Sales of new U.S. homes cooled off in December compared with November, but sales for the entire year were the best since 2009. The Commerce Department says new-home sales fell 7.3 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 369,000. That’s down from November’s rate, which was the fastest in 2 ½ years.
Federal Reserve officials in 2007 badly underestimated the scope of the approaching financial crisis and how it would tip the U.S. economy into the deepest recession since the Great Depression, transcripts of the Fed’s policy meetings that year show.
The Obama administration declined Tuesday to label China a currency manipulator, noting that it has let the yuan rise nearly 10 percent in value against the dollar since June 2010.
When global finance ministers meet this week in Tokyo, they’ll confront a triple challenge: Economic troubles in three major regions are threatening the world’s economy.
The latest evidence that the U.S. economy is making steady gains emerged Friday from a gauge of future economic activity, which rose in October at the fastest pace in eight months.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said recently that small businesses are still struggling to get loans more than two years after the recession ended. He said that banks could help them by easing overly tight lending standards.
Global finance officials pledged on Saturday to take bolder moves to confront a European debt crisis that threatens to plunge the world into another deep recession. But sharp disagreements about exactly what to do can’t offer much reassurance to markets rocked by uncertainly in recent weeks.
