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WASHINGTON

Online broker E-Trade Financial Corp. shares plunged nearly 5 percent in after-market trading following its announcement that it had concluded a strategic review and has no plans for a sale.

Shares fell 34 cents to close at $9.48. After it made the announcement, shares fell 46 cents, or 4.9 percent.

The company said it has concluded the review begun in August that was designed to consider all alternatives including a possible sale. The board unanimously determined that the continued execution of the company’s business plan is currently the best alternative, it said.

That also was the recommendation of Goldman Sachs & Co., hired as an adviser for the review.

E-Trade’s largest shareholder and bondholder, Citadel Advisors LLC, pushed the company earlier this year to seek a buyer.

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China will phase out power-draining light bulbs in an efficiency move certain to impact the global market.

The world’s biggest polluter will ban imports and sales of 100-watt-and-higher incandescent bulbs from Oct. 1, 2012. Lower-watt bulbs will be banned in phases until 2016.

China’s main planning agency says 3.85 billion incandescent light bulbs were produced here last year and 1 billion were sold domestically bad credit pay day loans.

The agency’s statement Friday said 12 percent of China’s total electricity use is for lighting. The move is meant to save energy and curb climate change.

The United States and the 27-nation European Union are phasing out the bulbs beginning next year as well.

Encouraging news from Europe helped ignite stock prices in October. This week, investors will shift their focus to U.S. economic data, which might temper their exuberance.

Three events this week will command attention: the U.S. jobs report for October, the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s quarterly news conference.

A report Thursday showed that the U.S. economy expanded at a solid 2.5 annual rate in the July-September quarter. That helped ease concerns that another recession might be nearing. Yet the news may have also raised unrealistic expectations about the economy. Investors could end up disappointed.

“There’s a big difference between avoiding recession and stronger growth,” said Eric Green, chief U.S. economist at TD Securities. “The economic data will be OK, but it’s not going to be a catalyst to move stocks up” significantly.

Last week, investors were cheered by the deal European leaders reached Thursday. European banks agreed to take a 50 percent loss on their holdings of Greek government bonds. They will also set aside more money to cushion against future losses.

Leaders also pledged to expand the European Union’s bailout fund.

The announcement catapulted U.S. stocks. The Dow Jones industrial average rocketed 339 points Thursday and appears headed for its sharpest monthly gain since 1987.

Economists caution that European officials must still fill in the details of their plan and implement it. Even then, it might not work. When world leaders meet in France on Thursday and Friday, investors will want to see signs that China and other nations are prepared to help bolster Europe’s bailout fund.

For all that, some stock analysts remain bullish.

“The market was priced for meltdown, and didn’t get it,” Green said. “However inadequate the European package may appear, it is a decisive step in the right direction.”

Stocks had plummeted in September over fears that Europe’s debt burdens would trigger a financial catastrophe. With those fears fading, U.S. stock prices looked cheap last week, analysts said.

The U.S. economy appears more resilient than it did in August, when worries had grown that the United States would fall back into recession. Consumers’ sentiment tumbled that month after Congress fought over raising the nation’s borrowing limit and Standard & Poor’s downgraded long-term U.S. debt.

Yet the economy managed to expand in the July-September quarter at the healthiest pace in a year. Despite their gloomy outlook, consumers spent more. Companies increased their investment in software and equipment.

The focus on Europe “taught us something very important,” said David Kelly, chief market strategist at J.P. Morgan Fund. “Despite all the turmoil in Europe and the drop in confidence caused by it, the U.S. economy is still growing.”

All that makes the Fed less likely to announce any new steps Wednesday at the end of its two-day policy meeting no fax cash loans. Several members of the policy committee have suggested more action may be needed to try to help the economy _ perhaps another round of bond purchases to further cut long-term interest rates. But few analysts expect any such announcement yet.

Three of the 10 members of the policymaking committee have dissented from the Fed’s smaller-scale efforts to boost growth in recent months. Two of the three are scheduled to lose their voting privileges in 2012.

Investors might welcome a quiet Fed meeting, analysts said. It would suggest that the economy might be able to recover on its own.

“Every time the Fed administers medicine to the economy, it convinces people that the economy is sick,” Kelly said. “There would be incredible cheering if the Fed decided that the economy is on the mend and no further action is required.”

Also Wednesday, the central bank will update its economic forecasts, which Bernanke will discuss at his news conference. The Fed is expected to revise down its estimates for hiring and growth from its last forecast in June. Investors will scrutinize how Bernanke explains any such revisions.

The Fed’s meeting will be followed by the most closely watched economic indicator the government releases: the monthly jobs report.

The economy is growing, but not enough to generate many jobs for the 14 million people unemployed. Employers added 103,000 net jobs in September. That wasn’t enough to lower the unemployment rate, which has been stuck 9.1 percent for three months.

Analysts expect roughly 100,000 jobs to be added in October. Anything less could raise concerns that the economy may slow. Stocks might stumble.

A gain of 100,000 jobs is scarcely enough to keep up with population growth. More than double that total would be needed consistently to reduce unemployment significantly.

“The jobs report will be a sobering reminder … that all is not well with the economy,” said Dan Greenhaus, chief global strategist at brokerage firm BTIG.

This week will bring other economic reports, too. The Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing executives, will issue its surveys of purchasing managers for manufacturing and service-sector companies. Those will provide early reads of whether growth will accelerate in the final three months of the year or drop back.

And automakers will report their October sales, a gauge of whether consumers are willing to make big purchases. Consumer sentiment has fallen to recession levels. But that doesn’t necessarily mean shoppers will reduce their spending.

The auto sales data, in particular, will show “what the consumer does, not what the consumer says,” said Jerry Webman, chief economist at OppenheimerFunds.

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Americans are making a little more money and spending a lot more.

Under normal circumstances, that would be a troubling sign for the economy. But a closer look at some new government figures suggests another possibility: People are saving less money because they’re earning next to nothing in interest.

Saving is already difficult because of more expensive gas and food. It’s even tougher because of the lower returns _ the flip side of super-low interest rates that the Federal Reserve has kept in place since 2008 to help the economy.

Critics say the Fed is punishing those who play by the rules _ those careful enough to set aside money for savings or people who built up a nest egg and are living on fixed incomes that depend on interest.

Americans spent 0.6 percent more in September, three times the increase from the previous month, the government said Friday. Spending was especially strong on durable goods _ things like cars, appliances and electronics.

At the same time, what they earned was mostly flat. Pay increased 0.3 percent, and overall income just 0.1 percent. After deducting taxes and adjusting for inflation, income fell for a third straight month.

So to make up the difference, many have cut back on savings. The savings rate fell to its lowest level since December 2007, the first month of the recession _ and right about the time the Fed started its dramatic series of interest-rate cuts.

Considering how little you can get for parking your money at a bank, it hasn’t been a tough choice.

“Consumers have hit a level of saturation in their savings,” said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst with market research firm The NPD Group. “The propensity is to spend.”

The annual yield on six-month certificates of deposit was unchanged this week at 0.23 percent, according to Bankrate.com. Five years ago, it was 3.62 percent. If you put your money in the six-month CD today, you’d make about enough to buy a burger.

Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics, said the trend could mean more spending by Americans. But it will take robust personal spending _ along with improvement in the depressed housing market _ to get the economy going again.

Ashworth said his firm is not too concerned with the decline in savings because it partly represents “a sharp decline in debt servicing costs.” In other words, low interest rates mean it’s cheaper to borrow money.

The Fed began cutting interest rates four years ago at the start of the financial crisis. The rate cuts took the federal funds rate, the key for short-term interest rates, from 5.25 percent down to near zero, where they have stayed since December 2008.

The central bank has said it will keep rates super-low into 2013 as long as the economy stays weak. While that means low returns for savers, it is designed to encourage people and businesses to borrow more.

Many borrowers tend to be young families who are spending most of their income anyway. The loss in interest income tends to hit older households, which are saving for retirement and counting more on bonds and other fixed-income securities.

Consumer spending is closely watched because it accounts for about 70 percent of economic activity. A sharp rise in spending over the summer helped the overall economy grow in July, August and September at the fastest pace in a year.

Still, the economy would have to grow twice as fast to put a dent in the unemployment rate, which has stayed near 9 percent since the recession officially ended more than two years ago.

At the same time savings accounts and other fixed-income investments are paying less, the cost of food and gas has gone up.

Elizabeth Smith, who works in teacher education at the University of Arkansas, has cut her monthly contribution to her retirement savings in half to meet necessities.

“Every time I go to the store, butter, cheese and milk are more expensive,” she said. Child care costs for her two children have also risen this year.

On the other hand, Smith has benefited from lower interest rates. She and her husband refinanced the mortgage on her home a year ago, which lowered their monthly payments by $200, freeing up more cash.

The Fed’s policies are “designed to reward spending and effectively punish savers,” said Eric Green, chief U.S. economist at TD Securities.

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Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s largest contract chip maker, said Thursday its earnings dropped by more than a third in the latest quarter amid uncertainties about the global economy.

The company which supplies chips for use in gadgets including Apple’s iPhones and iPads said its third quarter net profit of 30.4 billion New Taiwan dollars ($1 billion) was down 35 percent from last year and down 15.5 percent from the second quarter of this year.

Quarterly revenue totaled $3.5 billion, down 5 percent from a year earlier and 3.6 percent lower than the second quarter.

TSMC’s customers are either uncertain about their outlook or expecting a weaker first quarter of 2012, Chairman Morris Chang told an investor conference in Taipei.

Company officials said shipments have declined for chips used in computers, consumer and industrial electronics, while handset chips sales have expanded freecreditscore. But newly installed production using the cutting-edge 28 nanometer process could help improve profit margins next year, they said.

Chang said the current economic landscape was not as severe as the winter of 2008 when the world was mired in a financial crisis. He said TSMC expects its wafer shipments to pick up by March next year with customers rebuilding the inventories they’ve depleted in the last quarter.

“Perhaps … we may suddenly find a surge that’s amazingly strong,” he said.

TSMC has diversified into solar panels and LED lights, two sectors facing losses because of oversupplies.

But Chang said TSMC is in the startup stage in both sectors and has not been hurt by the sharp price declines.

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Rupert Murdoch’s News International promised to pay all of News of the World editor Andy Coulson’s legal fees only a month after he resigned from the paper in disgrace, according to a court document obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The former editor, who later served as communications director for Prime Minister David Cameron, is a central figure in the phone hacking scandal that has convulsed the British media. He’s been arrested on suspicion of abetting a culture of illegal spying while at the top of the News of the World, an allegation he’s fighting with the help of the high-powered international law firm DLA Piper.

Such an open-ended promise to foot Coulson’s legal bill would have been highly unusual, according to Jo Keddy, an employment partner with the London law firm Winckworth Sherwood. She called it the equivalent of “writing a blank check for a former employee.”

The generous deals struck by News International with its victims and former staff members have emerged as a key issue for lawmakers investigating the scandal, with some suggesting that the company had tried to buy the silence of those involved to help bury the scandal, which first erupted more than five years ago.

The exact nature of the promises made to Coulson are under dispute.

According a nine-page lawsuit filed by Coulson in the court’s Queen’s Bench Division, News International subsidiary News Group Newspapers has recently refused to pay expenses incurred by Coulson’s criminal defense team, telling him that allegations of phone hacking fell “outside the scope of your contract of employment.”

Coulson’s lawyers reject the assertion, saying that News Group had made a blanket deal to pay any legal fees stemming from his time at the News of the World.

The complaint says News International struck the deal with Coulson in February 2007, a month after his royal editor, Clive Goodman, was jailed for hacking into the phones of members of the royal household. While Coulson denied knowing anything about the practice, he said he was resigning out of a sense of responsibility for what happened.

Goodman’s sentence was meant to draw a line under the scandal, but Coulson’s deal appeared to suggest that both parties feared trouble down the line.

The lawsuit says that News International promised to repay Coulson for “any professional (including without limitation, legal and accounting) costs and expenses … which arise from his having to defend, or appear in, any administrative, regulatory, judicial or quasi-judicial proceeding as a result of his having been the editor of the News of the World.”

The suit goes says that “it was anticipated” that Coulson would be drawn into the criminal investigation into phone hacking which was relaunched early this year.

News International declined to comment on the suit. DLA Piper, Coulson’s law firm, did not immediately return an email seeking further comment on Coulson’s complaint.

Coulson was arrested over the phone hacking allegation on July 8 _ making him one of more than a dozen former News of the World employees who’ve been arrested since the beginning of the year. The scandal has led to the closure of the 168-year-old paper and the resignation of several top Murdoch executives.

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In response to my Sunday business story about the struggles at St. Louis Union Station, a number of readers have suggested that one of the problems is that you have to pay for parking there.

The parking rate, according to the venue’s website, is $1 for every half hour. And there’s a flat rate of $12 for 6 to 10 hours.

If you forgo the parking lot in the back, there is street parking along Market Street. But that is metered parking, so you still have to pay for that and deal with the hassle of plugging a meter.

I can see pros and cons to both sides. On the one hand, you don’t have to pay to park at other (and pardon me for using the term) “malls” in the region. Of course, Union Station’s management doesn’t consider the venue a mall, but a tourist destination and historic landmark.

But in any case, I think it’s fair to say that nobody like to pay to park payday loans. And if you’re going to do so, you have to give people a good reason to do so.

On the other hand, Union Station is in downtown, where you don’t find a lot of free parking. And it’s not too far from other major entertainment venues downtown — Busch Stadium, Scottrade Center, the Peabody Opera House, etc. So if it did have a free parking lot, Cardinals and Blues fans might end up using it a lot (to the chagrin of other parking lot attendants around town).

And I should add that paid parking lot no doubt brings in much-needed revenue to Union Station.

So what do you think? Do you think Union Station should charge for parking?

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The Bank of England surprised markets Thursday by sanctioning another 75 billion pounds ($116 billion) injection into a British economy that’s suffering from the shockwaves of Europe’s debt crisis and the British government’s austerity program.

The Bank’s rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee said it was reviving a program of asset purchases which injected 200 billion pounds in between March 2009 and January 2010 to help lift Britain out of a deep recession. The hope is that by buying government bonds from banks, they will use their cash injection to lend to hard-pressed businesses and households.

The scale of the asset purchases, which will take four months to complete, was more than anticipated by those predicting Thursday’s move. Most economists thought the Bank would opt to wait until November before deciding on a more moderate 50 billion pound injection.

“It is clearly an indication of the extent to which the MPC is worried about the slowdown that it has chosen to act so soon and so decisively,” said Peter Dixon, economist at Commerzbank.

In a statement, the nine members of the MPC said the pace of global expansion has slackened, especially in Britain’s main export markets _ a reference to the eurozone, which is mired in a debt crisis that’s beginning to impact on banks’ day-to-day activities.

“Vulnerabilities associated with the indebtedness of some euro-area sovereigns and banks have resulted in severe strains in bank funding markets and financial markets more generally,” the panel said. “These tensions in the world economy threaten the U.K. recovery.”

Though the eurozone economy is also showing increasing signs of heading back into recession, the European Central Bank opted to keep its main interest rate unchanged at 1.5 percent. Many in the markets had been predicting a cut.

While launching another round of so-called quantitative easing, the Bank of England’s panel left the base lending rate at an all-time low of 0.5 percent and said that inflation would likely undershoot the 2 percent target in the medium term in light of the deteriorating outlook. It’s currently running at 4.5 percent and likely to go above 5 percent in the next month or two on the back of higher utility bills, the panel said.

“In the light of that shift in the balance of risks, and in order to keep inflation on track to meet the target over the medium term, the committee judged that it was necessary to inject further monetary stimulus into the economy,” the panel said.

The pound slumped soon after the announcement, trading 1.1 percent lower at $1.5293 as investors were caught unawares by the surprisingly big increase.

Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit, said the decision was not without risk but would bolster the economy “until European policymakers can find a resolution to the region’s sovereign debt crisis and the U.K. government outlines a coherent strategy for growth.”

The Bank acted a day after revised data showed that the British economy grew by only 0.1 percent in the second quarter, half the previous estimate. It managed little or no growth in the previous six months.

American economist Adam Posen has been alone among the nine Monetary Policy Committee members to vote last month for another 50 billion pounds in asset purchases, but minutes of that meeting signaled a shift in sentiment with “most members” agreeing that the case for more stimulus had strengthened.

With the base rate at an all-time low of 0.5 percent and the government cutting spending, quantitative easing is the only remaining big lever to jolt the economy to life.

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Mayor Michael Bloomberg is set to take the stand in a grand larceny trial Monday, answering questions from prosecutors who say he was bilked out of more than $1 million and from defense lawyers who claim he is using the case to cover up unsavory campaign practices.

On trial is John Haggerty, a political operative who worked on the mayor’s re-election campaigns and is now accused of convincing the mayor and his staff to pay for a $1.1 million poll-monitoring operation that never materialized, then using most of the cash to buy himself a house.

But much of the questioning so far has revolved around Bloomberg, as Haggerty’s lawyers have sought to turn the jury’s focus to the billionaire mayor, painting a picture of a high-rolling candidate surrounded by privileged insiders who skirted ethics rules, threw money at problems and didn’t hesitate to bend the law.

Prosecutors do not accuse the mayor of any wrongdoing, and Bloomberg’s representatives have said his campaign broke no laws and followed standard practices.

The cross-examination of the mayor Monday promises to be tense. Defense lawyers used their opening statements to flatly accuse him of “campaign fraud.” Bloomberg’s spokesman says the tactics are a sign of desperation.

Prosecutors may try to limit what questions Bloomberg must answer. Before the trial, they asked Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Ronald A. Zweibel to bar their adversaries from inquiring about the mayor’s campaign finances. The judge nixed that request but said he might revisit the issue if it arises during the trial.

Haggerty, 42, is a veteran of several prominent New York Republican campaigns. As a volunteer on the 2009 campaign of the Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-unaffiliated mayor, Haggerty was the point man on “ballot security,” a term used mainly by Republicans for poll watching with an eye to preventing voter fraud.

He presented Bloomberg campaign aides with a $1.1 million budget that included more than 1,300 paid poll watchers, an office, two-way radios and other expenses, according to prosecution filings and documents aired at the trial. Prosecutors say Haggerty did little of what he promised and used about $750,000 of the money to buy his brother’s share of their late father’s home.

Bloomberg financed the plan with a personal donation to the Independence Party that didn’t have to be reported until after the election. Haggerty’s lawyers argue that Bloomberg was trying to distance himself from a practice that has at times been subjected to court scrutiny as an alleged tool for voter suppression, something that Bloomberg’s aides deny.

Since the mayor’s donation to the party could not legally be earmarked for a specific purpose, it is not evidence that any money was stolen from Bloomberg, the defense argues.

The trial has offered an unusual peek behind the scenes of the mayor’s self-financed campaigns and inside City Hall, as some of his closest aides have answered questions about their relationship with the mayor and how they spend his money. Former Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey said on the stand that he didn’t enjoy his first two years in office.

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