Stocks News

The New York City medical examiner's office says actress Natasha Richardson died of blunt impact to the head.

A sign advertising a 30-year fixed rate mortgage of 4.875% is displayed at the entrance of a Northeast Bank branch office, Thursday, March 19, 2009, in Brunswick, Maine.

Citigroup Inc. is considering a reverse stock split - a move that wouldn't actually increase value for shareholders, but would bump up the share price.

NEW YORK The dollar fell against other major currencies again Thursday, a day after the Federal Reserve announced it would start buying up to $300 billion in long-term government bonds.

An interview with Marc Chandler of Brown Brothers Harriman talking about the dollar.

OTTAWA a ' Foreign investors increased their purchases of Canadian securities in January after two months of declines, resulting it total acquisitions of $10.4-billion, largely in the form of debt and money-market instruments, Statistics Canada reported Thursday.

General Electric Co. said Thursday it expects its struggling finance unit to be profitable in the first quarter of 2009 and for the full year.

The U.S. dollar nursed big losses on Thursday and Asian government bonds rallied after the Federal Reserve vowed to buy long-dated U.S. Treasuries, reviving a practice not used in decades to revive an ailing economy.

With the country sinking deeper into recession, the Federal Reserve launched a bold $1.2 trillion effort Wednesday to lower rates on mortgages and other consumer debt, spur spending and revive the economy.

To do so, the Fed will spend up to $300 billion to buy long-term government bonds and an additional $750 billion in mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues wrapped a two-day meeting by leaving a key short-term bank lending rate at a record low of between zero and 0.25 percent. Economists predict the Fed will hold the rate in that zone for the rest of this year and for most _ if not all _ of next year.

Oil rose 2 percent to above $49 a barrel on Thursday, after a surprise move by the Federal Reserve to buy government bonds on a large scale revived hopes the battered U.S. economy could soon begin its recovery.