Economic News

NEW YORK (AFX) - U.S. Treasury bond prices rallied Friday as investors responded to weaker-than-expected manufacturing data that bolstered views the U.S. economy is cooling. The price of the Treasury's 10-year note was up 9/32 point, or $2.813 per $1,000 in face value, around midday Friday, while its yield fell to 4.43 percent from 4.46 percent late Thursday. Prices and yields move in opposite di ...

LONDON (AFX) - The dollar tumbled further after a key survey of US manufacturing activity showed a contraction during November, with the euro rising above 1.33 usd and the pound breaching the 1.98 usd level. The Institute for Supply Management's index of manufacturing fell to 49.50 from 51.2 in October, falling below the 50 mark to indicate contraction in the sector for the first time since April ...

LONDON (AFX) - European government bonds surged into the black after another disappointing piece of US economic data added to the weight of evidence showing that growth in the world's biggest economy is slowing rapidly. The US manufacturing sector suffered an unexpected fall in November, with the key Institute for Supply Management's headline index falling below the 50-point cut-off which marks e ...

LONDON (AFX) - The dollar slipped further amid speculation that the European Central Bank is willing to tolerate sharp gains in the euro's exchange rate Analysts cited a newswire report quoting an unnamed ECB official as saying that the euro zone economy can sustain a much sharper rise in the euro exchange rate against the dollar, to 1.40-145 usd, with some even suggesting it could go beyond 1.50 ...

WASHINGTON (AFX) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke served up intellectual food" to visiting bankers Friday, offering a smorgasbord of high-calorie topics like mortgage markets, inflation expectations and optimal monetary policy. "Bon Appetit!" Bernanke exclaimed, as he welcomed participants in an international monetary policy conference at Fed headquarters. Although the s ...

Joe Murphy, Evening Standard1 December 2006 Reader comments (2) Pay-as-you-drive road charges became inevitable today as they won the backing of Gordon Brown's transport guru. PROPOSALS: Prices would rise at times of peak congestion, just as London's congestion zone operates from 7am to 7pm WANT TO KNOW MORE? Paying to go nowhere fast Tax raid on cars and flights Road pricing on the way OTHER STORIES Pension rescue fund pays out Market report: Friday latest Buy-t ...

LONDON (AFX) - The dollar recovered some lost ground but remained near historic lows against its major competitors as weak economic news from the US continued to keep the pressure on the US currency. Overnight, the pound surged to a high of 1.9750 usd, its highest level since September 1992 when sterling was ignominiously ejected from the European exchange rate mechanism, while the euro climbed t ...

BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) - Goldman Sachs said it expects China's economy to grow 10.0 pct in 2008, after a very slight easing to 9.8 pct real GDP growth in 2007. In its global economic outlook, Goldman Sachs said there are few signs that strong economic growth is generating higher inflation, with China's consumer price index (CPI) seen up 2.2 pct in 2007 and 2.0 pct in 2008. For this year, Goldman Sac ...

TOKYO (AFX) - Nationwide core consumer price index in October rose at a slower pace than the market had predicted chiefly because crude oil prices have peaked, but this will not be enough to sway the Bank of Japan from its stance to hike interest rates sooner rather than later, economists said. BoJ governor Toshihiko Fukui reiterated this week that the central bank will raise interest rates only  ...

BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) - Xie Fuzhan, the head of the National Bureau of Statistics, said China is wary of a possible rebound in investment in 2007, the official Securities Times reported. Xie said at a conference that whether such an investment rebound will be controllable will depend on interest rate, land and investment policy. Xie called the present rate of economic growth "reasonable"  ...