With the economy strengthening but still fragile, Federal Reserve policymakers are expected to hold a key lending rate at a record low this week and will weigh whether to extend some programs that were created to ease the financial crisis.
A downbeat report from the Royal Bank of Scotland PLC today clouded a week of earnings updates that started with suggestions that the country's lenders were over the worst of the financial crisis — almost exactly two years after the credit squeeze took hold.
American International Group Inc. said today director Harvey Golub will become Monday its non-executive chairman, replacing retiring Chairman Edward M. Liddy. Golub, 70, was elected to the AIG board in May 2009.
A federal judge in Miami is due to learn if a settlement has been finalized in the high-stakes attempt by the U.S. government to obtain names of suspected tax evaders with secret accounts at Swiss bank UBS AG.
U.S. employers throttled back on layoffs in July, cutting just 247,000 jobs, the fewest in a year, and the unemployment rate dipped to 9.4 percent, its first decline in 15 months.
In afternoon European trading, Britain's FTSE 100 tumbled 1.1 percent to 4,637.22, Germany's DAX slipped 0.6 percent to 5,339.85 and France's CAC dropped 0.9 percent to 3,445.97.
The troubled insurer made $1.82 billion during the second quarter ended June 30. Of that, $311 million, or $2.30 per share, was attributable to common shareholders because the U.S. government owns 80% of the company after bailing it out last year.
Administration officials have estimated the tripling of the $1 billion program could fund an additional 500,000 new car sales, giving automakers a late summer boost after months of ragged sales.
The Labor Department said that initial claims for jobless benefits dropped to a seasonally adjusted 550,000 for the week ending Aug. 1, down from an upwardly revised figure of 588,000 in the previous week.
