ECONOMY & MARKETS

After a year shaped by social upheaval, currency problems and unemployment, Brazil is looking for a better performance in 2014.

U.S. consumers are feeling a little more peppy lately. Is it evidence-based or superficial?

The coldest temperatures in 20 years may boost agricultural commodity prices in coming weeks.

The release of "Dhoom 3" (or any such product from India) in Pakistan raises a raft of thorny and confusing legal questions.

China’s banking sector has been mostly off-limits to private capital. That’s soon going to change.

Apple and Chinese carriers are slashing prices ahead of Chinese New Year at the end of January.

Assets managed by commodity exchange-traded funds saw their biggest decline ever in 2013, according to ETF Securities.

Inflows into coffee exchange-traded products totaled $203 million for the year, a new record.

Investors are pouring into Spanish stocks as the nation's economy appears to be finally turning a corner.

A long-awaited report to keep Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes suggests eight different strategies.

There are signs the U.S. economy is strengthening, which suggests a solid year for GDP and job growth in 2014.

A new factor may affect Kenya's growth rate adversely in 2014.

Is Mexico headed for a more prosperous 2014? The Ministry of Finance predicts significant GDP growth.

Inflation in the euro zone and the EU remained well below the ECB's target rate.

The unemployment rate in Germany held steady in November, while the number of employed people increased.

Investors, bankers, media moguls: these are the richest people in Latin America - and a few names that may surprise you.

The number of people who reach their 80th birthday will quadruple to almost 400 million by the year 2050,

Regulators vow to monitor informal lending more closely and limit the growth in loans created outside of formal channels.

According to the General Administration of Customs, the value of China’s trade reached $3.77 trillion in the first 11 months of 2013.

What went wrong and how many billions did the Swiss central bank lose in write-downs on its 1,040 tons of gold reserves?

Wall Street’s major financial institutions are set to report earnings later this month, in their first test of the new year.

Economies in the euro zone and the UK remained buoyant in December with sharp growths recorded in output and orders, PMI data show.

Take a look at some of the gadgets consumers are expected to buy in 2014.

But the services sector saw an increase in payroll numbers for the fourth straight month.

Colorado shops estimate high revenues for their first day of sales. Many out-of-state visitors came to sample the state's recently legal green fare.

In the reformist spirit embraced by Raúl Castro, Cuba will loosen its grip on the vehicle market.

High interest costs and low earnings growth will pressure profit margins into 2014, said a top Indian research firm.

The poorest country in South America wants nuclear power, but its neighbors are going in the exact opposite direction.

The strategy bets on stocks that performed badly in 2013, assuming they can reverse recent underperformance.