NEW YORK - March 29, 2011 - Home prices are falling in most major U.S. cities, and the average prices in four of them are at their lowest point in 11 years. Analysts expect further prices declines in most cities in the coming months.

The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index released Tuesday shows home prices dropped in 19 cities from December to January. Eleven of them are at their lowest level since the housing bust, in 2006 and 2007. The index fell for the sixth straight month.

NEW YORK - March 28, 2011 - With gas prices at two-year highs and food prices at record levels, the value of a dollar just does not go as far today as it did a decade ago.

“Get used to it,” says Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital. "If people think that gas and food prices are high now, just wait for another couple years," he says. "[Prices] are going to be up in the stratosphere."

NEW YORK - March 28, 2011 - Chips are disappearing from bags, candy from boxes and vegetables from cans.

As an expected increase in the cost of raw materials looms for late summer, consumers are beginning to encounter shrinking food packages.

WASHINGTON - March 26, 2011 - Regulators on Friday shut down a small bank in Illinois, boosting to 26 the number of U.S. bank failures this year after 157 succumbed in 2010 to the sputtering economy and piles of soured loans.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized Bank of Commerce, with one office in Wood Dale, Illinois, $163.1 million in assets and $161.4 million in deposits. Advantage National Bank Group, based in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, agreed to assume the assets and deposits of the failed bank.

WASHINGTON - March 24, 2011 - Companies trimmed their orders for long lasting manufactured goods in February, buying fewer computers, machines and primary metals.

Durable-goods orders fell 0.9% last month, the Commerce Department said Thursday. It was the fourth decline in the past five months.

LONDON, England - March 23, 2011 - Gold rose to within a whisker of its all-time high Wednesday, as record low U.S. new home sales stirred talk of extended central banks’ accommodative policies, and a possible collapse of Portugal’s government rekindled euro zone debt worries.

NEW YORK - March 23, 2011 - Sales of new single-family homes collapsed in February, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday, as a combination of high unemployment, tumbling prices and a glut of cheaper alternatives brought activity to a near-standstill.|

New-home sales fell 16.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 250,000 in February, though January’s figures were revised higher to 301,000 from 284,000. Compared to February 2010, sales collapsed by 28%.