DailyFinance

Higher gas costs drove up U.S. consumer prices in September for the second straight month. Outside energy, there was little sign of inflation. The Labor Department said Tuesday that the consumer price index rose a seasonally adjusted 0.6 percent last month.

Confidence among U.S. homebuilders remains at its highest level in six years, reflecting improved optimism over the strengthening housing market this year and a pickup in visits by prospective buyers to builders' communities.

Vikram Pandit abruptly stepped down as CEO of Citigroup on Tuesday after steering the bank through the 2008 financial crisis and the choppy years that followed. Also resigning: President and Chief Operating Officer John Havens. Citigroup offered no explanation for the sudden departures.

Microsoft is hoping that its Surface tablet is ready for prime time ahead of its Oct. 26 roll out -- even as market-dominating Apple prepares for a big event on Oct. 23 that's expected to be the iPad mini reveal.

Given the complexity of their financial lives, you'd think boomers would be avid users of the latest money apps and programs. But most aren't. Is it them, or is it the products and services being offered? Turns out it's both.

Beyond the land of presidential debates, the political arena is getting hotter. The pending economic catastrophe that is the "fiscal cliff" is drawing closer. But the broad numbers the pundits are tossing around hide some interesting truths about who'll feel the most pain if we hurtle over it.

Walmart and several other leading North American retailers are going to court to fight orders from the Quebec Board of the French Language that their outdoor signs be modified in order to appear "more French."

Alvin Roth and Lloyd Shapley, two Americans, have won the Nobel economics prize for studies on the match-making taking place when doctors are coupled up with hospitals, students with schools and human organs with transplant recipients.

In early October, Dwyane Wade, of the NBA Champion Miami Heat, left Jordan Brand, where he had been since 2009, and signed a contract with Chinese sportswear company Li-Ning. Now details about that deal have emerged: Wade will endorse his own brand for the company, creatively called Wade.

In honor of Black Monday 1987 and Black Monday 1929, we bring you the October recession/depression quiz. If you've ever wondered what causes recessions, how we survive them, and how they end, take our quiz and find out!

After Greg Smith quit Goldman Sachs in the most public fashion possible -- slamming his employer in the pages of The New York Times -- the firm launched an investigation into his most explosive charge: that employees referred to clients as "muppets" in internal emails.

That's the question posed in a new survey of voters' financial health. The conclusion? Despite what you might be hearing on the news today, seven of the 12 so-called "swing states" could be "in play" come November.

Microsoft is no longer willing to simply put out the software and establish the ecosystems for the benefit of its longtime hardware partners. The company wants some more skin in the hardware game.