Unemployment rate zooms to 14-year high of 6.5 percent in October. The U.S. unemployment rate jumped to a 14-year high of 6.5 percent in October, up from 6.1 percent just a month earlier, as 240,000 jobs were lost, the Labor Department reported Friday.

The most recent figures show all of the factors that fueled earlier inflation worries have sharply reversed course. Commodity prices have collapsed. The Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index of 19 raw materials plunged to 256 on Oct. 24

Citigroup will acquire the banking operations of Wachovia in a deal facilitated by the FDIC.

Shocking Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy news sent financial earthquake around globe and pulled down financial stocks around the world. Stock markets tumbled in Europe and Asia on Monday the blow from Lehman's bankruptcy news.

Mortgage backers' stocks surge in early trading, then start to lose ground again despite government plan to back them.

Oil prices dropped more than a dollar

Unemployment is likely to continue to rise as employers continue to cut jobs, according to a new index from a respected business research group that it says accurately forecasts trends in employment.