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Asian stocks rise modestly as G-20 pledge, China factory growth buoy optimism; Europe falls

HONG KONG (AP) — Asian stock markets climbed modestly Friday after the world’s major powers pledged more than $1 trillion to combat the global economic crisis and China’s hard-hit factories showed signs of new life. European markets opened lower.

Gains across Asia were somewhat subdued as caution began to set in before a key U.S. employment report Friday following a spectacular rally that’s lifted leading markets from Japan to New York by double-digit percentages over the last four weeks.

The latest catalyst came Thursday as the Group of 20 industrial and developing nations promised $1.1 trillion to the International Monetary Fund and other development bodies to lend to less well-off countries reeling from the global economic turmoil. They also vowed new efforts to clean up banks’ tattered balance sheets, shut down tax havens and tighten financial regulations. Read more

Layoffs rise despite hope recession is easing

The Labor Department on Friday is slated to release a report expected to show that a net total of 654,000 jobs were lost last month. That’s more than the population of Baltimore.

If economists are right, it would mark a record four straight months that job losses topped 600,000.

“It’s going to be another month of gargantuan jobs losses,” predicted Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group. “Companies were slashing jobs and not filling vacant positions.”

With employers axing payrolls, the nation’s unemployment rate is expected to jump to 8.5 percent, from 8.1 percent in February. If that happens, it would mark the highest jobless rate since late 1983, when the country was recovering from a severe recession that drove unemployment past 10 percent.
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The 11 Most Overlooked Tax Deductions

Every year, the IRS dutifully reports the most common blunders taxpayers make on their returns. And every year, at or near the top of the “oops” list is forgetting to enter a Social Security number or making a mistake when entering those nine digits at the top of the tax form.

Before you bemoan such stupidity of your fellow Americans, ask yourself a simple question: Is that the most common error? Or just the most easily noticed goof?

Who knows how many people forgot — or never knew about — a deduction that could save them money? That’s not the kind of thing government bean counters lose a lot of sleep over.

No doubt about it: The opportunity for mistakes is almost unlimited. The most recent numbers show that about 46 million of us itemized deductions on our 1040s — claiming nearly 1 trillion dollars’ worth of deductions. That’s right: $1,000,000,000,000, a number rarely mentioned out loud until Congress started debating the latest stimulus package.

Another 85 million taxpayers claimed more than half a trillion dollars’ worth of standard deductions. Some of those who took the easy way out probably shortchanged themselves. (If you turned 65 in 2008, remember that you deserve a bigger standard deduction than younger folks.) Read more

Home Prices: Low, But Still No Bargain

Forget low mortgage rates and the buyer’s market. Real-estate prices still have a long way to fall.

Homeowners are watching anxiously for any signs of housing market stabilization. So, too, are all those who believe the market may hold the key to the economy.
And yet the most recent data makes for more gloomy reading.

The closely watched Case-Shiller index, which tracks prices across twenty major cities, shows that through January the crash was getting worse, not better.

And yet, even after these declines, homes overall still may not be that cheap relative to wages. More on that later.

The headline numbers are grim enough. January’s Case-Shiller index showed a 19% slump from a year earlier. The usual suspects fared very badly: Phoenix was down a remarkable 35%. Las Vegas fell 32% and Miami 29%.

The crash has really spread, too. Minneapolis is down 20% and Chicago 16%. San Francisco, which had held up pretty well, has now turned in spectacular fashion. Prices there have fallen 32% in the past year, worse even than San Diego or Los Angeles. Read more

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