Market Digest

Northern Trust announced today that most U.S. institutional investment plan sponsors reported a fourth consecutive quarter of negative results for the period ending September 30, 2008, according to data in the Northern Trust Universe. The Northern Trust Universe represents more than 300 institutional investment plans, with a combined asset value of approximately $660 billion, which [...]

Absence of Verification Safeguards Allow Thieves to Steal Every year millions of Americans are the victims of identity theft, and in a lawsuit filed against major credit card companies, identity theft victim Eric Drew claims that the credit industry is facilitating the crimes. By attempting to maximize profits by fully automating their identity verification systems, [...]

The Conference Board announced today that the leading index for Germany declined 0.2 percent and the coincident index increased 0.5 percent in August. The leading index declined for the tenth consecutive month in August, as negative contributions from consumer confidence and interest rate spread offset small increases in the remaining components. Since February, the leading [...]

Executives Support Recent Moves by Treasury and Fed, but Agree Recession Here Financial professionals believe that government action over the past three weeks have stabilized the credit markets. Over 1,000 attendees at the Annual Conference of the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) indicated that various government action, including the U.S. Treasury plan to purchase an [...]