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The Federal Reserve this week will update its assessment of the U.S. economy and could take note of recent volatility in global financial markets. But any move or definite signal on interest rates is extremely unlikely. All the action will come in Wednesday’s policy statement, due out at 2 p.m. EST, since Chairwoman Janet Yellen isn’t scheduled to hold a press conference and officials won’t release updated economic projections until March. Here are five things to watch out of the two-day policy meeting that starts Tuesday. 1 Flexible Messaging The Fed won’t raise its benchmark federal-funds rate on Wednesday... 2...

Indiana may have lost as much as $60 million in hotel profits, tax revenue and other economic benefits when a dozen groups decided against hosting conventions in Indianapolis last year due at least in part to the controversy surrounding the state's religious objections law. A document prepared by the tourism group Visit Indy shows that the 12 out-of-state groups were surveyed and all said that the state's controversial law played a role in their decision to hold their events elsewhere. The document was obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its formal release Thursday. The Republican-backed law garnered quick and...

For basic background, many American corporations have offices, subsidiaries and sales in foreign countries. The difference for U.S. companies is that while their foreign competitors are generally only required to pay local/country taxes on their foreign earnings, U.S. corporations not only pay the local/country tax, but they also face a U.S. tax on foreign earnings they bring back to the United States. [snip] With regard to foreign earnings, American tax authorities add insult to already serious injury. While U.S. companies are already paying foreign corporate taxes on their earnings, they similarly face a U.S. tax if and when they return...

Chinese markets saw steep losses in late trade on Tuesday as investors worried about oil prices, and despite an injection of liquidity into the mainland market by the central bank. The benchmark Shanghai Composite closed down 6.42% at 2,749.79. Hong Kong's Hang Seng shed 2.48% to 18,860.8 points in afternoon trade. Elsewhere, markets in Asia followed US stocks lower as further falls in the price of oil continued to unsettle investors.

We have not seen global economic activity fall off this rapidly since the great recession of 2008. Manufacturing activity is imploding all over the planet, global trade is slowing down at a pace that is extremely alarming, and the Baltic Dry Index just hit another brand new all-time record low. If the "real economy" consists of people making, selling and shipping stuff, then it is in incredibly bad shape. Here in the United States, the dismal economic numbers continue to stun all of the experts. For example, on Monday we learned that the Texas general business activity index just...

Survey Reveals Bankers in China Fearing High Credit Risk By: Faraz Haleem Published: January 25, 2016 at 06:56 am EST The recent slowdown in the world's second largest economy has created several economic challenges, such as industries overcapacity and decline in manufacturing activities. The situation has mounted pressure on banking sector, owing to the rise in credit and default risks. China Banking Association (CBA) and PwC jointly released a survey; showing that 82% bankers believed that credit risk is high in industries with excess capacity. The industries include steel, iron, shipping, and cement, according to "China bankers' survey report (2015)",...

In 1992 the victorious Clinton campaign's war cry was a slogan as pithy as it was subsequently famous: "It's the economy, stupid." This was a not-so-veiled reference to President Bush 41's seeming pre-occupation and preference for foreign affairs, and his relative indifference to the tepid economy at the time - an economy his errant policies of higher taxes, more job-killing government spending and regulations, and an ill-considered war in the Middle East (that later turned into a strategic catastrophe for the United States) created. Mr. Clinton correctly adduced what, so far, only Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have discerned in...

"...Daniel Yergin, founder of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, said it is impossible for OPEC to knock out the US shale industry though a war of attrition even if large numbers of frackers fall by the wayside over coming months. Mr Yergin said groups with deep pockets such as Blackstone and Carlyle will take over the infrastructure when the distressed assets are cheap enough, and bide their time until the oil cycle turns. "The management may change and the companies may change but the resources will still be there," he told the Daily Telegraph. "It takes $10bn and five to...

successfully navigated, global growth could be derailed." Of the warning signs, the decline in U.S. industrial production has one of the best track records. The output from mines, factories and utilities has always begun to decline before recession strikes. "Manufacturing tends to lead the economic cycle and it tends to be an indicator of the swings," said Thomas Costerg, senior economist at Standard Chartered. "Manufacturing is struggling." A strong U.S. dollar and weak economies internationally are taking a toll. But unlike past declines in industrial production, today's decline has been driven primarily by the collapse in the oil industry. The...

The presidential candidacy of Donald Trump is poised to shake up the political make up of America. A higher percentage Democrats and Independents are moving in Trump's direction. Just one example is a black female Democrat in Atlanta who says Trump opened her eyes. "Trump gives me real hope and change, not fake hope and change. I'm voting for America because I believe in America. "I never thought I'd be saying these words about the country. Democrats don't speak about the country but I've woken up, I've seen the truth and the truth is Trump, I believe in this guy...

In an interview airing Sunday on Fox's "Media Buzz," Trump told me there is already great affection for him in the black community. "Look, the African Americans love me because they know I am going to bring back jobs," he told me at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas. Okay, a pretty standard Trumpian boast. But then he said this: "They are going to like me better than they like Obama. The truth is Obama has done nothing for them." The statement was so audacious that it took me a split-second to react. "Did you just say," I interrupted,...

The boom years left the US oil industry deep in debt. The 60 leading US independent oil and gas companies have total net debt of $206bn, from about $100bn at the end of 2006. As of September, about a dozen had debts that were more than 20 times their earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation. Worries about the health of these companies have been rising. A Bank of America Merrill Lynch index of high-yield energy bonds, which includes many indebted oil companies, has an average yield of more than 19%. Almost a third of the 155 US oil and...

Investors are dumping emerging market stocks and currencies as they flee to assets that appear safer like U.S. government bonds. "It's not just the peso. The [Russian] ruble hit a record low this week. The [South African] rand last week. It's a broad based sell-off in emerging markets," says Win Thin, global head of emerging markets strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman. But the Mexican peso has been hit the hardest of them all in 2016. The problem for Mexico is that it's one of the easiest emerging market currency to trade. So investors have been selling it as a proxy...

OKLAHOMA CITY -- As oil prices continue to slide with no recovery in sight, the Oklahoma economy has begun to contract. Oil prices have fallen to 12 year lows, and the industry is undergoing its largest downturn since the 1990's. Meanwhile, investment bank forecasts continue to become more bearish. According to the latest data released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, gross domestic product in Oklahoma declined 2.4 percent in the second quarter, ranking last among U.S. states. Prompted by depressed oil prices, these numbers were a stark reversal of the 6.5 percentage growth that occurred during the first quarter....

Last week, Walmart dropped a bombshell on the retail world with the announcement it was closing 269 stores worldwide, including 154 in the U.S. The vast majority being shuttered in the U.S. are Walmart Express stores -- the company's tiniest retail locations, which ultimately proved unprofitable for the big box-focused giant. Walmart isn't wasting any time in shutting the stores down. The full list of where and when stores are being closed can be found here, and it shows that the vast majority will close their doors on Thursday, Jan. 28.

Stuck in a recession and with no sign of a reprieve in the oil price, Russia could quickly descend into chaos if the money runs out, William Browder, a well-known critic of the Kremlin and chief executive of Hermitage Capital, told CNBC. "I don't think you can underestimate how bad the situation in Russia is right now, you've got oil below any measure where the budget can survive and you've got sanctions from the West. Russia is in what I'd call a real serious economic crisis," he said on Thursday. Speaking to CNBC in Davos where global business and political...

Wall Street has only recently ended the third-longest bull market in history. But in July, when stocks were still near their 2015 high, the Pew Charitable Trusts reported that state and local pension debt nationally had barely fallen since 2009, despite years of market gains. Now, with markets down more than 12% since summer, new pension debt is piling up... Absent some startling development — like an even bigger runaway bull market, which few market watchers anticipate — the crisis will worsen. At the root of the problem is a change in the financial structure of public pension funds... Another...

A measure of international trade often seen as a bellwether for the global economy has crashed to its lowest level ever, fueling fears we could be heading for another 2008-style crash. Back in November, the Baltic Dry Index dropped below 500 for the first time in recorded history, and it has kept falling ever since. On Wednesday morning it fell to a low of 369. To put that into perspective, the index was as high as 1,222 in August, and it has fallen 84% from a recent peak of 2,330 in late 2013. The Baltic Dry Index measures how much...

CARSON CITY — A state judge Wednesday rejected arguments challenging language in a proposed constitutional amendment to gradually raise Nevada's minimum wage. District Judge James Wilson said a coalition of business groups failed to show that a required description of effect was misleading or that language setting dates for when new minimum wage rules must be posted are inappropriate. Attorneys Matt Griffin and Kevin Benson, arguing on behalf of the Committee to Preserve Nevada Jobs, argued that the explanation on what the initiative would do was misleading because it didn't explain that employers who violated minimum wage laws would be...

But what Bill — or at least the Bill Clinton who was in the White House from 1993 to 2001 — would probably tell her is to abandon every one of her far-left proposals if she wants to see a return to strong GDP growth.