Britain's economy wilting fast after Brexit vote, may prompt more spending

Today's Press

• U.S. stocks open little changed, on track for fourth straight weekly advance

  U.S. stocks opened flat Friday, putting the main benchmarks on track to log their fourth straight weekly gain. A session earlier, the Dow industrials snapped a nine-session win streak — the index’s longest such streak since March 2013. On Friday, a barrage of earnings results drove individual stocks, while the broader market got a boost from better-than-expected earnings from companies like General Electric Co. , Whirlpool Corp. and Honeywell International Inc. . The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 10 points, or 0.1%, to 18,527, the S&P 500 index gained a point, or less than 0.1% at 2,166, while the Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 2 points, or less than 0.1%, to 5,076.

• Britain's economy wilting fast after Brexit vote, may prompt more spending

  Britain's economy is shrinking, the broadest survey of business confidence since last month's historic vote to quit the European Union showed on Friday, leading finance minister Philip Hammond to pledge a loosening of purse strings if the weakness endures.

• Canada’s June Annual Inflation Rises on Housing Costs

  The all-items consumer-price index in June rose 1.5% from a year earlier, Statistics Canada said Friday, matching the previous month’s advance. Expectations were for a 1.4% gain, according to economists at Royal Bank of Canada.