gasoline prices rose.
The Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer sentiment decreased to 63.2 from 69.5 in March. The reading was below the lowest forecast in a Bloomberg News survey and the weakest since […]

The European Central Bank kept interest rates at a six-year high today to quell inflation, even as the euro's appreciation and a credit squeeze threaten to choke economic growth.
The Frankfurt-based ECB left its benchmark refinancing rate at 4 percent, as predicted by all 68 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. A weakening economy may […]

Federal Reserve officials signaled they will slow the pace of interest-rate cuts even as they concluded “some contraction in economic activity'' is likely.
Some Federal Open Market Committee members saw the danger of a “prolonged and severe downturn,'' according to minutes of its March 18 meeting released yesterday. Still, “monetary policy alone could not […]

Russia has one of the fastest-growing pharmaceutical markets in the world, but for foreign companies it’s frustrating and filled with risks.
American drugmakers like Pfizer (PFE, Fortune 500) and European companies like Sanofi-Aventis (SNY), Roche and Novartis (NVS) are finding a hot market where rich Muscovites and their private insurers pay some of the highest […]

Beleaguered cell phone maker Motorola Inc. said Thursday that it is laying off another 2,600 workers, bringing the company’s total employee cuts to more than 10,000 since last year.
Motorola (MOT, Fortune 500) will take a pretax charge of about $104 million in the first quarter for severance costs from the new layoffs, the company […]

U.S. banks hold enough reserve capital to weather financial market turmoil, and the central bank's interest-rate cuts will promote economic growth, Federal Reserve Governor Randall Kroszner said.
“Although the U.S. banking system will continue to face a challenging environment, it remains in sound overall condition, having entered the period of recent financial turmoil with […]

A pet food maker whose contaminated product may have led to the deaths of thousands of dogs and cats in North America has agreed to settle lawsuits with pet owners in the United States and Canada.
Streetsville, Ontario-based Menu Foods Income Fund announced the tentative settlements Tuesday.
"It’s a comprehensive settlement," said Amy W. Schulman, a […]

The Asian Development Bank lowered its economic growth forecasts for the region as a global slowdown weighs on exports and expansions in China and India cool.
Asia excluding Japan is predicted to expand 7.6 percent this year, less than a September estimate of 8.2 percent, the Manila-based institution said in a report today. The […]