Walter Hamilton And E. Scott Reckard - Kenneth D. Lewis, who became a focus of public and political outrage while presiding over Bank of America Corp.’s stunning fall from grace in the financial crisis, is stepping down as [ Read More → ]

On Wall Street, it paid to wear rose-colored glasses in the third quarter. Another surge in stock prices rewarded investors who kept faith that the recession was ending — even amid growing concern about the recovery’s dependence on government support. The Dow Jones industrial average, which slipped 29.92 points, or 0.3%, to [ Read More → ]

“I have a college degree, but you know, I just don’t know anything about mortgages and what’s the right thing to do.” When I heard a South Florida home buyer say this the other day, it sounded so familiar. I hear that sentiment so often, not just about mortgages, but about [ Read More → ]

With housing prices still in the dumps, many Americans are finding themselves in the uncomfortable position of landlord. Some have been forced to relocate for a job and can’t sell their houses. Others have moved, but are holding on to their previous homes, hoping for prices to rebound before selling. Many [ Read More → ]

NEW YORK — New signs of economic recovery emerged Tuesday only to be overshadowed by new worries that they won’t last. The U.S. manufacturing sector grew in August for the first time in 19 months. A gauge of future home sales surged in July to its highest point in more [ Read More → ]

The numbers hardly tell the story. Today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stands roughly 2000 points below where it was on this end-of-summer weekend one year ago. No one knew then, of course, but the U.S. stock market and the world economy were just days from historic calamity, unprecedented in the [ Read More → ]

With the end of summer drawing near, investors find themselves in far better shape than they probably dared to imagine just a few months ago. So much better, in fact, that many people have a nagging suspicion this is all some kind of Wall Street mirage that could vanish in no [ Read More → ]

The US economy shrank at a smaller-than-expected 1 per cent annual pace in the second quarter, a recovery from the 6.4 per cent slump three months earlier, suggesting America is climbing out of recession. Economists had expected a 1.5 per cent contraction in the second quarter. Company profits rose 5.7 per [ Read More → ]

Last summer, Lawrence Ford jumped into the fast-growing market for so-called reverse mortgages. The retired auto mechanic and horse trainer used the money he received to pay off his existing $70,000 mortgage and “piddled away” the remaining $24,000 on things like restaurant meals for his four girlfriends, he says. Reverse-Mortgage Meltdown? [ Read More → ]

In this decade, we have had more than our share of big-time booms and busts: the tech bubble, the housing bubble and, this year, what Warren Buffett has called the Treasury bubble. For some years now, I have been a student of these extreme financial cycles. In the 1980s, I witnessed [ Read More → ]