The Federal Reserve's aggressive period of cutting interest rates to keep the country from falling into a recession is over. That point is in general agreement. The trouble starts when you try to figure out what period the Fed has now entered.

Could the central bank keep rates unchanged for a considerable period? Yes, many analysts say, predicting that the Fed will leave rates alone until next spring.

However, other economists are still worried that the Fed could start ratcheting up rates much sooner than that, especially if this year's surge in oil prices does not soon abate.

Stocks decline after economic reports show slower growth and rising wholesale inflation. Oil settles down for the third day in a row.

Stocks tanked Tuesday after reports showed slower growth and higher pricing pressure, overshadowing any relief that oil prices fell for the third day in a row and that Goldman Sachs reported better-than-expected earnings.

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) lost 0.9%. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 (SPX) index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite (COMP) both slipped about 0.7%.

As Jerry Yang marks his first year as Yahoo's CEO, his determination to keep the Internet pioneer independent at all costs could be his undoing.

Jerry Yang will celebrate his one-year anniversary as Yahoo's CEO on Wednesday. And while Yahoo's top executive has preserved the independence of the battered Internet pioneer he founded, don't expect many folks to congratulate Yang on a job well done.

These days, Yang is hardly seen as the savior that everyone had hoped for a year ago. Under Yang's watch, Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) lost 16.5% of its stock value and became a takeover target. Then he provoked shareholder ire by rejecting Microsoft's offer to acquire the company at $33 a share - a 72% premium. He faces shareholder lawsuits and activist investors like Carl Icahn, who is threatening to oust Yang and his board of directors. And a steady stream of talented executives and engineers are decamping for startups and rivals like Google (GOOG, Fortune 500).

Lehman Brothers Holdings in a further effort to deleverage its problematic balance sheet, has taken steps to sell off some of the riskier assets on its books and to eliminate its proprietary trading.

The moves to cut balance sheet risks is part of an effort by Lehman CEO Richard Fuld to bring down the amount of risk in Lehman's balance sheet by slashing borrowing, layoffs and possibly raising new capital.

The moves involving proprietary trading risks and unloading risky assets such as mortgage related bonds that Lehman holds is a further step in this process. Senior officials at Lehman say they have already sold as much as $100 million in troubled assets as part of Fuld's deleveraging plan

Cash-strapped Americans are ringing up more and more purchases on their credit and debit cards, and there could be a steep price to pay ahead.

Though the trend is a boon for the companies that issue the cards, analysts worry that there could be long-term problems not only for consumers but also for the anemic economy and the already-troubled banks that will be underwriting all that risky debt.