 | | | | The benchmark S&P 500 index clinched its longest-ever bull market run on Friday, closing above its previous January high, as Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell affirmed the U.S. central bank's current pace of rate hikes. | | | | | | The S&P 500 index notched its highest ever close on Friday, reaffirming that the bull market was intact, and now the longest running ever, after a steep sell-off seven months ago that tipped the market into a correction. | | | | | | The U.S. State Department on Friday said it would push for foreign postal carriers to pay the U.S. Postal Service more to deliver small parcels within the United States, taking up a longtime complaint by Amazon.com , UPS and others who have alleged the current system is unfair. | | | | | | Wells Fargo & Co is laying off more than 600 workers as it grapples with a slowdown in its mortgage business, a bank spokesman said on Friday. | | | | | | Papa John's International Inc , the world's third-largest pizza delivery company, has hired Bank of America Corp and Lazard Ltd to help find ways to stabilize the restaurant chain, which has come under pressure from its founder John Schnatter, people familiar with the matter said on Friday. | | | | | | Volkswagen Chief Executive Herbert Diess was given a memorandum warning the carmaker might face legal action in the U.S. over the use of cheating software in cars just days before the scandal broke, a public broadcaster reported on Friday. | | | | | | Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Friday defended the U.S. central bank's push to raise interest rates as healthy for the economy and signaled more hikes were coming despite President Donald Trump's criticism of higher borrowing costs. | | | | | | The Federal Reserve's steady interest rate hikes are the best way to protect the U.S. economic recovery and keep job growth as strong as possible and inflation under control, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said on Friday in a high-profile endorsement of the central bank's current approach to policy. | | | | | | Britain's top accountants will meet with competition regulators next week to discuss limiting the "Big Four" auditors' market share after lawmakers called for them to be broken up. | | | | | | Low interest rates may do less to boost business spending in today's economy than in years past because the big companies that now dominate many industries tend to use their money on intangibles that do not get cheaper as borrowing costs fall. | | | | | | Global equity market rose on Friday after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell expressed no surprises in a key speech outlining a steady course for monetary policy, while oil prices surged on signs Iran sanctions may constrain worldwide supply. | | | | | |
