BRUSSELS — Just on the day EU leaders were hoping to present the final version of their plan to solve the region’s debt crisis, their summit in Brussels was overwhelmed Thursday by debate over Portugal’s political crisis and Ireland’s banking woes. The meeting was supposed to be the event where ...
BRUSSELS — Europe’s debt market jitters flared up again Wednesday as investors worried about the near-term fates of Portugal and Ireland, an ill omen on the eve of a summit where EU leaders plan to complete their crisis-fighting plan. Investors doubt the two countries, embroiled in financial crises that have ...
Montgomery County’s pension and retiree health accounts are facing a long-term shortfall of more than $4.8 billion, and officials repeatedly have pulled back from difficult decisions needed to close the gap. The pension programs for the county and the school system are underfunded by about $1.3 billion, and retiree health ...
NEW YORK — Citigroup Inc., one of the worst-hit banks during the financial crisis, is taking more steps to get back in the good graces of shareholders. The bank will reinstate a quarterly dividend, albeit just a penny per share, and reduce the amount of shares it has outstanding. This ...
IN COSTA MESA, CALIF. Nearly half the city workers in Costa Mesa received layoff notices last week. Street sweepers. Firefighters. Mechanics. Payroll clerks. Animal control workers. In all, about 210 of the city’s 472 employees, many of whom have worked there for decades. On Thursday, as the notices were being ...
The nation’s large banks have made major progress rebuilding capital levels that had been depleted during the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve said Friday, as it gave many of the firms the green light to pay dividends to their shareholders. Fed regulators applied a “stress test” to the 19 largest ...
BRUSSELS — Upcoming stress tests on banks will be harsher than last year’s, the European Union’s bank regulator said Friday, although important elements of the exercise deemed crucial to the region’s crisis strategy remain undecided. Last year’s tests were widely considered a failure after some banks passed, only to require ...
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Bahrain’s stock exchange and a few bank branches reopened Thursday, but business remained far from normal a day after soldiers and riot police overran an anti-government protest camp in the Gulf island kingdom. Shops and malls stayed shut in much of the capital, Manama. Soldiers, ...
Federal consumer bureau head Elizabeth Warren made no apologies Wednesday for the new agency’s involvement in ongoing settlement negotiations with some of the nation’s largest mortgage servicers, whose widespread flawed and fraudulent foreclosure practices drew national attention last fall. “If there had been a cop on the beat with the ...
The worsening nuclear crisis in Japan is triggering a near-collapse in that nation’s financial markets and major losses in markets around the globe. The Nikkei index of Japanese stocks fell 10.5 percent on Tuesday and is down 17.5 percent in the three trading days since the catastrophic earthquake in northern ...
LONDON — Japan’s devastating earthquake and tsunami may cost the global insurance industry as much as $60 billion, which would make the disaster the most expensive ever behind Hurricane Katrina, according to early estimates. Global insurance stocks took a hit on Monday as traders reacted to images of flattened towns ...
Emmett J. Rice, 91, a former World Bank official and member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and the father of Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, died March 10 at his home in Camas, Wash. He had congestive heart failure. Dr. Rice was a ...
WASHINGTON — Regulators on Friday shut down small banks in Oklahoma and Wisconsin, lifting to 25 the number of U.S. bank failures this year after economic distress and soaring loan defaults brought down 157 banks in 2010. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized First National Bank of Davis, with one ...
Fundamental changes are probably ahead for the American mortgage system as the federal government pushes to unwind its unprecedented involvement in the housing market. These changes could significantly raise the down payments demanded by lenders, curtail the availability of long-term mortgages with fixed interest rates, and increase the cost of ...
MADRID — Moody’s downgraded Spain’s credit rating on Thursday, citing worries over the cost of the banking sector’s restructuring, the government’s ability to achieve its borrowing reduction targets and grim economic growth prospects. The agency reduced Spain’s rating by one notch to Aa2 and warned that a further downgrade is ...
BRUSSELS — The European Union’s banking supervisor on Wednesday hit back at accusations that economic shock scenarios foreseen for this year’s bank stress tests are more lax than those of 2010. “The scenario of the 2011 EU-wide stress test is tough, and more severe than last year,” Andrea Enria, the ...
NEW YORK — Financial companies pushed stock indexes higher Tuesday on signs that large banks may soon raise their dividends. Bank of America Corp. rose 4.2 percent, the most of the 30 stocks that make up the Dow Jones industrial average, after analysts noted that the bank will likely increase ...
