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Resales of U.S. homes and condos fell 7.2% in January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.05 million, the lowest in seven months, the National Association of Realtors reported Friday. Sales of existing homes have fallen two consecutive months after rising steadily through the fall on the back of a federal subsidy for first-time [...]

Walmart has suffered its first fall in quarterly sales at its US discount stores, underlining the challenges facing future growth in its home market as the economy recovers.
During the important holiday quarter ending on January 31, net sales at Walmart’s 3,400 plus US stores fell 0.5 per cent year-on-year to $71bn, while comparable store sales [...]

Walmart has suffered its first fall in quarterly sales at its US discount stores, underlining the challenges facing future growth in its home market as the economy recovers.
During the important holiday quarter ending on January 31, net sales at Walmart’s 3,400 plus US stores fell 0.5 per cent year-on-year to $71bn, while comparable store sales [...]

It’s not the signal it used to be.
When employers hire temporary staff after a recession, it’s long been seen as a sign they’ll soon hire permanent workers.
Not these days.
Companies have hired more temps for four straight months. Yet they remain reluctant to make permanent hires because of doubts about the recovery’s durability.
Even companies that are [...]

Less than two years after the housing market collapsed, the U.S. economy is threatened by a new bubble in asset prices. This time, four billowing balloons are hovering: two commodities — gold and oil — stocks, and government bonds.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that last week’s 5% drop in the S&P, and the recent sell-off [...]

A record one in seven U.S. mortgages were in foreclosure or at least one payment past due in the third quarter, according to fresh data signaling the recovery in the housing market will be tepid at best.
U.S. mortgage delinquency rates and the percentage of loans that entered the foreclosure process also jumped to records from [...]

Retail sales unexpectedly fell in December, leaving 2009 with the biggest yearly sales drop on record and highlighting the formidable hurdles facing the economy as it struggles to recover from the recession.
A second disappointing economic report yesterday showed that the number of newly laid-off workers requesting unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week.
While many [...]

China’s economy is overheating as asset bubbles and inflation pressures build, posing a “major risk” to global growth, the World Economic Forum said.
A drop in momentum in the world’s fastest-growing major economy “could adversely affect global capital and commodity markets,” the group said in a report issued before this year’s Jan. 27-31 annual meeting in [...]

China’s economy is overheating as asset bubbles and inflation pressures build, posing a “major risk” to global growth, the World Economic Forum said.
A drop in momentum in the world’s fastest-growing major economy “could adversely affect global capital and commodity markets,” the group said in a report issued before this year’s Jan. 27-31 annual meeting in [...]

Jeff Rubin, the former CIBC World Markets Inc. chief economist who accurately predicted oil’s surge in the decade just ended, expects crude to reach $90 a barrel this quarter and $100 by the year’s end.
Accelerating demand in Asia and the Middle East will force consumers to rely on costlier non-conventional energy sources such as oil [...]

U.S. and EU authorities are expected to hammer out the definite shape of a new regulatory order in 2010 that will fundamentally change how world banks and markets operate.
Stricter limits on leverage and capital will emerge, leading eventually to slimmer profits for banks, policy analysts said. Formerly unregulated off-exchange derivatives markets will have to conform [...]

About 36 percent of all Florida banks are “problematic” or “troubled” — three times the national average — according to a report released by BauerFinancial, a Coral Gables research firm.
BauerFinancial reported that the number of banks headquartered in the state that received two stars or less grew from 99 in the second quarter to 106 [...]

…as of November, 19.4% of American men in their prime working years didn’t have jobs. By this measure, the current job situation (for men, at least) is much, much worse than in any downturn since the BLS started measuring this stuff in 1948.

Source/Full Story: Curious Capitalist
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Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania, said in an interview with Reuters home prices will resume their decline by early next year as foreclosure sales pick up again.
“The housing crash is not over,” he said.
The U.S. housing market has suffered the worst downturn since the Great Depression, and its impact [...]

The default rate for commercial mortgages in the US climbed to a fresh 16-year high in the third quarter of this year, as the property market continued to struggle under the weight of tight credit and falling rents.
During the third quarter the commercial default rate rose from 2.88 per cent to 3.4 per cent, the [...]

The British economy is in its longest recession on record, as figures out this morning showed a shock 0.4% drop in gross domestic product (GDP) in the third quarter of the year.…TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said he hoped today’s figures would “head off the growing signs of complacency” on an economy which remains “extremely [...]

U.S. regulators are set to buttress their defenses this week against a slew of sick banks still facing closure and the risks to the dwindling fund that protects depositors.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp has been looking at expanding the pool of potential bidders for distressed banks, providing some capital relief for troubled assets that will [...]

The value of U.S. homes fell by 12.1 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, but the rate of decline shrank for the first time since prices began to fall in 2007, real estate website Zillow.com said on Tuesday.

Even so, stabilization of the hard-hit housing market, which is seen as key to an [...]

The world is heading for a catastrophic energy crunch that could cripple a global economic recovery because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production, a leading energy economist has warned.

Higher oil prices brought on by a rapid increase in demand and a stagnation, or even decline, in supply [...]

The survival of CIT Group Inc, a key source of financing for thousands of small and medium-sized companies, became ensnared in disagreements between regulators in Washington on Monday.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, which insures deposits at U.S. banks, opposed an attempt by the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve to rescue the lender by granting it [...]

Sales of previously owned U.S. homes rose for a second straight month in May but were weaker than expected, adding to growing fears of an anemic economic recovery from a deep recession.
The chief economist of the National Association of Realtors, which released the data on Tuesday, said sales in some areas appeared to be slowing [...]

The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. [...]