Business Highlights
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen cautioned Thursday that global economic pressures pose risks to the U.S. economy but said it's too soon to know whether those risks are severe enough to alter the Fed's interest-rate policies.
The virus often produces either no symptoms or mild ones like fever in adults, but an outbreak in Brazil has been linked to a rare birth defect that causes a newborn's heads to be smaller and brain development issues.
France's Societe Generale became Thursday the latest bank to issue a confidence-shattering profit warning, which helped trigger a new sell-off in financial stocks.
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Morgan Stanley will pay $3.2 billion in a settlement over bank practices that contributed to the 2008 financial crisis, including misrepresentations about the value of mortgage-backed securities, authorities announced Thursday.
The nationwide settlement, negotiated by the working group appointed by President Barack Obama in 2012, says the bank acknowledges that it increased the acceptable risk levels for mortgage loans pooled and sold to investors without telling them.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Fewer Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week in a sign of a stable job market despite the slowing global economy hitting stocks and commodities.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Average long-term U.S. mortgage rates fell this week for the sixth straight week as markets around the globe continued the whipsaw trading that has marked this year so far.
Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday the average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropped to 3.65 percent this week, down from 3.72 percent last week and close to its low point last year of 3.59 percent.
The maker of Frito-Lay chips and Tropicana juice has been retooling its product lineup and rethinking pricing to fetch more money from shoppers.
The focus on finding novel ways to extract more money from shoppers comes as major p