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Friday, March 14, 2014

Futures Movers: Oil edges up, but ends nearly 4% lower on week

By Myra P. Saefong and Michael Kitchen, MarketWatch

Bloomberg

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Oil futures closed higher on Friday, but fell nearly 4% for the week, as traders assessed the risks tied to the week’s referendum in Crimea, which could threaten crude supplies from Russia as well as energy demand in the region.

The market also weighed a monthly report showing an unexpected surge in last month’s Iraqi output to its highest level since 1979.

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Crude oil for April delivery /quotes/zigman/2196842/realtime CLJ4 +0.78% picked up 69 cents, or 0.7%, to settle at $ 98.89 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Thursday, prices posted a gain for the first time in four sessions.

Tracking the most-active contracts, prices saw a loss of roughly 3.6% for the week, with much of that decline due to concerns over the prospects for energy demand following data showing a slowdown in China’s economy. Read: Another worrying chart on China.

On ICE Futures, April Brent crude /quotes/zigman/2648926/realtime UK:LCOJ4 +1.07% , meanwhile, added $ 1.18, or 1.1%, to end at $ 108.57 a barrel on the contract’s expiration day. Prices for the contract lost about 0.4% for the week.

“It is a difficult analysis as to whether the Ukraine situation is bullish or bearish for oil,” analysts at the Kilduff Report said on Friday.

“Russia’s oil production and supply to Europe hangs in the balance and its loss to the market is certainly supportive,” they said. “The U.S. cannot fill the gap with [Strategic Petroleum Reserve] oil or anything else.”

The U.S. government announced earlier this week that it’s selling up to 5 million barrels of sour crude from the petroleum reserve in order to “assess the system’s capabilities in the event of a disruption.” Analysts have speculated whether the sale has anything to do with the turmoil in Ukraine.

For the global oil market, however, “the damage to the economy of Europe and Russia would be greatly impacted by a battle and the accompanying sanctions,” said the analysts at the Kilduff Report. “The slowdown would reverberate to China and the U.S., due to Europe’s woes. The expected economic drag is likely large enough to make the net analysis that oil prices would fall.”

IEA reports jump in Iraq output

In addition to a referendum due Sunday in the Ukrainian region of Crimea to gauge support for it breaking away to join Russia, markets also digested news from the International Energy Agency’s monthly oil report.

Increases in oil supply from the U.S. and Canada as well as a surprise jump in Iraqi crude production in February helped to offset rising demand brought on by the cold U.S. winter and geopolitical concerns linked to Russia and Ukraine, the IEA said on Friday.

U.S. grid sabotage could cause national blackout

The U.S. could suffer a coast-to-coast blackout if saboteurs knocked out nine of the country’s electric-transmission substations on a summer day, according to a previously unreported federal analysis.

“The interesting spin … is the big up-shift in [the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries] production volumes recently,” said Matt Parry, chief oil analyst at the IEA in Paris.

Essentially, 500,000 barrels per day of additional OPEC supplies were seen in February, to 30.5 million barrels per day, “as much higher Iraqi volumes surprised everyone,” he told MarketWatch. “Nobody, including ourselves, had been expecting this,” with Iraqi crude along surging by 530,000 barrels per day for the month to 3.62 million barrels per day.

“Given the recent uptick in geopolitical tensions — which is about the most I can really say about the Crimea at the moment — the likely easing in the call on OPEC [demand for OPEC oil], to 28.9 [million barrels a day] in 1Q14, should provide something of a cushion to markets, noting OPEC produced 30.5 mb/d in February and 30.0 mb/d in January,” he said.

Back on Nymex Friday, April natural gas /quotes/zigman/2307996/realtime NGJ14 +0.87% tacked on 4 cents, or 1%, to $ 4.425 per million British thermal units. The move came after a 2.4% drop the previous day on the back of weekly U.S. supply data that printed roughly in line with estimates. For the week, prices lost about 4.2%.

April gasoline /quotes/zigman/4332134/realtime RBJ4 +0.84% edged up by almost 3 cents, or 0.9%, to $ 2.96 a gallon, down about 0.3% from the week-ago close, while April heating oil /quotes/zigman/9821441/realtime HOJ4 +0.68% over 2 cents, or 0.8%, to $ 2.94 a gallon, losing 2.3% on the week.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Congressional Budget Office: $10.10 minimum wage would lower employment by 500k, raise incomes for 16.5 million

THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER – Raising the minimum wage to $ 10.10 by 2016 would increase wages for 16.5 million workers but lead to a loss of about 500,000 jobs, according to an estimate from the Congressional Budget Office released Tuesday afternoon.

The range of potential job losses projected by the CBO was from a “slight decrease” in employment to as many as 1 million.

The CBO examined the effects of a minimum wage hike similar to that advocated by congressional Democrats and the Obama administration, one that would raise the legal minimum hourly wage and index that rate to inflation so its value would not erode over time.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

U.S. Stocks End Broadly Lower

Tomi Kilgore
The Wall Street Journal
January 23, 2014

Stocks suffered broad declines as weak data out of China spooked investors, triggering a flight out of riskier assets.

The increase in market volatility, which included sharp selloffs in emerging markets and the biggest tumble in Argentina’s currency in over a decade, came as U.S. stocks has struggled in recent weeks to regain the upward momentum seen at the end of 2013.

On Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 175.99 points, or 1.1%, to 16197.35, the lowest close since Dec. 19.

This article was posted: Thursday, January 23, 2014 at 3:53 pm

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U.S. Stocks End Broadly Lower

Sunday, December 22, 2013

China benchmark money rate opens sharply lower

China benchmark money rate opens sharply lower
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SHANGHAI Sun Dec 22, 2013 8:25pm EST

SHANGHAI Dec 23 (Reuters) – China’s benchmark short-term money rate opened sharply lower on Monday after it hit its highest level since the June cash crunch on Friday.

The central bank announced on Friday it had injected 300 billion yuan ($ 49.41 billion) via short-term liquidity operations (SLO) during Dec. 18-20.

The seven-day bond repurchase agreement was quoted at 5.57 percent at open, down sharply from 7.60 percent at market close Friday. ($ 1 = 6.0713 Chinese yuan) (Reporting by Chen Yixin and Kazunori Takada)

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Read more about China benchmark money rate opens sharply lower and other interesting subjects concerning Real Estate at TheDailyNewsReport.com

Saturday, December 7, 2013

CBO: US Deficit $61B Lower Than Last Year

The government has racked up a $ 231 billion budget deficit for the first two months of the new fiscal year, but that’s down $ 61 billion from last year’s figures, according to a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The CBO’s findings said increased tax revenues and lower spending led to the drop, reports The Hill.

Individual tax receipts were up by 10 percent after a two-point payroll tax expired in January. In addition, tax rates increased on people making more than $ 400,000 a year, also narrowing the deficit.

The decline also reflects a five percent spending decrease, reported the CBO, which came with sequestration cuts. For example, in the first two months of the year, there was $ 10 billion less in defense spending.

In addition, unemployment benefits spending and net interest on the public debt also each dropped by $ 3 billion, and disaster aid spending was down as well.

Department of Agriculture spending also dipped by $ 4 billion, and Federal Emergency Management Agency spending dropped by $ 2 billion, reports the CBO.

But increases in two of the government’s largest entitlement programs, Social Security and Medicaid went up, by $ 7 billion and $ 1billion, respectively.

The difference of one Day made a huge spending difference for the month of December, the CBO reports. Because Dec. 1 fell on a weekend, the government incurred a $ 140 billion deficit in November, $ 33 billion smaller than the $ 172 billion deficit in November 2012.

With Dec. 1 falling on a weekend in both years, some payments that would have been made in December came instead in November.

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CBO: US Deficit $61B Lower Than Last Year

Monday, November 18, 2013

Chuck Todd: Obama Should "Lower The Bar" For Obamacare So "Lazy Media" Won"t Attack Him

CHUCK TODD: I think the 80% — I have to say, you got to say at least they’re learning some lesson here which is lower the bar because they know it’s not going to run perfectly on November 30th. And if you promised a perfect website then you would have lazy media and some in the opposition party who would just say, ‘A-ha! The website took… look it! There’s the hourglass! There’s the hourglass! It’s circling!’

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Lower the bar, which is something they should have done.

TODD: You’ve got to lower the bar a little bit.

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Chuck Todd: Obama Should "Lower The Bar" For Obamacare So "Lazy Media" Won"t Attack Him

Friday, November 1, 2013

EMERGING MARKETS-Brazil leads Latam currencies lower on Fed worries

EMERGING MARKETS-Brazil leads Latam currencies lower on Fed worries
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Thursday, August 1, 2013

Bill to lower student loan rates heads to Obama

Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., front right, with Reps. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., from left, Luke Messer, R-Ind., and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., obscured, talk about student loans on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, July 31, 2013. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., front right, with Reps. Luke Messer, R-Ind., from left, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., and John Kline, R-Minn., talk about student loans on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, July 31, 2013. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

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WASHINGTON (AP) â€” A bipartisan bill that would lower the costs of borrowing for millions of students is awaiting President Barack Obama’s signature.

The House on Wednesday gave final congressional approval to legislation that links student loan interest rates to the financial markets. The bill would offer lower rates for most students now but higher rates down the line if the economy improves as expected.

For the moment, the focus was on the class of students signing loans for classes this fall.

“Going forward, the whims of Washington politicians won’t dictate student loan interest rates, meaning more certainty and more opportunities for students to take advantage of lower rates,” House Speaker John Boehner said.

The measure passed 392-31.

Undergraduates this fall would borrow at a 3.9 percent interest rate for subsidized and unsubsidized Stafford loans. Graduate students would have access to loans at 5.4 percent, and parents would borrow at 6.4 percent. The rates would be locked in for that year’s loan, but each year’s loan could be more expensive than the last. Rates would rise as the economy picks up and it becomes more expensive for the government to borrow money.

But for now, interest payments for tuition, housing and books would be less expensive under the House-passed bill.

“Changing the status quo is never easy, and returning student loan interest rates to the market is a longstanding goal Republicans have been working toward for years,” said Rep. John Kline, the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. “I applaud my colleagues on the other side of the aisle for finally recognizing this long-term, market-based proposal for what it is: a win for students and taxpayers.”

The House earlier this year passed legislation that is similar to what the Senate later passed. Both versions link interest rates to 10-year Treasury notes and remove Congress’ annual role in determining rates.

“Campaign promises and political posturing should not play a role in the setting of student loan interest rates,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C. “Borrowers deserve better.”

Negotiators of the Senate compromise were mindful of the House-passed version, as well as the White House preference to shift responsibility for interest rates to the financial markets. The resulting bipartisan bill passed the Senate 81-18.

With changes made in the Senate â€” most notably a cap on how interest rates could climb and locking in interest rates for the life of each year’s loan â€” Democrats dropped their objections and joined Republicans in backing the bill.

Interest rates would not top 8.25 percent for undergraduates. Graduate students would not pay rates higher than 9.5 percent, and parents’ rates would top out at 10.5 percent. Using Congressional Budget Office estimates, rates would not reach those limits in the next 10 years.

Rates on new subsidized Stafford loans doubled to 6.8 percent July 1 because Congress could not agree on a way to keep them at 3.4 percent. Without congressional action, rates would have stayed at 6.8 percent â€” a reality most lawmakers called unacceptable.

The compromise that came together during the last month would be a good deal for all students through the 2015 academic year. After that, interest rates are expected to climb above where they were when students left campus in the spring, if congressional estimates prove correct.

The White House and its allies said the new loan structure would offer lower rates to 11 million borrowers right away and save the average undergraduate $ 1,500 in interest charges.

In all, some 18 million loans will be covered by the legislation, totaling about $ 106 billion this fall.

Lawmakers were already talking about changing the deal when they take up a rewrite of the Higher Education Act this fall. As a condition of his support, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, won a Government Accountability Office report on the costs of colleges. That document was expected to guide an overhaul of the deal just negotiated.

___

Follow Philip Elliott on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/philip_elliott

Associated Press

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Bill to lower student loan rates heads to Obama

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Honda first-quarter profit lower than expected, cautious on emerging markets

Visitors look at a Honda Motor Co’s car displayed outside the company showroom in Tokyo April 26, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Yuya Shino

By Yoko Kubota

TOKYO | Wed Jul 31, 2013 4:11am EDT

TOKYO (Reuters) – Honda Motor Co (7267.T) announced a lower than expected 5.1 percent rise in quarterly operating profit after sales in Japan dropped following the end of subsidies and as it lagged behind rivals in selling profitable SUVs and pickups in the U.S.

Japan’s third-biggest automaker saw strong April-June sales in Asia, including its fourth biggest market Thailand, but Executive Vice President Tetsuo Iwamura sounded a note of caution about unexpected swings in emerging markets.

Honda posted an operating profit of 185.0 billion yen ($ 1.9 billion) for its April-June first quarter, compared with 176.01 billion yen a year earlier.

The result was below the average estimate of 209.3 billion yen in a Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S poll of four analysts.

For its fiscal year ending in March 2014, Honda stuck to its forecast for 780 billion yen, lower than 840.0 billion yen, the mean of estimates by 21 analysts.

Honda, the fifth biggest carmaker in the United States, sold 745,578 vehicles there in the first half of the year, up 6 percent from the same period a year ago, helped by strong sales of the popular Accord sedan.

The United States is Honda’s biggest market, accounting for about 40 percent of Honda’s global vehicle sales. Its market share shrunk 0.1 percentage point during the same period to 9.5 percent.

“Pickups and SUVs are growing in the U.S. market, helping the Detroit-based carmakers… Our light-truck supply was relatively low, but we are introducing a new model,” Iwamura told reporters, referring to the MDX, a SUV by Honda’s luxury brand Acura.

Shares in Honda have soared nearly 60 percent since mid-November, when expectations were growing that Shinzo Abe would take over as prime minister to implement his bold economic policies and help weaken the yen.

CAUTIOUS ON EMERGING MARKETS

Sales in Japan, Honda’s second biggest market, dropped by 24 percent in the first quarter to 140,000 vehicles after government subsidies for green cars ended late last year.

Honda, which has set an aggressive goal to expand global annual sales to 6 million vehicles by March 2017 from the current 4 million, is facing expansion costs as it is building multiple new plants or expanding capacity at existing factories.

Its capital expenditure spending in the first quarter jumped 78.6 percent year-on-year to 171 billion yen.

Honda’s new Yorii plant in Japan has started to operate earlier this month, while its new plant in Mexico is set to start operations in 2014. It is also planning new plants or expansions in multiple countries including Thailand and China.

“At times we see various big unexpected moves in emerging markets so we are cautious. But automobile and motorbike demand will certainly grow there so we will continue to build foundations for success,” Iwamura said.

Honda saw Thai April-June sales jump nearly 30 percent from a year ago to around 59,000 vehicles as it still has some 100,000 orders from before end-2012 when the government still offered subsidies for first-time car buyers.

While sales in Southeast Asia’s biggest car market have been dropping in the recent months and Honda expects some cancellations of the existing orders, Iwamura said the company aims to retain demand by introducing new models.

Japan’s biggest automaker Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) is set to release its April-June earnings results on Friday. Last week, Japan’s second biggest carmaker Nissan Motor Co (7201.T) booked 108.1 billion yen in quarterly operating profit, up 23 percent from a year ago.

(Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

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Honda first-quarter profit lower than expected, cautious on emerging markets

Friday, July 19, 2013

Compromise would restore lower college loan rates

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, chair of the Senate Education Committee, announces to reporters that a bipartisan agreement was reached on lowering rates for government student loans, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, July 18, 2013. At left is Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., at right. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., a former secretary of education, center, speaks to reporters after a bipartisan agreement was reached on lowering rates for government student loans, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, July 18, 2013. Interest rates doubled July 1, 2013, because Congress didn’t avert a rate hike built into the law. Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, right, was one of the main negotiators. At far left is Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Chart shows projected student loan rates based on a proposed Senate plan; 1c x 3 inches; 46.5 mm x 76 mm;

Prospective students tour Georgetown University’s campus in Washington, Wednesday, July 10, 2013. The defeat of a student loan bill in the Senate on Wednesday clears the way for fresh negotiations to restore lower rates, but lawmakers are racing the clock before millions of students return to campus next month to find borrowing terms twice as high as when school let out. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

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WASHINGTON (AP) â€” A compromise deal on student loans that could hold down loan rates in the short term was expected to come to a vote next week, well before students returning to campus this fall have to sign their loan agreements.

While the deal could lower rates for students and parents over the next few years, it could spell higher rates as the economy improves.

The Senate deal pegs the interest rates on new loans to the financial markets. Under the deal, undergraduates this fall could borrow at a 3.9 percent interest rate. Graduate students would have access to loans at 5.4 percent, and parents would be able to borrow at 6.4 percent. Those rates would climb as the economy improves and it becomes more expensive for the government to borrow money.

The compromise undoes the doubling of rates on some student loans that took hold on July 1, and one analysis of the Senate deal suggests incoming freshmen would save more than $ 3,300 in interest.

“We have gone through weeks of negotiations and we have an agreement,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney said President Barack Obama was “glad to see that a compromise seems to be coming together.”

And Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said students benefited: “For every one of them, the interest rates on their loans will be lower.”

At least for now. The compromise could be a good deal for students through the 2015 academic year, but then interest rates are expected to climb above where they were when students left campus in the spring.

Even in announcing the compromise, it was clear the negotiations were dicey.

“While this is not the agreement any of us would have written, and many of us would like to have seen something quite different, I believe that we have come a very long way on reaching common ground,” Durbin told reporters.

Moments later, Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said he would revisit the whole agreement this fall, when his panel takes up a rewrite of the Higher Education Act. Harkin did little to hide his unhappiness with the compromise, but said there were few options to avoid a costly hike on students returning to campus this fall.

As part of the compromise, Democrats won a protection for students that capped rates at a maximum 8.25 percent for undergraduates. Graduate students would not pay rates higher than 9.5 percent, and parents’ rates would top out at 10.5 percent.

Using Congressional Budget Office estimates, rates would not reach those limits in the next 10 years.

Lawmakers engaged in near-constant work to undo a rate hike that took hold for subsidized Stafford loans on July 1. Rates for new subsidized Stafford loans doubled from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent.

On Wednesday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau estimated outstanding student debt at $ 1.2 trillion â€” up 20 percent in just two years. Student loans are now the largest form of consumer debt behind mortgages.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates 21 million loans would be issued in 2013. Students often take a combination of subsidized and unsubsidized loans to pay for their education.

The rapid growth in debt is raising alarm among experts, and there is growing evidence student debt is weighing down the economy â€” for instance, by delaying the ability of young graduates to buy homes.

The increase follows the jump in the cost of higher education.

The tuition sticker price at public four-year colleges is up 27 percent beyond overall inflation over the last five years, according to the latest figures from the College Board. This past year it rose nearly 5 percent to an annual average of $ 8,655 nationwide.

Only about one-third of full-time students pay that published price, and the average net price â€” what the average student does pay after grants, scholarships, loans and federal tax credits and deductions â€” is just $ 2,910 for a year of studies. But net prices have been rising, too, and tuition is just part of the cost of college. Including room and board, the average annual sticker price at public colleges is now $ 17,860, and students pay on average $ 12,110.

At private four-year colleges, the annual average full tuition price is now just under $ 40,000, with the average student paying $ 23,840.

The bipartisan student loan compromise closely hews to what House Republicans passed earlier this year. Both Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and Republican House Speaker John Boehner suggested the outlines of the proposal were acceptable to the GOP rank-and-file members who have pushed for a link between interest rates and the financial markets.

Even House Democrats who opposed the GOP-led deal there appeared ready to go along.

“I’m encouraged that bipartisan efforts continue in the Senate to reverse the student loan interest rate hike,” said Rep. George Miller, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Few students had borrowed for fall classes. Students typically do not sign loans until just before they return to campus, and lawmakers have until the August recess to restore the lower rates. The students who had borrowed for summer programs since July 1 would have their rates retroactively reduced.

The deal was estimated to reduce the deficit by $ 715 million over the next decade.

___

Associated Press Higher Education Writer Justin Pope in Ann Arbor, Mich., contributed to this report.

___

Follow Philip Elliott on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/philip_elliott

Associated Press

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Compromise would restore lower college loan rates

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Senators ready to restore lower college loan rates

The U.S. Capitol is seen in Washington, Sunday night, June 23, 2013. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

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WASHINGTON (AP) â€” Senators are ready to offer students a better deal on their college loans this fall, but future classes could see higher interest rates.

The Senate could vote as early as Thursday on a bipartisan compromise that heads off a costly increase for returning students. The compromise could be a good deal for students through the 2015 academic year, but then interest rates are expected to climb above where they were when students left campus this spring.

Under the deal, all undergraduates this fall would borrow at 3.85 percent interest rates. Graduate students would have access to loans at 5.4 percent and parents would be able to borrow at 6.4 percent. Those rates would climb as the economy improves and it becomes more expensive for the government to borrow money.

The deal was described by Republican and Democratic aides who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing negotiations by name.

Undergraduates last year borrowed at 3.4 percent or 6.8 percent, depending on their financial need. Graduate students had access to federal loans at 6.8 percent and parents borrowed at 7.9 percent.

The interest rates would be linked to the financial markets, but Democrats won a protection for students that rates would never climb higher than 8.25 percent for undergraduates. Graduate students would not pay rates higher than 9.5 percent and parents’ rates would top out at 10.5 percent.

The bipartisan agreement is expected to be the final in a string of efforts that have emerged from near constant work to undo a rate hike that took hold for subsidized Stafford loans on July 1. Rates for new subsidized Stafford loans doubled from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent, adding roughly $ 2,600 to students’ education costs.

Lawmakers from both parties called the increase senseless but differed on how to restore the lower rates. Republicans have pushed for a link between interest rates and the financial markets. Obama included that link in his budget proposal, as did House Republicans. Democrats balked, saying it could produce government profits on the backs of borrowers if rates continued to climb.

Leaders from both parties, however, recognized the potential to be blamed for the added costs in the 2014 elections if nothing were done.

Senate aides said a vote on the agreement could come as early as Thursday, although it could be pushed back to the middle of next week.

The House has already passed student loan legislation that also links interest rates to the 10-year Treasury note. The differences between the Senate and House versions are expected to be resolved before students return to campus this fall, and Obama is expected to sign the bill.

Few students had borrowed for fall classes. Students typically do not take out loans until just before they return to campus, and lawmakers have until the August recess to restore the lower rates. The students who had borrowed for summer programs since July 1 would have their rates retroactively reduced.

The deal was estimated to reduce the deficit by $ 715 million over the next decade.

Lawmakers and their top aides have been tinkering with various proposals â€” nudging here, trimming there â€” trying to find a deal that avoids added red ink for students and the government alike.

Democrats and Republicans met with Obama and Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday at the White House. An outline of an agreement seemed to be taking shape Tuesday, with follow-up meetings Wednesday in Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin’s office yielding a final agreement.

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Republican Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina were the main negotiators, with Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Durbin filling the role of mediators.

___

Follow Philip Elliott on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/philip_elliott

Associated Press

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Senators ready to restore lower college loan rates

Articles and More!

Friday, March 14, 2014

Futures Movers: Oil edges up, but ends nearly 4% lower on week

IEA reports jump in Iraq output

U.S. grid sabotage could cause national blackout

Other must-read MarketWatch stories include:

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Congressional Budget Office: $10.10 minimum wage would lower employment by 500k, raise incomes for 16.5 million

Thursday, January 23, 2014

U.S. Stocks End Broadly Lower

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Sunday, December 22, 2013

China benchmark money rate opens sharply lower

Saturday, December 7, 2013

CBO: US Deficit $61B Lower Than Last Year

Monday, November 18, 2013

Chuck Todd: Obama Should "Lower The Bar" For Obamacare So "Lazy Media" Won"t Attack Him

Friday, November 1, 2013

EMERGING MARKETS-Brazil leads Latam currencies lower on Fed worries

Related Topics

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Bill to lower student loan rates heads to Obama

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Honda first-quarter profit lower than expected, cautious on emerging markets

Friday, July 19, 2013

Compromise would restore lower college loan rates

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Senators ready to restore lower college loan rates