Today starts with some more tepid economic news. The number of people applying for unemployment benefits ticked up slightly to 366,000 last week.

The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston explains why he thinks the Fed needs to step in with more monetary stimulus.

Joe Gagnon, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, discusses the innerworkings of the Federal Reserve committee.

The Fed announced yesterday that it is prepared to act if the economy gets worse — But for now, nada. Which brings us to the European Central Bank, which is holding a meeting today in Frankfurt and might have a little something up its sleeve for the global economy.

The Federal Reserve will be wrapping up its latest meeting with a statement that may or may not announce new efforts to help the economy.

The Federal Reserve wraps up a two day meeting today in Washington. And the big question — yet again…will be: Is the Fed ready to launch some new economic stimulus, in line with its mandate to help the country reach full employment?

The Federal Reserve meets again this week, and the buzz is that Chairman Ben Bernanke could be considering some "new tools," for stimulating growth — perhaps using interest rates to encourage banks to take some risks with their money.

Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke will testify on Capitol Hill today, and the big question is: Will he signal that more monetary stimulus is on the way?

Senators are likely to question Federal Reserve chairman about what banking regulators knew about manipulation of key lending rate.

U.S. markets are down slightly this morning on the latest jobs data from the Labor Department which said that just 80,000 jobs were added in the U.S. last month and unemployment remained at 8.2 percent.