Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire
Thursday, November 26, 1998
Fannie Mae plans to raise loan limit
WASHINGTON -- Fannie Mae will raise its limit on single-family mortgage loans to $240,000 starting in January, the mortgage company announced yesterday.The $12,850 jump was prompted by the price increase for single-family homes, as published by the Federal Housing Finance Board. Fannie Mae predicts that about 200,000 additional households will be able to take out mortgages from the company because of the new loan limit.
OPEC meeting ends without agreement
VIENNA, Austria -- OPEC ended a rancorous gathering today without even a minimum agreement to extend cuts in oil production, saying it would review the situation again in March.Some delegates had voiced hope that a 2.6 million barrel-a-day cut that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries set in June to run for one year could be extended six months to the end of 1999. Analysts said that was the very least OPEC needed to do to prop up the lowest prices in nearly 12 years.
Economic optimism lifts Japan stocks
TOKYO -- Japanese stocks advanced today on continued hopes that plans to bring an opposition party into a governing coalition would bring more economic stimulus measures. The dollar climbed against the yen. The Nikkei stock average gained 134.30 points, or 0.89 percent, closing at 15,207.77. The dollar bought 121.92 yen in late afternoon, up 1.08 yen from late yesterday in Tokyo and above its late New York level of 121.73 yen overnight.
In other news . . .
Germany's Hoechst AG and France's Rhone-Poulenc SA ended weeks of speculation yesterday by confirming they are discussing a merger to create the world's largest drugs and agricultural chemicals maker . . . Despite slow growth in the fast-food industry, the parent of the Jack in the Box chain, Foodmaker Inc., plans to open about 600 restaurants in the next five years, many of them in the Southeast.
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