The US recession ended in the third quarter of 2009 and the economy expanded at a reasonable pace in the first 18 months of the recovery, with GDP growth averaging 3% in 2010.

Stocks climbed in a seesaw session on Wall Street today, rising after the president of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve signalled the central bank could change its interest rate policy in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

THE dollar slipped against the euro and Swiss franc yesterday despite hints of recovery in the US labour market, depressed by soaring oil prices and news of a flare-up of fighting in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf.