Financial news on April 27th, 2013
Business and Financial news
European Central Bank releases survey finding that smaller companies that provide most of the jobs in Europe face ever more difficult struggle to win customers and get bank loans; findings raise expectations that bank may soon cut its main interest rate. Read more..
Commerce Department reports that gross domestic product expanded at annualized pace of 2.5 percent in the first quarter of 2013; pace is welcome improvement from sluggish growth in 2012, but government spending cuts and tax increases are likely to keep economy stalled in coming months. Read more..
Tara Siegel Bernard Your Money column documents her meeting with Jennifer and Scott Bartone, couple whose relationship has struggled with debt and differing money philosophies; object of meeting was to reconcile their financial habits before opening joint bank account for household expenses. Read more..
Pension advances, federal and state authorities say, are carefully disguised loans that carry interest rates that are often many times higher than those on credit cards. Read more..
Floyd Norris Off the Charts column notes that median pay for American workers has stagnated in recent years, but that trend is not uniform; explores Labor Department data showing that wages for low-paid workers have declined as those for better-paid workers have grown significantly. Read more..
James B Stewart Common Sense column investigates Netflix's astonishing turnaround from period in 2011 during which its stock plunged following series of costly missteps; notes that chief executive Reed Hastings feels that most troubling part of downturn was outpouring of e-mails from angry and disappointed customers, whose loyalty he has since worked hard to regain. Read more..
Stocks stall as United States reports disappointing figures for first-quarter growth and handful of large companies post tepid earnings. Read more..
Chevron reports first-quarter net income of $6,2 billion, or $3.18 a share, down from $6.47 billion, or $3.27 a share, in same period one year earlier. Read more..
United States government announces second civil fraud lawsuit against Swiss drug maker Novartis, accusing company unit of paying multimillion-dollar kickbacks to doctors in exchange for prescribing its drugs. Read more..
See what else happened on April 27th, 2013