Exxon Forms Alliance; Crude Oil Prices Fall Due to Jobs Report Last week Exxon Mobil Corporation and Rosneft (Russia’s largest oil producer) formed an Alliance that could potentially generate as much as $500 billion of investments between the two companies, as was stated by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Exxon and Rosneft plan to initially […]

Bernanke Addresses Monetary Policy Makers At Central Bank Conference In Jackson Hole Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke addressed a group of global monetary policymakers at the annual Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Economic Symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming on Friday. In this much anticipated event, Chairman Bernanke fell short of satisfying hopeful investors looking […]

Bank of America Announces Job Cuts; European Banking Crisis Continues To Worry Investors The Dow ended Friday with a 172-point fall after losing 419 points on Thursday; this was a losing week for the index. August has been the Dow’s worst performing month in more than two years. Along with the Dow, the S&P 500 […]

Dow Makes Historic 4-day, Triple-Digit Swings The world witnessed a roller-coaster stock market last week.  One of the most notable headlines was the historic weekly activity of the Dow Jones Industrial Average: Monday, August 8th: down 634 points Tuesday, August 9th: up 420 points Wednesday, August 10th: down 519 points Thursday, August 11th:  up 423 […]

U.S. Loses Its AAA Credit Rating For The First Time In Nation’s History Credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded U.S. long-term sovereign debt from AAA to AA+ for the first time in America’s history of holding the AAA title (since 1917). In past weeks the credit rating agency expressed dissatisfaction of the U.S. government’s […]

Agreement On Debt Deal Reached; Markets Expect Deal To Become A Bill Minutes before making his way to the White House briefing room to announce to the world that a deal had been made on addressing the nation’s debt woes after weeks of political confrontation, President Obama issued a conference call with leading Democrats and […]

Caterpillar Falls Short of Estimates; European Leaders Agree To A Second Bailout Package For Greece U.S. stocks on Friday interrupted a global stock rally as the market impact of Caterpillar’s disappointing quarterly results outweighed the euro zone’s agreement to a second bailout package for Greece. The DJIA and S&P500 started the day in negative territory […]

U.S. Jobs Report Reveals Worse Than Expected Job Growth In June The stock market ended the week on Friday with a plunge after the Labor Department’s nonfarm payrolls reported an increase of 18,000 jobs for the month of June. The figure was substantially below economists’ expectations which forecasted a rise of 125,000. On top of this, the […]

Stocks End The Week With Light Volume Trading; Sharp Gains U.S. stocks endured significant gains on Friday amid a report showing an expansion of the manufacturing sector for the month of June. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) ended the trading day at 12,582.77 with a 5.4% weekly gain. The DJIA had its best performance […]

Greek Austerity Package Continues To Worry; Falling Italian Bank Stocks Overshadowed By Positive U.S. Economic Data On Friday, the stock market was down as it saw a seventh weekly drop in eight weeks amid continuing world uncertainty. Greece continues to struggle with handling its government debt as officials seek to enact austerity measures for the […]