Falling oil prices continued to weigh on U.S. and global stock markets as investors remained deeply concerned about the global economy following this week’s disappointing Chinese and U.S. manufacturing data. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, overtook Apple as the world’s most valuable publicly traded company. KEEPING SCORE: The Dow Jones industrial… Read More

Alphabet now comes before Apple atop the list of the world’s most valuable companies. The shift occurred in Monday’s extended trading after Alphabet, Google’s new parent company, released a fourth-quarter earnings report that highlighted the robust growth of the digital ad market. Apple Inc.’s iPhone, meanwhile, is suffering its first… Read More

Apple is bracing for its first sales decline in 13 years, despite selling a record 74.8 million iPhones in the final three months of 2015, in what may prove to be a turning point for the world’s most valuable company. The tech giant says revenue could fall at least 8.6… Read More

Panic is so passé. Investors are keeping their cool — and keeping their hands off of their retirement accounts — despite huge swings in the stock market that sent it careening to its worst start to a year ever. “They are just plugging away through the ups and downs of… Read More

Ford is recalling nearly 391,000 Ranger pickups because the driver’s air bag inflators can explode with too much force and cause injuries. The recall covers trucks from the 2004 through 2006 model years in the U.S. and Canada. It comes just days after the government announced that a South Carolina… Read More

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) again cut its forecast for global and U.S. economic growth in 2016. Citing weakness in the developing world, the IMF said Tuesday that the world economy will grow 3.4 percent, down from an October forecast of 3.6 percent. The international lending agency downgraded the outlook… Read More

Wal-Mart is closing 269 stores, more than half of them in the U.S. and another big chunk in its challenging Brazilian market. The stores being shuttered account for a fraction of the company’s 11,000 stores worldwide and less than 1 percent of its global revenue. More than 95 percent of… Read More