A senior U.S. Federal Reserve official said the central bank should keep alive its mortgage-related assets purchase program beyond a planned end-date to help the economy recover from a painful recession.

Oil prices rose above $78 a barrel on Monday as heightened tension between Iran and Western nations raised speculation of a potential supply risk, encouraging investors to push prices higher.

Beyond fiscal stimulus and government bailouts, the economic recovery that appears under way may be based on little more than self-fulfilling prophecy.

The global economy is heading toward a sustained recovery but given the risks of another downturn it is too soon to withdraw stimulus, International Monetary Fund Deputy Managing Director John Lipsky said on Friday.

It is "not quite time yet" to raise interest rates in the U.S., Charles Plosser, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, told CNBC Thursday.

Whiel Wall Street profits have rebounded to record levels, the Street is not showing signs yet of a real employment recovery.    

Oil fell nearly 1 percent on Friday as a stronger dollar weighed on prices and falling equities raised concern about the economy and the outlook for energy demand.

Banks that are considered too large to fail should be dismantled rather than "coddled," Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher said on Thursday.

US reliance on a growing Chinese economy to continue to spur growth of the American economy could be an ill-fated notion, Bill Gross, Pimco's founder and CEO, told CNBC.

As experts debate the potential speed of the US recovery, one figure looms large but is often overlooked: nearly 1 in 5 Americans is out of work or under-employed.

Additional economic stimulus such as a payroll tax cut would boost hiring, Mike Jackson, the CEO of AutoNation, told CNBC on Thursday.

The Obama administration is promising to change the way it counts the number of jobs saved or created by the economic stimulus program, after the Government Accounting Office revealed measurement flaws in the current system.

Factory activity in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic region grew in November for a fourth straight month, and faster than expected, a survey showed Thursday.

A gauge of the U.S. economy's prospects rose for a seventh straight month in October to a two-year high, a private research group said on Thursday, indicating the recovery was becoming entrenched.

The number of U.S. workers filing new applications for jobless insurance was unchanged last week, but the four-week moving average of claims dropped to its lowest in almost a year.