DailyFinance

The Card Act was passed in 2009 to protect consumers from unfair and deceptive credit card practices. But some stay-at-home parents complain that one part of the law has made it harder for them to get credit cards.

Investors figured that new J.C. Penney CEO Ron Johnson's "Fair and Square" pricing strategy wouldn't be a hit right away, but no one expected the recently remodeled department store chain would be this earnings season's biggest disaster.

China's economy, the turbocharged engine of world growth, is starting to sputter. From a competitive standpoint, that may feel like good news, but what happens in Beijing doesn't stay in Beijing: The U.S. economy is inextricably linked to China's.

U.S. factory output increased in April, helped by a gain in auto production. Busier factories have driven stronger hiring this year and helped the economy grow. The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that factory production rose 0.6% in April, erasing a 0.5% decline in March.

Hey, Wall Street? Chicken Little called. She says you need to stop overreacting to JPMorgan Chase's $2 billion trading loss. I mean, it's not as if the sky were falling. For a bank this big, $2 billion? It's practically rounding error.

Victoria O'Hara didn't learn anything about how to manage money growing up. But thanks to help from a relative, she got a financial education, began investing slowly, and parlayed small stock buys into a healthy portfolio. Here's her story: