NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — U.S. stocks recovered most of their lost ground Monday afternoon but struggled to pull out of the red as concerns over Greece continued to weigh on the market.

Stocks started the day down about 1% after the weekend came and went without Greek leaders reaching an agreement on a debt-relief deal. But as the trading session wore on, the major indexes trimmed most of those losses.

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) finished 7 points lower, or 0.1%. Earlier, the blue chip index had declined 131 points. The S&P 500 (SPX) lost 3 points, or 0.3%, and the Nasdaq (COMP) slumped 5 points, or 0.2%.

Full Story at Stock Markets – Jan. 30, 2012 – CNNMoney

Stocks trim losses, but end in red on Greek woes

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Foreign firms, hungry to cash in on the American energy boom, have invested nearly $6 billion in U.S. gas and oil drilling in the last few weeks.

Energy giants from China, France and Spain have snapped up stakes in fields in Ohio, Mississippi, Colorado and Michigan.

These investments will likely add to the recent boom in U.S. natural gas production, pushing already low natural gas prices even lower.

Low domestic prices could drive natural gas producers to seek out European and Asian markets, according to analysts, where the fuel commands three or four times the price.

“Of course that will” lead to more exports, said Nansen Saleri, president of the oil field consulting firm Quantum Reservoir Impact. “And it will be a tremendous opportunity.”

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — This holiday season is your last chance to stop by the bank and buy a paper savings bond, either for yourself or your loved ones.

Starting Jan. 1, you’ll no longer be able to purchase paper savings bonds at banks or other financial institutions. Instead, the savings bonds, which have been around since 1935, will be replaced by electronic bonds that can only be purchased online.

The Treasury Department’s Bureau of Public Debt announced the “all-electronic initiative” last year, and the agency has already ended the sale of paper bonds through traditional payroll plans.

WASHINGTON — U.S. import prices recorded their largest increase in seven months in November as the cost of petroleum surged, a government report showed on Wednesday, but underlying imported inflation pressures remain contained.

Overall import prices rebounded 0.7 percent, the Labor Department
said, after falling 0.5 percent in October. The increase last month was
the largest since April.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected prices to rise 0.9 percent
last month. Import prices were up 9.9 percent in the 12 months through
November.

Stripping out petroleum, import prices fell 0.2 percent after declining 0.3 percent in October.

WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) — The U.S. Postal Service has agreed to hold off on closing any more post offices or mail facilities until May 15, 2012, to allow Congress time to work on a plan to save the service.

The U.S. Postal Service agreed to voluntarily enact a moratorium on closures, after a series of talks with senators, lawmakers said. Sen. Richard Durbin said the postal service agreed to the deal, and he called it a challenge to Congress to “put up or shut up.”

The news of the moratorium comes just a week after the Postal Service announced a plan to slow down first-class mail, which would have closed some 250 mail processing plants nationwide and eliminated 28,000 jobs.

Private employers added 206,000 jobs in November, according to a new report released Wednesday from payrolls processor ADP.

The monthly number was better than expected. Analysts had expected a smaller gain in November. October’s monthly gain in private-sector hiring was revised up to 130,000 from a previously reported gain of 110,000.

Each month, ADP releases a report on whether private employers added any jobs in the prior month. The report is often used as a gauge heading into the government’s monthly employment report, which is due out Friday.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — American International Group is back in the red. Way in the red.

The bailed out insurer posted a net loss of $4.1 billion on Thursday, a loss per share of $2.16 for the third quarter. While analysts hadn’t expected the company to post a profit, the size of the loss exceeded expectations.

The outsized loss sent AIG (AIG, Fortune 500) shares lower after the closing bell, with prices dropping more than 1% to $24.35.

And that’s bad news for taxpayers, since the U.S. Treasury still owns a substantial chunk of AIG.

Back in 2008, the government agreed to help the giant insurer get back on its feet with a $180 billion lifeline. AIG has been slowly working toward paying back that loan.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — At long last, European leaders took a significant step forward on the long road toward resolving the eurozone’s debt crisis.

But many details remain unclear and economists are already raising questions about the effectiveness of the latest plan.

“We certainly have moved a step in the right direction,” said Guntram Wolff, deputy director of Brussels-based think tank Bruegel. “But this is definitely not the end of the story.”

The plan includes a 50% reduction in the face value of Greek government bonds, steps to boost bank capital buffers and schemes to leverage an already stretched rescue fund.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Europe’s top leaders said Sunday that they were getting closer to finalizing a plan to solve Europe’s debt crisis.

But with a final agreement not expected before Wednesday, the actual details remained under wraps.

“The technical complexities are significant,” said French President Nicolas Sarkozy, adding that there are large amounts of money involved.

The European Council, comprising government heads from all 27 members of the European Union, met Sunday in Brussels to hammer out a plan to boost capital levels for banks, enhance a government-backed rescue fund and provide debt relief for Greece.

The recession and weak recovery have been difficult for all Americans, but a new government report suggests that older people may be particularly vulnerable to the downturn’s worrisome effects on long-term economic security.

That’s partly because Americans 55 and older have less time to catch up on retirement savings and recover from housing market losses before they stop working, the Government Accountability Office report found.

In addition, although older workers haven’t been as hard-hit by unemployment, government data show that when they do lose a job, they have a much tougher time finding a new one.

One of the proposals for keeping Social Security afloat is to simply ask for more money.

It turns out, not that many taxpayers would have to pay up.

A new analysis from the Center for Economic and Policy Research finds that less than 6 percent of workers would be affected if the government lifted the cap on Social Security taxes and applied it to earnings above $106,800.

First, Congress and President Obama can adopt strategies designed to unleash the massive amount of capital that is accumulated but not being invested. There’s some $2.2 trillion in cash in American banks that is not committed to loans. A couple hundred billion has to be held back for bad mortgages, but there’s about $2 trillion that could be used in cash reserves for up to $20 trillion in loans. So, in theory, that would take the world out of recession. And U.S. corporations have about $2 trillion more that they have decided not to invest.