Bill Barnhart

Many years ago, before transparency and communication skills mattered to the Federal Reserve, the central bank often was most effective when it surprised us with its interest rate moves. Tuesday's...

Stocks eased in thin, nervous trading Monday, ahead of Tuesday's meeting of Federal Reserve policymakers. Despite efforts by the Fed in recent years to signal its moves at these meetings,...

There's not much "regular" about Tuesday's regularly scheduled meeting of Federal Reserve policymakers in Washington. As they say at the anti-war demonstrations in the nation's capital, the whole world is...

It's time to dust off those accounting books you read after energy giant Enron blew up six years ago. This time, the problem is not a rogue energy company based...

Stocks ended mostly lower Wednesday, as major stock indexes barely budged. Strength in energy stocks, prompted by oil futures reaching $80 a barrel for the first time, was offset by...

Now that crude oil futures have hit a milestone, $80 a barrel, expect chatter around the water cooler and urgent remarks by politicians. "It is a psychological threshold; there is...

Day-to-day gyrations between joy and sorrow in the stock market this summer are going to make for interesting reading when you get the third-quarter reports from your mutual funds. Managers...

Now that once-benign jobs data has eroded in a hurry, validating the outlook for weaker U.S. economic growth, active investors need to turn their attention to another set of numbers...

Stocks ended narrowly mixed Monday, as optimism about technology darling Apple was offset by continuing worries about housing and mortgage lending. The Dow Jones industrial average added 14.47 points, to...

Stocks on Thursday posted modest advances, as investors cheered upbeat back-to-school sales reports by Wal-Mart and Macy's, and a report on business conditions in the services sector indicated that a...