Angelo R. Mozilo struggled last week to bid farewell to No. 1 home lender Countrywide Financial Corp., the company he led for 39 years only to see it toppled by misadventures in high-risk mortgages.
Jun. 30 - U.S. stocks ended the day mixed, with the Dow finishing the worst June since the Great Depression, with a loss of 10.2 percent for the month.
Beleaguered consumer bank Wachovia Corp. said Monday it will quit offering a mortgage payment option that allows borrowers to pay less each month than the bank charges in interest.
Tax preparer H&R Block Inc. says it swung to a fourth-quarter profit, helped by a record-setting tax season and the sale of its troubled mortgage arm.
The Kansas City-based company earned $543.6 million, or $1.67 per share, compared with a loss of $85.6 million, or 26 cents per share, during the same period a year ago.
Excluding discontinued operations, including its Option One Mortgage Corp. subsidiary, the company earned $2.11 per share.
H&R Block said revenue during the quarter rose 11 percent to $2.6 billion, helped by a 2.2 percent increase in customers using the company's offices to file their income tax returns.
Analysis by Bob Parker of Credit Suisse Asset Management; Stock, bonds slumps signal worse than '94 as inflation says '74; Analysis by Roger Nightingale of Pointon York
Stocks headed for a narrowly mixed open Monday as oil prices set a new trading record and investors awaited a regional manufacturing reading for hints about where the market might be headed after last week's steep sell-off.
Light, sweet crude traded above $143 per barrel for the first time early Monday before pulling back and changing hands up $2.08 at $142.29 in premarket electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Rising prices have weighed on stock markets worldwide because of worries that inflation will force consumers and businesses to pare spending and hurt economic activity. In the U.S., consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of economic activity so a sharp pullback would prove particularly damaging to the economy.
Oil prices surged above $143 a barrel for the first time ever Monday, as a weaker dollar spurred investors to seek refuge in dollar-denominated oil futures to hedge against inflation.
'The main factors behind the rise today are the U.S. dollar remains fragile and geopolitical tensions, particularly surrounding Iran,' said David Moore, a commodity strategist at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney. 'That's unsettling for the oil market.'
The European Central Bank may raise interest rates at its next meeting on Thursday, a move that would help strengthen the euro against the dollar, Moore said.
CHINA'S social security fund reported its investment returns jumped nearly six fold last year from a year earlier thanks to a then buoyant stock market.
Citigroup is planning to change its bonus system for senior managers to encourage different parts of the vast company to cooperate and help one another win business, a person familiar with the matter told ...
Stock markets look set for more losses after a dismal end to the second quarter as investor unease over the existing financial crisis reached new heights and oil surged to new record levels, putting even modest ...
Recent Comments