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Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said elevated unemployment and subdued inflation mean interest rates are likely to stay low, without offering any sign that the economy needs an additional monetary boost. Bernanke, in testimony to lawmakers yesterday in Washington, described “positive developments” in the job market while saying it’s still “far from normal.” He [...]

The number of Americans filing first- time claims for unemployment insurance payments unexpectedly declined last week, indicating the labor market recovery is gaining traction. Applications for jobless benefits decreased 15,000 in the week ended Feb. 4 to 358,000, Labor Department figures showed today. Economists forecast 370,000 claims, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg [...]

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday renewed a pledge to prevent Europe’s financial crisis from damaging the U.S. economy in testimony before Congress that mirrored remarks he made last week. “We are in frequent contact with European authorities, and we will continue to monitor the situation closely and take every available step to protect [...]

President Barack Obama, offering an election-year prescription to spur the economy, said the wealthiest Americans should pay more taxes in the name of fairness, to bring down the deficit and ensure those trying to make ends meet don’t have to “make up the difference.”

After months of dire predictions for the U.S. economy, including warnings of a new recession, forecasters are singing a different tune. Projections for an extremely weak third-quarter have been shredded and replaced with a fairly upbeat assessment of the quarter that just closed last month. Economists say they put too much stock in the sharp [...]

U.S. stocks retreated, following the biggest weekly drop in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index since 2008, amid concern that a downgrade of the nation’s credit rating by S&P may worsen an economic slowdown. Bank of America Corp. (BAC) and Citigroup Inc. (C) slumped at least 5.4 percent, pacing losses in financial shares. Exxon Mobil [...]

House Speaker John Boehner often attacks the spendthrift ways of Washington. “In Washington, more spending and more debt is business as usual,” the Republican leader from Ohio said in a televised address yesterday amid debate over the U.S. debt. “I’ve got news for Washington – those days are over.” Yet the speaker, House Majority Leader [...]

U.S. stock-index futures climbed as Ford Motor Co. reported profit that beat analysts’ projections, while Baidu Inc. and Broadcom Corp. forecast better-than- estimated sales. Ford, the second-largest U.S. carmaker, increased 2.4 percent. Baidu, the owner of China’s most popular Internet search engine, and Broadcom, the supplier of communications chips for Apple Inc.’s mobile devices, soared [...]

Moody’s Rating Agency on Wednesday placed the U.S. triple-A rating on review for a downgrade in the coming weeks on mounting concern that lawmakers will fail to raise the debt limit. But one independent rating agency is going even further. “The Weiss ratings is very close to downgrading the sovereign debt of the United States [...]