Tesco posts $4.5 billion profits

British retail giant Tesco has announced pre-tax profits of £3.1 billion ($4.5 billion), up 10 percent from the previous year. Overall sales for the year were up by 13 percent to £59.4 billion ($86.55 billion) — taking sales to an incredible £1 billion ($1.45 billion) a week. Its performance abroad — particularly in Asia — was equally promising, as overall international sales grew by 11.9 percent

Share

Summers defends White House response to AIG bonuses

With outrage mounting over AIG’s $165 million in bonuses to executives, the president’s chief economic adviser offered a new line of defense for the White House in an exclusive interview with CNN. Larry Summers suggested that if Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner had pushed the insurance giant too hard on the bonuses, AIG could have collapsed just like Lehman Brothers and sparked an even bigger crisis

Share

How Financial Stocks Could Be the Market’s Bright Spot

Here’s a scary fact to add to today’s gloomy stock-market headlines: bank stocks might actually be providing a boost to the market, even as it tumbles to new lows. By at least one measure, financial firms are making the bad earnings caused by the economy look a bit rosier. Late last week, Goldman Sachs cut its earnings expectations for the stocks in the Standard & Poor’s 500

Share

As the Crisis Bites, Splits Open Up in Europe

Meeting in Brussels for a long Sunday lunch, European Union leaders were supposed to clear the air after weeks of jibes, sneers and slurs over who is to blame for the economic crisis. But after a three-hour meal of goat cheese, beef stew and apple crumble, they emerged as ratty as ever, barely concealing their long-standing gripes and graphically revealing how far the E.U. is from any coordinated response to the downturn

Share

HSBC announces shares issue as profits slide

HSBC on Monday announced a 62 percent slide in annual pre-tax profits to $9.3 billion, delivering a further blow for the beleaguered UK banking industry. The bank also confirmed it would seek to raise $17.7 billion through a shares issue to bolster its capital strength — a record sum for a British company. Highlighting $15.5 billion losses in its U.S

Share

World’s richest countries pledge to fix economy

The world’s richest countries committed to "any further action that may prove necessary" to restore confidence in the global financial system, their finance ministers said as they wrapped up a two-day meeting in Rome. The Group of Seven finance ministers also urged countries not to close their markets to goods and services from abroad. “An open system of global trade and investment is indispensable for global prosperity,” they said in a statement at the end of their meeting Saturday.

Share

In Defense of the Recession Blame Game

Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, except that right now everyone wants a little piece of it. The mob has been chanting for months, ever since former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson arrived in late September on Capitol Hill to warn of disaster, pass around his three-page plan and demand $700 billion to fix the problem. Most members of Congress were so spooked they were ready to write a check, until their phone lines started melting with the angry voices of taxpayers demanding details about the likely return on the investment

Share