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Treasury five-year note yields fell to the lowest level ever after Federal Reserve officials unexpectedly said their benchmark interest rate will stay low until at least late 2014.

Yields on the securities set three consecutive records after Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said Jan. 25 that the central bank is considering additional asset purchases to boost growth. U.S. government debt rose for a third day yesterday as a report showed the U.S. economy grew at a slower-than-forecast 2.8% annual pace in the fourth quarter. The Labor Department is expected to report on Feb. 3 that unemployment remained at 8.5 percent this month.

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Cass Informations Systems reported fourth-quarter 2011 net income of $5.5 million, or 53 cents per share, compared with $5.1 milllion, or 48 cents per share, in the corresponding period of 2010.

For the year, Cass–a Bridgeton-based provider of invoice payment and information services–reported record net income of $23 million, or $2.21 per share, compared with $20.3 million, or $1.95 per share, in 2010.

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One year after Egypt knocked global finance off the agenda at the World Economic Forum, Arab officials returning to Davos may struggle to drum up interest in the region.

Across North Africa, where uprisings ended the autocratic rule of three men, economic growth has stalled, stock markets have slumped and Egyptian bond yields are at a record, with the nine-month treasury bill at 15.802 percent. Foreign direct investment in the Middle East and North Africa last year was the lowest since 2005.

Failure to lure investments threatens to hinder the transition to democratic rule and may spark more deadly protests, while energy-rich states, such as Saudi Arabia, may struggle to diversify their economies and cut the world

The decision by Standard & Poor’s to cut the credit ratings of a number of euro countries and to strip France of its cherished top-tier standing met with a fairly calm market response Monday as attention turned towards Greece’s difficulties in thrashing out a deal with private creditors to reduce the value of their holdings of Greek debt

Europe’s debt crisis will likely remain the focus of attention across markets all week as a number of bond auctions are due at the same time as Greece tries to clinch a debt deal with its cast of creditors.

Monday is the first opportunity for traders to respond to S&P’s move, which came late Friday.

Analysts said the downgrades had been widely expected, especially in the bond markets, so there was very little shock at S&P’s announcement to strip France of its treasured triple-A rating and to cut its view on a raft of other euro countries, including Italy. One bright spot was that Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, retained its triple-A rating and had its outlook upgraded to stable from negative.

“After weeks of prevarication and lots of rumors, Standard and Poor’s finally put markets out of their misery on Friday,” said Michael Hewson, markets analyst at CMC Markets. “The surprise is it took so long.”

As a result, the response in the markets was fairly sanguine. In early trading Monday, the Stoxx 50 index of leading European shares was flat at 2,397 while the euro was up 0.2 percent on the day at $1.2670

A bigger headache for markets at the moment is whether Greece can clinch a deal with its creditors payday loan. Last October, Greece’s partners in the eurozone sanctioned a deal whereby Greece’s creditors agree a deal to reduce the value of their Greek debt holdings so that the country’s debt burden is reduced.

The deal with private investors, known as the Private Sector Involvement, or PSI, aims to reduce Greece’s debt by euro100 billion ($126.5 billion) by swapping private creditors’ bonds for new ones with a lower value. It is a key part of a euro130 billion international bailout, the second one for Greece.

It is expected that talks on the PSI will resume this coming week. On Tuesday, representatives of Greece’s creditors _ the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund _ will visit Greece for yet another round of inspections of its efforts at fiscal and structural reform and negotiations for the next tranche, the seventh, from the first bailout.

Negotiations over the second bailout will start after the PSI deal is clinched. Without a deal, Greece has been told it won’t get the next tranche of money due from its first bailout.

Without that money, Greece would find it more or less impossible to pay a big bond redemption in March and would face the prospect of defaulting on its debts, potentially triggering more mayhem in financial markets.

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The U.S. trade deficit widened more than forecast in November as American exports declined and companies stepped up imports of crude oil and automobiles.

The gap expanded 10.4 percent to $47.8 billion, the widest since June, from a $43.3 billion shortfall in October, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. The deficit was larger than any of the estimates in a Bloomberg News survey of 75 economists.

The U.S. import bill was driven by demand for higher-priced crude oil at the same time American companies tempered orders for consumer goods on concern household spending will cool early this year. Exports from the U.S. declined to a four-month low, depressed by a drop in shipments to Europe.

Every auto show, these days, is "all about plug-in cars and hybrids," they say. Everyone’s gawking at the cherry on top while few notice how different the ice cream underneath is.

At the 2012 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, you can see the auto industry changing — deeply, quickly and probably forever. The reasons are stricter fuel economy regulations and changing attitudes toward environmental responsibility.

Yes, those are things car companies talk about when showing off cars such as the new Ford Fusion Energi plug-in hybrid or the Acura NSX hybrid performance car concept.

But fuel economy and the environment are, just as much or maybe even more, the reasons that cars such as the Dodge Dart are equipped with fuel-efficient 4-cylinder engines, or why General Motors (, Fortune 500) unveiled the very small Buick Encore compact SUV.

They’re also why there was one notable omission from this year’s Detroit show. Not a single truck or large SUV was unveiled at any of the show stands this year. There have been auto shows in recent memory at which it seemed there were nothing but massive trucks rolling out under every drape.

Cool cars from the Detroit Auto Show

There were SUVs, of course — there always will be — such as the Buick Encore.

There was also the new Nissan Pathfinder, but even that roomy, 3-row SUV proves the point that fuel economy has become the big bogie. The Pathfinder you see on the roads today is a truck-based vehicle built to withstand real off-road use. The new one rides on car-like engineering, which will allow it to be lighter and less thirsty.

Engines themselves are getting smaller, too. Even the venerable Bentley is downsizing. The British ultra-luxury automaker unveiled the Continental GT V8 at the show.

Under the hood of this car is a relatively modest twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V8 which, Bentley estimates, will quaff 40% less premium than the 6.0-liter V12 in the less stingy version of the car. Even with the V8, performance will still be "exhilarating," Bentley promises.

In more pedestrian cars, the "bigger engine" option is pretty much out. Today, the Ford Fusion is available with a V6 engine. The new one will not be. Only various 4-cylinder engines will be offered. The Dodge Dart, as well, will be available only with 4-cylinder engines.

Even performance is being subtly redefined. It used to be that performance was measured in one, single, easily stated number: horsepower. In auto shows past, carmakers would compete to see who could unveil the car with most eye-popping horsepower number.

And that’s not entirely over. Shelby American Inc. was on hand with its display of modified Ford (, Fortune 500) Mustangs with horsepower outputs stretching all the way to a gut-crunching 800.

The "new performance" could be found at the Subaru and Toyota () stands, where the identical Subaru BRZ and Scion FRS were on display. These cars put out a relatively slight 200 horsepower out of 2.0-liter flat-four engines. That’s an impressive figure, given the size of the engine and the fact that it doesn’t have a power-boosting turbocharger or supercharger.

But these cars aren’t about zero-to-60 times, Scion and Subaru representatives say. They’re about driving fun. Engineers put the engine as low as possible in the car to create the lowest possible center of gravity, the idea being to optimize cornering while still going quick enough to produce a healthy grin.

This new trend in less showy fuel economy was perhaps best exhibited in the show’s opening moment. A jury of automotive journalists awarded the North American Car and Truck of the Year Awards to the Hyundai Elantra and the Land Rover Range Rover Evoque.

The Elantra, a compact car, gets 40 miles a gallon without sacrificing driving fun. The Range Rover Evoque uses a turbocharged 4-cylinder engine to provide enjoyable driving performance while still getting an impressive — in this context — 22 miles per gallon in combined city and highway driving.

Of course, there are still those plug-in cars. But with standard, run-of-the-mill gasoline-powered cars pushing the fuel economy bar ever higher, they seem likely to remain car show sideshows for a few years longer. 

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Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said the Fed probably won

Delivery companies such as FedEx Corp. (FDX) and United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) added 42,200 jobs to payrolls in December, about a fifth of the total for all employers last month. History indicates the gain will be followed by a similar-sized loss in January.

Service industries in the U.K. grew at the fastest pace in five months in December and strengthened in the U.S., suggesting their economies are partly withstanding to the euro-area debt crisis.

A gauge of U.K. services activity based on the survey of purchasing managers (PMITSUK) rose to 54 from 52.1 in November, Markit Economics and the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply said today in London. A U.S. services index rose to 52.6 in December from 52 the previous month.

The data suggest the U.K. economy strengthened in December after surveys earlier this week showed construction and manufacturing improved. Still, the euro-area crisis is clouding the outlook for the global recovery. The Bank of England said today banks may toughen loan terms because of the debt turmoil, hampering growth, while some Federal Reserve officials have said prospective economic conditions may warrant

Rupert Murdoch might be tweeting his billionaire media mogul thoughts to the world, but his wife, Wendi Deng, isn