Economic News

HONG KONG (XFN-ASIA) - Share prices were flat in early trade as investors assess the impact of China's decision to raise its lending rates for the second time this year to cool its economy, dealers said. They said trading was also cautious ahead of more US economic data and local corporate earnings announcements this week. At 10.31 am, the Hang Seng Index was down 8.74 points at 17,321.96, off a ...

SAN FRANCISCO (Dow Jones) -- As anyone traveling outside of the U.S. knows, a dollar doesn't buy what it once did. But some investors are using foreign currency as a way to boost the dollar value of their portfolios. Foreign-currency investing has been chiefly the domain of sophisticated professional traders, hedge funds and institutional investors. But now individuals are hearing more about it ...

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones) -- It's growth, not inflation, that will determine when the Federal Reserve begins to cut interest rates, according to two Wall Street economists who have very different views about the timing of that first ease. Benign inflation data released last week seemed to persuade financial markets that the Fed's next move will be to cut overnight interest rates, probably early ne ...

NEW YORK (AFX) - August has been an unusually busy time for Wall Street, with a key Federal Reserve decision and surprisingly good economic data keeping investors busy, culminating in a strong rally last week that pushed the major indexes to three-month highs. This week, however, will be the Wall Street equivalent of a humid, hazy, summer Sunday afternoon -- slow. With barely any corporate earnin ...

LONDON (Reuters) - Stephen Byers, a former Labour minister and staunch ally of Prime Minister Tony Blair, has called for the abolition of death duties, calling them "a penalty on hard work, thrift and enterprise". The call, made in the Sunday Telegraph, is seen as an attack on Blair's likely successor, Chancellor Gordon Brown, who is thought to favour the tax which is currently levied on all esta ...