We are out of the office until the New Year. Look for our Energy Tax Savings blog next week.
Japan's cabinet approved an 83.06 trillion yen budget on Monday for the fiscal year from April, featuring an increase in social security spending as the population ages and a modest cut in new debt issuance.
Strong gains in consumer spending and technology stocks fueled a long-awaited Santa Claus rally on Wall Street.
Asian markets closed higher across the board Friday, having got a lift from technology stocks and year-end program buying by funds. Most of the major indexes finished over 1 percent higher, while the Hang Seng gained 2.3 percent.
Check out the news on Eaton Corp today. The company plans to buy two companies--one in Europe, the other in Asia. That's exactly the type of deal making we can expect to see in the world of M and A next year.
Stocks closed higher as a rally in technology shares helped offset more uncertainty in the credit markets and troubling economic signs.
France's biggest retail bank Credit Agricole said on Thursday it would book a 2.5 billion euros pre-tax writedown in 2007 due to the credit crisis gripping global financial markets.
We have a new Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll that's shaking up the Republican presidential race, since Rudy Giuliani has lost his national lead. But it's also shaking up Ron Paul's legions of Internet supporters--because he fared so poorly at just 4 percent of the vote. Because his numbers were so low I didn't mention Paul in my Wall Street Journal story on the poll.