WASHINGTON — Over the past year, the world economy has withstood the combined shocks of high interest rates and a war in Ukraine better than just about anyone expected. The International Monetary Fund, among other agencies, has upgraded its economic forecast for 2022. Europe has defied ...
Well, it was nice while it lasted. For nearly a year, the average used vehicle in the United States had been edging toward affordable again for millions of people. The relief felt belated and relatively slight, but it was welcome nonetheless. From an eye-watering peak of $31,400 in April ...
The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate inched down this week to its lowest level in six weeks, just as the spring buying season gets underway. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac reported Thursday that the average on the benchmark 30-year rate fell for the third straight week, to 6.32%, from 6.42% ...
Depositors have accelerated withdrawals amid recent bank failures and sharply rising interest rates, raising concerns about the industry’s health and ability to withstand a crisis, experts says. Bank deposits fell by nearly $720 billion between the second and fourth quarters of 2022, leaving banks’ cash assets at their lowest levels in more than two years earlier this month. Banks have been slow to pass along better interest rates on traditional accounts to consumers, prompting a shift to money market funds, government bonds or other more lucrative investments. A new $300 billion ...
NEW YORK — Banks will need to start reporting the demographics and income of small business loan applicants under new rules published by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Thursday. It’s a move that policymakers hope will lead to less discrimination and more transparency in the small business lending market, similar to how other laws have regulated the residential mortgage market for decades. Under the Dodd-Frank Act, Congress mandated the bureau to start collecting data on small business lending decisions to look for patterns of discrimination. Implementation of the ...
SAN FRANCISCO — The buzz surrounding artificial intelligence and the mass layoffs roiling the technology industry resonates with Ginni Rometty, whose nearly 40-year career at IBM culminated in her becoming CEO in 2012. Just before Rometty became IBM’s first woman CEO, the company’s AI-powered computer Watson outwitted two of the most successful contestants in the history of the game show “Jeopardy!” Rometty, 65, also had to occasionally jettison employees in an extension of cost-cutting layoffs that began in the 1990s as IBM adjusted to waves of technological upheaval that ...
