Economic News

A slump in sales of new cars saw US retail sales fall 0.1% in June, according to government figures. The Commerce Department data surprised analysts who had expected a 0.4% climb in month-on-month sales. However, when sales from the volatile auto sector were stripped out, sales actually rose 0.3%. Surging fuel costs, as a result of global oil prices, and worries about interest rate rises have seen shoppers being more cautious with their cash. The figure was an indication that petrol prices w ...

HONG KONG (Dow Jones) -- The Bank of Japan's policy board raised its key interest rate by a quarter percentage point to 0.25% Friday, ending the nation's five-year policy of keeping rates near zero percent. In addition to tightening the overnight call rate, the central bank also opted to boost the official discount rate, or the interest rate banks charge each other in the interbank market, to 0 ...

BANGKOK (Dow Jones) -- Bank of Japan Governor Toshihiko Fukui said Friday that a 0.25% increase in the overnight call rate announced earlier in the day would not be the start of consecutive hikes, and promised to keep a close eye on the economy in deciding future moves. "We have ended quantitative easing and the zero-interest-rate policy, and have cautiously taken steps" to normalize the countr ...

HONG KONG (Dow Jones) -- The Bank of Japan's policy board raised the unsecured overnight call rate target, its key monetary policy rate, a quarter percentage- point to 0.25% Friday, effectively ending the nation's five-year old policy of keeping interest rates near zero. In an accompanying statement, the central bank said economic conditions were broadly in line with projections set out in its  ...

By Chisa Fujioka TOKYO (Reuters) - The Bank of Japan is expected to raise interest rates for the first time in six years from zero on Friday, although jittery foreign exchange and bond markets were betting that any further moves will be slow and gradual. A rate hike would be a watershed for Japanese monetary policy as the BOJ finally embarks on a tightening cycle along with central banks in the United States and Europe, and would signal an end to Japan's long era of deflation and stagnation.  ...

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones) -- Gary Stern, the president of the Minneapolis Fed, presented an upbeat medium-term outlook for the economy and inflation on Thursday, which was particularly remarkable given the angst that has seized Wall Street in recent trading sessions. Stern, who believes Wall Street and the media are too focused on the short- term, gave a message to a business group in Bozeman Mont ...

By Keiron Henderson LONDON (Reuters) - The FTSE 100 index closed down 1.6 percent on Thursday, its biggest loss in a month as growing tension in the Middle East pushed oil prices higher and miners slumped on commodity price declines. Accounting software company Sage was one of the biggest FTSE fallers, down 4.7 percent after German software giant SAP missed analysts' expectations for licence sales and operating earnings in the second quarter. Traders said the SAP disappointment, which followe ...

BANGKOK (Dow Jones) -- Monetary policy doesn't usually provide fodder for national mythmaking. But in Japan, where people proudly refer to themselves as " economic animals," central bankers can be guardians of national institutions, and nothing has been as key to Japan's economic sense of self in recent years as its zero-interest-rate policy. This week, it looks like it might be time for the ZI ...

LONDON (Reuters) - Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown signalled on Thursday he would keep a tight lid on the public finances in the years ahead, demanding all government departments achieve 2.5 percent efficiency savings each year. In an report ahead of next year's Comprehensive Spending Review, which will set expenditure limits for the three years starting 2008/09, Brown also called for pu ...

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The number of idled workers filing for new unemployment benefits climbed last week more than expected as the auto industry closed factories temporarily. Initial jobless claims increased by 19,000 to a seasonally adjusted 332,000 in the week ending July 8, up from an unrevised 313,000 the week before, the Labor Department said Thursday. Contributing to the increase we ...