BEIJING (AP) ― The U.S. treasury secretary pressed China on Tuesday to ease politically sensitive exchange rate controls and lower barriers to foreign investment.Beijing in March widened the narrow band in which it allows its yuan to fluctuate against the U.S. dollar. But it retained controls that critics complain keep the yuan undervalued and give its exporters an unfair price advantage.“It is important that China demonstrate a renewed commitment to move to a more market-determined exchange rat

May 13, 2014

Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank. (Bloomberg)The euro-area’s fastest economic growth in three years probably won’t be enough to stop Mario Draghi from easing monetary policy. Even with data this week predicted to show the expansion accelerated in the first quarter, the European Central Bank president looks set to push ahead with measures that could range from rate cuts to liquidity injections. Inflation stuck at less than half the ECB’s goal points to a revival that is still

May 13, 2014

Dennis Lockhart, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta (Bloomberg)Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Dennis Lockhart said he expects the central bank will use a reverse-repurchase program when it eventually begins to tighten monetary policy. “I am confident reverse repos will be among our tool bag and will therefore may very well have a role in how we try to influence short-term interest rates,” Lockhart said to reporters Sunday after a speech in Dubai. He doesn’t vote on polic

May 12, 2014

Logos of Pfizer and AstraZeneca ( Bloomberg)NEW YORK (AP) ― Pfizer posted videos online Saturday in its latest effort to win over critics of its proposed purchase of British drugmaker AstraZeneca.In four videos on Pfizer’s website, CEO Ian Read sought to allay concerns that the deal would lead to a loss of stature in science in the United Kingdom. He said Pfizer had expanded its research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and envisions pursuing a similar strategy for Britain’s Cambridge, north of Lond

May 11, 2014

U.S. Speaker of the House John Boehner. ( AFP-Yonhap)Russian banks should bear some economic penalties for Vladimir Putin’s government and President Barack Obama needs to push harder to get a tougher response from European nations, House Speaker John Boehner said. “You go after their banks,” Boehner said on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo” in an interview airing Sunday. “I’m concerned that we’ve not pushed the Europeans hard enough to take a firmer line against th

May 11, 2014

WASHINGTON (AFP) ― Moody’s raised the debt rating of Portugal one notch to “Ba2” Friday and said a further upgrade was possible as the country begins to pull away from its financial crisis.“Portugal’s fiscal situation has improved more rapidly than initially targeted and the public debt ratio will start declining this year,” Moody’s said. A “Ba2” rating leaves Portugal in junk bond territory, two notches below investment grade.Moody’s noted that the country’s fiscal deficit had been reduced by o

May 11, 2014

U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew listens to a question during a Bloomberg Television interview in Washington, D.C., Friday. (Bloomberg)U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said he will call on Chinese leaders to let markets determine the value of the yuan and to avoid postponing measures to overhaul their economy even as growth falters. “They obviously have to worry about their short-term economic situation,” Lew said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,

May 11, 2014

Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank (Bloomberg)The European Central Bank held its key rates steady Thursday, but president Mario Draghi gave a strong hint that the bank is ready to act next month to avert looming deflation.At its monthly meeting, held in Brussels this time instead of the usual venue of Frankfurt, the ECB’s governing council kept the key interest rate at the current all-time low of 0.25 percent for the seventh month in a row.The announcement sent the euro spiking

May 9, 2014

With Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. filing to go public, the biggest winner won’t be founder Jack Ma or his fellow executives or even venture capital backers like Silver Lake Management LLC. It’ll be Japan’s Masayoshi Son. Fourteen years ago, Son’s SoftBank Corp. started with a $20 million bet on a then-unknown Web portal connecting Chinese manufacturers with overseas buyers. That site evolved into China’s biggest Internet shopping mall and SoftBank’s stake is now estimated to be worth about $58 bil

May 8, 2014

The global economy is going back to the future. Barely five years after the worst financial turmoil and recession since the Great Depression, the U.S. and fellow advanced nations are showing a stability in output growth and hiring last witnessed in the two decades prior to the crisis, in an era dubbed the “Great Moderation.” The lull points to a worldwide economic expansion that will endure longer than most. Volatility in growth among the main industrial countries is the lowest since 2007 and ha

May 8, 2014

A pedestrian walks under a sign outside a Barclays bank branch in London. (Bloomberg)LONDON (AFP) ― Britain’s scandal-hit Barclays bank is expected on Thursday to announce 20,000 job losses over the next three years in a major shake-up of its investment division, according to media reports.Chief executive Antony Jenkins has already said that as many as 12,000 jobs would go worldwide this year out of a global workforce of about 139,000, but that could now be raised to 15,000, according to Sky New

May 8, 2014