A Stern Glance

American home prices dropped  by the sharpest annual rate on record in January. The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city housing index released Tuesday tumbled by a record 19 percent from January 2008. It was the largest decline since the index started in 2000. The 10-city index dropped 19.4 percent, also a new record.
All 20 cities in [...]

LAS VEGAS– Vestin Realty Mortgage II, Inc. (Nasdaq:VRTB – News), a real estate investment trust (“REIT”), announced results of operations for the year ended December 31, 2008.
The Company reported a net loss of approximately $130.2 million or ($8.86) per share for the year ended December 31, 2008 compared with net income of approximately $16.9 million, [...]

U.S. consumer spending rose for a second straight month in February, while incomes reversed the previous month’s gains, government data showed on Friday.
The Commerce Department said spending increased by 0.2 percent, after rising by a revised 1 percent in January, previously reported as a 0.6 percent increase. However, after adjusting for inflation, consumer spending [...]

The Commerce Department reported today that the economy, as measured by the Gross Domestic Product shrank at a 6.3 percent pace in the fourth quarter 2008, slightly faster than the 6.2 percent reported early and the worst showing in a quarter-century.
The current quarter doesn’t appear to be an improvement as new claims for unemployment benefits [...]

Sales of newly built U.S. single-family homes unexpectedly rose at their fastest pace in 10 months in February, while prices fell by a record margin from a year ago, a government report showed on Wednesday.
The Commerce Department reported that sales rose 4.7 percent to a 337,000 annual pace, the fastest increase since April last year, [...]

Orders to U.S. factories for big-ticket manufactured goods unexpectedly rose in February after a record six straight declines.
The Commerce Department says durable goods orders increased 3.4 percent last month, much better than the 2 percent fall economists expected. It was the first advance since July and the strongest one-month gain in 14 months.
The strength was [...]

Click here for the Treasury Departments Q&A for small business on the Recovery Act.

The Financial Stability Plan – Progress So Far: Over the past six weeks, the Treasury Department has implemented a series of initiatives as part of its Financial Stability Plan that – alongside the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act – lay the foundations for economic recovery. Click here for fact sheet.

The Financial Stability Plan – Progress So Far: Over the past six weeks, the Treasury Department has implemented a series of initiatives as part of its Financial Stability Plan that – alongside the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – lay the foundations for economic recovery:
Efforts to Improve Affordability for Responsible Homeowners: Treasury has implemented programs [...]

Consumer prices rose in February by the largest amount in seven months as gasoline prices surged again and clothing costs jumped the most in nearly two decades, as the Labor Department reported that consumer inflation rose 0.4 percent in February, the biggest one-month jump since a 0.7 percent rise in July.
Two-thirds of last month’s increase [...]