Anna and Charlie Reynolds of St. George, Utah, were worried about losing their home to foreclosure last year. Then they got a lucky break—from an unlikely savior. Some investment funds are emerging as the best hope for millions of U.S. households, like the Reynolds, above, who were behind on [ Read More → ]

NEW YORK - Lots of homeowners are frustrated these days that they can’t seem to get a mortgage refinance even though interest rates are at historic lows. It turns out they’re not alone. Plenty of people on Wall Street would also love to see a boom in refinancing activity, saying it [ Read More → ]

In the real estate world, there was one word that used to be the cardinal rule: location, location, location. Just about anybody — the informed and uninformed — could buy a house in a good location and easily make money by flipping, selling or refinancing the home, sometimes after just a [ Read More → ]

Whomever President Barack Obama taps to head the new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection could find it difficult to keep ahead of the credit-card industry. The Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009, known as the Card Act, was intended to reshape the contours of consumer finance. Among other [ Read More → ]

The housing crash has left at least 11 million people in the unenviable position of owing more on their homes than they are worth—and many more millions with properties worth far less than they paid for them. But some might not be as trapped as they think. Record-low mortgage rates and a [ Read More → ]

WASHINGTON - Reveling in victory, President Barack Obama on Wednesday signed into law the most sweeping overhaul of financial regulations since the Great Depression, a package that aims to protect consumers and ensure economic stability from Main Street to Wall Street. The law, pushed through mainly by Democrats in Washington’s deeply [ Read More → ]

WASHINGTON — Reveling over a new milestone in his presidency, a triumphant Barack Obama on Wednesday signed into law the most sweeping overhaul of lending and high-finance rules since the Great Depression, adding safeguards for millions of consumers and aiming to restrain Wall Street excesses that could set off a [ Read More → ]

NEW ORLEANS — The exasperation with BP felt by residents of the Gulf states is spreading to shareholders - and some are taking the oil giant to court. Since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig disaster on April 20, BP shares have lost about $85 billion in value. The toll for institutional [ Read More → ]

The life-insurance business was good to Steven M. Brasner for much of the past decade, so good that he and his wife named their motor yachts after it. Their first, a 34-footer, they christened “Preferred Risk.” Its 50-foot replacement: “STOLI on the Docks.” [ Read More → ]

Reporting from Sacramento Meg Whitman says she became one of the world’s wealthiest CEOs by [ Read More → ]