BUFFETT SAYS WELLS FARGO MOVED TOO SLOWLY ON SCAM NEWS

Warren Buffett, who controls the largest stake in Wells Fargo & Co., told CEO John Stumpf that the lender was too slow to realize the seriousness of the problem after settling investigations into the practice of opening accounts without customers’ permission, CNBC reported.

Buffett and Stumpf spoke for about five minutes and he told the banker “that he thought the problem was bigger than Stumpf thought at that point,” CNBC’s Becky Quick said Thursday, citing a discussion that she had with the billionaire chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. The problem, according to Buffett, was bigger than fines of about $185 million, Quick said.

“That was not a metric to use to determine the public reaction to this. He thought the problem was deeper than that.”

OPEC deal signals cartel’s desperation.

OPEC’s unexpected agreement to trim production shows the cartel still has the resolve — and even desperation — to try to guide oil prices higher. But don’t expect triple-digit crude anytime soon.

Ministers from the oil cartel reached a preliminary deal to cut production for the first time since the global financial crisis eight years ago. The reduction was modest — to between 32.5 million and 33 million barrels per day from just below current levels of around 33.2 million.

Unemployment claims up a bit. More Americans

sought unemployment benefits last week but the number of applications remained low, the latest sign that layoffs are scarce.

The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly applications for jobless aid rose 3,000 to a seasonally adjusted 254,000. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, ticked down to 256,000, matching a 43-year low first reached in April.

The number of people receiving aid dropped 46,000 to 2.1 million, the smallest number since July 2000.

30-year mortgage rate drops to 3.42%. Mortgage

giant Freddie Mac says the average for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropped to 3.42 percent, down from 3.48 percent last week.

The benchmark rate is down from 3.85 percent a year ago and is close to its all-time low of 3.31 percent in November 2012.

The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage, popular with homeowners who are refinancing, slipped to 2.72 percent from 2.76 percent.