China has overtaken Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy, the fruit of three decades of rapid growth that has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. Depending on how fast its exchange rate rises, China is on course to overtake the United States and vault into the No.1 spot sometime around 2025, according [...]

President Barack Obama on Wednesday signed into law the most sweeping overhaul of U.S. financial-market regulations since the Great Depression, marking the conclusion of an effort to craft a legislative response to the 2008 financial crisis. Mr. Obama pitched the measure as a major step toward correcting the problems that contributed to that crisis and the [...]

The housing market, whose collapse pulled the economy into recession in late 2007, is stalling again. In major markets across the country, home sales are deteriorating, inventories of unsold homes are piling up and builders are scaling back construction plans. The expiration of a federal home-buyers tax credit at the end of April is weighing on [...]

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained more than 50 points, or 0.6 percent, led by Intel, Boeing and Alcoa, after losing 1 percent last week. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq also rose, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq the best performer of the three. The CBOE volatility index, widely considered the best gauge of fear in the market, [...]

In one of the largest penalties in Wall Street history, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. agreed to pay $550 million to settle civil charges that it duped clients by selling mortgage securities that were secretly designed by a hedge-fund firm to cash in on the housing market’s collapse. But the agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission [...]

JPMorgan Chase said it earned $4.8 billion during the second quarter on Thursday, helped by strong performance across its different businesses and a decline in loan loss reserves. On a per share basis, the company said it earned $1.09 a share, excluding the impact of a benefit tied to a reduction in loan loss reserves. Including [...]

Consumer Reports magazine said Monday it cannot recommend the iPhone 4 to shoppers because of persistent reception issues caused by touching the Apple Inc. phone. The magazine also questioned Apple’s explanation for the glitch, saying it tested other smartphones in its labs, including the older iPhone 3GS, and “none of those phones had the signal-loss problems [...]

The Dow pulled off its fifth straight gain Monday but volume was some of the lightest this year as many investors took a wait-and-see approach to earnings season, which kicked off with results after the bell from Alcoa. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 18.24, or 0.2 percent, to close at 10,216.27, after gaining 5.3 percent [...]

Providing yet another headwind for economic recovery, FICO, a leading provider of credit scores, said more Americans are seeing their average credit scores fall to new lows. The shift is significant not just because of its magnitude, but also because the repurcussions of these lower credit scores will be with us for a long time to [...]

US oil giant ExxonMobil has asked Washington for permission to explore a possible acquisition of its troubled British competitor BP Plc, the British weekly Sunday Times reported, quoting sources within the oil industry. “There have been talks at a high level, and Exxon has expressed a serious interest,” one insider said. “It is too early to [...]