WASHINGTON (Reuters) - If the majority of Wall Street economists are right, the U.S. recession will end this quarter and the global recovery won't be far behind. On Wednesday, the International Monetary Fund is expected to nudge up its forecast for 2010 global growth from the current estimate of 1.9 percent, primarily because fears of a more serious economic setback have not materialized. That makes for a brighter backdrop to this week's meeting of leaders from the Group of Eight major industrial nations in Italy, where the ...

They are the biggest of the big — the Citigroups, the Goldman Sachses, the AIGs and other financial behemoths. The Obama administration doesn't want so many around anymore. Financial regulations proposed by the president would result in leaner and simpler institutions that don't carry the weight of the system on their marble columns. Around Washington and Wall Street they have come to be known as TBTF — too big to fail. It's not ...

States that allow debt collectors to seize consumers' wages have sharply higher bankruptcy rates than neighboring states that prohibit or strictly limit the practice, an Associated Press analysis has found. This link highlights a dilemma for credit-card companies and other debt chasers: By going after wages — an increasingly popular maneuver since the recession began, lawyers say — they risk pushing consumers into bankruptcy court, where judges can reduce or wipe away all sorts of financial obligations. The ...

Investors, whose optimism was recently shaken by surprisingly weak economic data, are now hoping companies can provide some clues about a recovery. Wall Street's focus this week shifts from economic reports to corporate earnings announcements and forecasts for the rest of the year. After investors were rattled last week by the latest consumer and employment data, there is growing uncertainty in the market about how strong the second half of the year will be. Aluminum maker Alcoa ...