Financial news on February 18th, 2012
Business and Financial news
The company suggested that airlines replace six aluminum rivets with titanium ones, a change that European regulators are expected to make mandatory. Read more..
Ron Lieber Your Money column highlights online auto rental booking engine AutoSlash, which rebooks customers automatically if it finds lower rates or coupons; notes site claims 85 percent success rate on over 100,000 rentals to date, and has alienated some auto rental firms. Read more..
Euro zone leaders prepare for the approval of a fresh 130 billion euro bailout for Greece at a meeting of finance ministers; European Central Bank begins to swap its holdings of Greek bonds for new debt to shield it from losses being absorbed by private creditors. Read more..
A new law will permit drones of all kinds in American airspace by 2015, which concerns privacy advocates who decry expanding surveillance boundaries. Read more..
Labor Department reports the Consumer Price Index rose 0.2 percent in January, after a flat reading in December. Read more..
Floyd Norris Off the Charts column observes total global exports were higher in 2011 than before the credit crisis, but European countries in general still lag while some emerging countries have surged; United States rose to second place in 2011 behind China, which had $1.899 trillion in exports. Read more..
Stocks edge higher, but investors stay cautious before a long holiday weekend and the Greece bailout-approval meeting in Europe. Read more..
Food and Drug Administration says it is worried about possible heart problems and birth defects with Qnexa, a weight-loss drug; committee of advisers to the FDA will consider again whether the drug, developed by Vivus, should be approved. Read more..
Coinstar, the self-service retail business best known for its Redbox kiosks, prepares for the decline of movie rentals by experimenting with kiosks for products like coffee and electronics; about 85 percent of Coinstar's $1.85 billion in 2011 revenue was from Redbox. Read more..
See what else happened on February 18th, 2012