Trade deficit narrowed in FebruaryU.S. imports of goods and services dropped by 1.7 percent to a seasonally adjusted $210.9 billion during February, while exports declined 1.4 percent to $165.1 billion, the Commerce Department estimated. The trade deficit -- that is, the difference between exports and imports -- narrowed to $45.8 billion for the month. The 2.6 percent decline in the deficit was much less than expected. Analysts surveyed by MarketWatch had expected the deficit to narrow to $42.9 billion.
AOL to add staff, cut back on freelancersAOL Inc., seeking to revive sales growth after buying the Huffington Post, is hiring as many as 800 full-time employees at local-news operations across the country and reducing the use of freelancers. Arianna Huffington, the Huffington Post co-founder who became editor-in-chief of AOL's media operations, said she intends to increase content at the company's Patch websites covering about 800 local markets nationwide. Tuesday the Huffington Post and AOL were sued in New York over claims that writers of website content weren't paid for their work.
FDIC foresees fewer losses to bank failuresThe Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. projected that bank failures will cost the agency $21 billion from 2011 through 2015, significantly less than the $24 billion in losses it estimates for banks that failed last year alone. In addition, the FDIC's staff projects that the Deposit Insurance Fund the agency operates will turn to a positive balance this year.
Fiat raises its stake in ChryslerFiat confirmed that it had obtained an additional 5 percent of Chrysler -- increasing its stake to 30 percent after the U.S. automaker reached a sales goal of $1.5 billion in revenue outside of North America.
FROM NEWS SERVICES
