Stocks fell Thursday as investors took a dim view of the latest report on unemployment and warily waited for the government's reading on second-quarter gross domestic product.

A Federal Reserve official says the central bank should revive a crisis-era program to buy government debt if the country seems headed toward a bout with deflation.

Exxon Mobil Corp. said Thursday its second quarter income nearly doubled to $7.56 billion as oil prices increased from last year.

Geely Holding Group has received final Chinese government approval to acquire Volvo Cars from Ford Motor Co., the Commerce Ministry said Thursday.

New jobless claims fell last week for the third time in four weeks but remain elevated. The decline is a sign that the economy likely added jobs in July, although not enough to lower the nation's high unemployment rate.

The U.S. economic recovery will remain slow deep into next year, held back by shoppers reluctant to spend and employers hesitant to hire, according to an Associated Press survey of leading economists.

Mortgage rates dropped to the lowest level on record for the fifth time in six weeks, making homebuying and refinancing the most attractive in decades for those who can get loans.

Toyota is recalling 412,000 passenger cars, mostly the Avalon model, in the U.S., and another 16,420 vehicles in Japan for steering problems, the automaker said Thursday.

Motorola Inc. on Thursday reported a sharply higher profit for the second quarter and stabilized its long revenue decline as it strategy of focusing on smart phones like the Droid bore fruit.

Households across a majority of large U.S. cities received more foreclosure warnings in the first six months of this year than in the first half of 2009, new data shows.