With the way the market has been moving violently lower the past couple of week, the Federal Reserve announced today it was lowering its key federal funds rate by half of a percentage point, down to 1.5%. It lowered the discount rate by the same amount, down to 1.75%. The Fed stated that economic growth had slowed "markedly in recent months," and that the cut was necessary. Futures are trading higher this ...

Despite surging food prices, inflation was actually a bit lower in April than the 0.3% inflation that we saw back in March. According to the Labor Department, inflation moved up 0.2% in April, which was slightly under the 0.3% inflation in March. Analysts had been expecting to see inflation rise by 0.3% again in April. If you exclude food and energy costs, then you are left with a core inflation, which was ...

With all the concerns that we have been hearing about a possible recession this year, it was good to see that the U.S. economy did grow during the first quarter, even if it was just bit a small amount. According to a report from the Commerce Department today, the economy grew at 0.6% during the first quarter of the year. That is the same growth that we saw in the last ...

March was another tough month for employees, as recession fears in America led to 80,000 jobs being slashed across the country. Looking at total unemployment, the unemployment rate for the country rose from 4.8% up to 5.1%. This could be one of the biggest signals that the country has already been contracting. This is the highest rate that the country has seen since back in September 2005 when the country was ...

This morning we were seeing the markets in the red, but they were given a bit of relief following Fed Chaiman Ben Bernanke's testimony to Congress today. Ironically, it was Bernanke himself that had initially put the markets into the red when he stated that there was a decent chance that the U.S. economy would contract during the first half of this year. With all the recession rumors and fears floating ...

The bad news for the US dollar just keeps on coming. The American greenback set yet another record low today as the euro moved up to a high of $1.4966 earlier in the day, breaking yesterday's record of $1.4873. The dollar also fell to a new two and a half year low against the yen in Asian trading, as the yen fell to under 108. Traders are continuing to worry about the ...

Oil prices have traded as high as $99.29 earlier today and are looking as though they are ready to finally break through the $100 barrier. Prices are being driven by supply concerns and expectations that the FED will be cutting interest rates again at its next meeting. Later this morning the US Energy Department is going to be releasing last week's inventory numbers and we will get a better picture of ...

Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has decided to state the obvious today... the U.S. economy is going through a tough time. Is this the same Bernanke that has been saying all year that the subprime mortgage crisis has been contained? Well, thanks for confirming what most of us already knew... record high oil prices and the severe housing slump are going to weigh on the American economy, and that an economic ...