Business News

WASHINGTON - New applications for unemployment benefits dropped last week from a seven-year high, the Labor Department said Thursday, though they remain at elevated levels that indicate recession.

TOKYO - A key barometer of corporate capital spending in Japan plunged in August to its lowest level in more than five years, the government said Thursday, as business investment retreated sharply amid fears of a broader global slowdown.

WASHINGTON - Americans' retirement plans have lost as much as $2 trillion in the past 15 months, Congress' top budget analyst estimated Tuesday.

PARIS (AFP) - European leaders were due in Paris on Sunday for a summit that would mark their last chance to hammer out a coordinated financial rescue package before their panic-stricken stock markets reopen.

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel's main stock index dived 7.68 percent on Sunday when the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange opened after a four-day holiday weekend and a 45-minute delay enforced after a sharp drop in preliminary trading.

KUWAIT CITY (AFP) - Stock markets in the energy-rich Gulf states opened the week's trading Sunday sharply down with the Dubai Financial Market shedding six percent.

HARTFORD, Conn. - General Electric Co. spared investors any nasty surprises as it reported a 22 percent drop in third-quarter earnings on Friday, meeting its own lowered forecast and blaming the decline on its struggling finance arm. The company's loan and lease business has been hammered by the worst financial crisis since the 1929 stock market crash.

BOSTON (Reuters) - General Electric Co reported a drop in quarterly profit that matched its recent warning to Wall Street, and the U.S. conglomerate said the global credit crunch and slumping economies would continue to take a toll on its hefty finance arm.

At a time when consumers are worried about the nation's economy, IBM wants everyone to know it is financially sound. The Armonk, NY-based company released a preview of its earnings Wednesday, a week before its scheduled earnings announcement on Oct. 16, and said it remains confident in its financial outlook for the year.

DETROIT/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Chrysler LLC has had talks with General Motors Corp about a deal to combine the No. 1 and No. 3 American automakers at a time when both are struggling to cut costs and shore up cash, according to three people familiar with the matter.

SEOUL (Reuters) - Hyundai Motor Co (005380.KS), South Korea's top automaker, is considering making a small car in the United States as the financial crisis has lifted demand for such models, officials at the company and a car parts maker said on Sunday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A global AIDS vaccine conference this week will seek fresh strategies against the HIV virus, with experts weighing the value of basic laboratory research against large-scale human clinical trials after a string of disappointments.

While Ed Wallace claims in his Oct. 8 column that there is no auto credit crisis (BusinessWeek.com, 10/7/08), I invite him to actually talk with any of the thousands of customers who couldn't secure adequate financing on a new vehicle purchase this past month.

ARTEIXO, SPAIN Many U.S. apparel retailers are choking on slow-moving inventories as consumers hold back on spending. But Spain's Inditex, whose Zara chain pioneered cheap chic, is zipping ahead. The $13.8 billion company, which is closing in on Gap for the title of world's biggest clothing retailer, has nearly quadrupled sales, profits, and locations since 2000. This year, Inditex plans to expand by up to 640 stores. "They will weather the storms better than most of their rivals," says Michael Lewis, a supply-management professor at University of Bath's School of ...

Hard times have been pretty good to Rita Cortese. Since 2006, she has owned a Plato's Closet used clothing store in Deptford, N.J. In recent months, Cortese says, business has exploded as people descend on her store to buy or sell castoff shirts, dresses, and jeans. Cortese is so busy she recently built a shed out back to contain her overflowing inventory.

NEW YORK - Trillions in stock market value — gone. Trillions in retirement savings — gone. A huge chunk of the money you paid for your house, the money you're saving for college, the money your boss needs to make payroll — gone, gone, gone.

WASHINGTON - Searching for ways to tackle the unfolding economic crisis, global finance ministers are turning attention to the fallout in developing countries and poor nations.

PARIS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - European leaders hoped to agree on a detailed plan in Paris on Sunday to prevent market panic and stave off what the International Monetary Fund warned could be a global financial meltdown.