The net worth of Americans rose toward the end of last year as stock market portfolios surged, and overall household debt declined as mortgage liabilities waned.
In its “Flow of Funds” data, the Federal Reserve said Thursday that U.S. households’ total net worth rose 3.9 percent in the October through December period, to $56.823 trillion. Get the full story »
Dr. Howard Bauchner
A noted Boston professor of pediatrics and public health will be the next editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association, one of the nation’s best known medical journals.
Dr. Howard Bauchner will become JAMA’s top editor July 1, replacing Dr. Catherine DeAngelis, who had announced plans to leave the job after 11 years and return to Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, JAMA’s publisher, the Chicago-based American Medical Association said Thursday morning.
Bauchner, a professor at the Boston University School of Medicine, becomes the 16th editor in JAMA’s 127-year history. The journal is well known to consumers and medical professionals, given that its studies often make headlines, be they articles touting medical breakthroughs or editorials criticizing the health-care system. Get the full story »
Tower Ticker | Eddie and Jobo are back with CBS Radio in Chicago, and Jack’s been jilted. If it’s not quite like old times at WJMK-FM 104.3, it will be closer than it has been.
Beginning at 1:04 p.m. Monday, the one-time oldies station will switch from the Jack FM variety format it’s embraced for almost six years to a mix of hits from the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. Gone will be the disembodied recorded voice of Jack (Howard Cogan), replaced by actual live and local on-air personalities.
Rebranded as K-Hits, though the call letters won’t change, WJMK will also bring the long-time team of Ed Volkman and Joe “Jobo” Bohannon (nee Colborn) back not only to morning radio as 5:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. weekday hosts but also to CBS Radio, which cut them loose from WBBM-FM 96.3 in late 2008 with many months left on their multimillion-dollar contracts.
Your debit card may soon be denied for purchases greater than $100 — or even as little as $50.
JPMorgan Chase, one of the nation’s largest banks, is considering capping debit card transactions at $50 or $100, according to a source with knowledge of the proposal.
Why? Because of interchange fees. Get the full story »
AOL Chief Executive Tim Armstrong said Thursday that the company is cutting 200 jobs in the U.S. and 700 in India after its $315 million purchase of the Huffington Post.
Armstrong, speaking at the Bloomberg Media Summit in New York City, lamented the cuts but said AOL is “much more healthy” than it was a few years ago. Get the full story »
Starbucks Coffee Co., the Seattle-based coffee giant, has entered into an agreement with Waterbury, Vt.-based Green Mountain Coffee Roasters for the manufacture, distribution and sale of Starbucks and Tazo tea-branded K-Cups. Green Mountain holds patents on K-Cups, used to make drinks on the Keurig, and owns the single-serve machines.
Starbucks and Tazo K-Cups will be available in grocery and club stores, Starbucks cafes and department stores. Starbucks will also begin selling the Keurig brewers in store. Get the full story »
Chicago-based Monroe Capital LLC has hired investment banker Warren Woo, an owner in the National Hockey League’s Nashville Predators, as partner and as managing director of its recently raised $250 million investment fund. Get the full story »
Apple Inc. will kick off online sales of its new iPad in the early hours Friday before its evening store launch of the tablet computer.
Consumers can start buying the iPad 2 on Apple’s website at 3 a.m. Central time Friday while customers who want to purchase it in a store will have to wait until 4 p.m., Apple said. Get the full story »
After just 14 months at General Motors Co., Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell is leaving the automaker, possibly to pursue a job as a CEO at another company.
On Thursday, GM said Liddell would be replaced by Treasurer Dan Ammann, a former Morgan Stanley managing director, starting April 1. Get the full story »
Mortgage rates were mostly unchanged in the latest week, with the average rate on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages edging slightly upward, according to Freddie Mac’s weekly survey of mortgage rates.
Rates had risen earlier this year, hitting their highest level since April last month. They had slumped most of last year as Treasurys had declined amid economic uncertainty. The rates generally track the yields, which move inversely to Treasury prices. Get the full story »
Carlos Slim. (Mohamed Azakir/Reuters)
Rising global commodities prices and Asia’s economic boom led to a big increase in the number of billionaires in Russia, China and Brazil in 2011.
China nearly doubled its number of billionaires to 115, while Russia and Brazil posted two-third jumps to 101 and 30, respectively, Forbes said in its annual list of the world’s richest people.
It was the first time any country outside the United States, which has 413 billionaires, had more than 100. Moscow is now home to the most people on the list with 79 billionaires, easily outstripping New York, which has just 58. The world’s richest man, Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim, retained his crown for the second year in a row and made more money than any of the other 1,209 billionaires in the past year: $20.5 billion, taking his fortune to $74 billion. Get the full story »
New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week, a government report showed on Thursday, but held below a key level associated with labor market recovery. Get the full story »
A foreclosed home up for sale in Elgin in 2009. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
The number of homes in foreclosure plummeted in both Illinois and the U.S. in February, but despite the slowing flow, many analysts believe the foreclosure pipeline has not turned off yet.
In Illinois, 5,568 homeowners received notices that their mortgages had fallen into default and foreclosure proceedings had been initiated, while 1,471 properties were scheduled to go to auction and another 2,553 homes were repossessed by lenders, RealtyTrac said Thursday.
Altogether, the 9,592 notices related to a foreclosure last month showed a decline of 27.13 from January and 44.59 percent from February 2010. Get the full story »
A John Deere combine being worked on in Hampshire, Ill. Moline-based Deere hopes to expand its product line in Russia. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Moline, Ill.-based Deere & Co. will double the manufacturing space at a factory near Moscow and start its own leasing company in Russia, the world’s largest maker of agricultural equipment said Thursday.
The announcement was made as Deere Chairman and CEO Samuel Allen joined other CEOs and Vice President Joe Biden at an investment conference in Russia.
The investment at the Domodedovo factory will help the company expand its product line in Russia, adding new equipment such as log forwarders, which load and haul logs and are widely used in the Russian forestry industry, Deere said in a statement. Get the full story »
