Markets news on stocks, currencies and oil: The US savings rate rose to 4.2% of disposable income in February, from close to zero in recent years.

Irish Emergency Budget 2009: The ESRI -  - Economic and Social Research Institute -  -said today, that the structural deficit of the government is in the range 6 to 8 per cent of GDP. The Institute says it is important that the Government in its April budget moves to substantially reduce this deficit. If such action is followed up with a further significant reduction in the budget deficit for next year, it could move to halve the deficit by the end of 2010. This would leave a quite manageable task of eliminating the remaining structural deficit by 2015. It would also provide room for manoeuvre if the world recovery occurred later than current forecasts would suggest.

UK GDP contracted by 1.6 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2008, revised down from a contraction of 1.5 per cent. GDP in the fourth quarter of 2008 is now 2.0 per cent lower than the fourth quarter of 2007. For the year 2008 as a whole, GDP rose by 0.7 per cent, unrevised from the previous estimate and down from 3.0 per cent in the previous year. It is the biggest quarterly fall in GDP since 1980 and the biggest annual fall in GDP since the last recession in 1991.

The Irish Revenue has launched an investigation into the use of trusts and offshore structures, to see if they have been used by Irish residents to avoid paying tax.

Irish exports of goods trade for the year 2008 were €86,218m, 3% down on 2007. Excluding a substantial decline in computers, exports held steady. Computer equipment decreased from €12,577m to €9,322m (-26%), reflecting the wind-down of Dell’s Limerick operation and Organic chemicals from €19,641m to €17,853m (-9%).

Markets news on stocks, currencies and commodities.

Principal news stories from the Irish Independent, Irish Times, Irish Examiner, Financial Times and New York Times.

The world economy is at grave risk of entering a depression, in which developed-world growth rates average less than 1% per annum between 2009 and 2013, according to a new report by the Economist Intelligence Unit. The depression scenario carries a 30% probability, while there is a 60% chance that the stimulus operations now underway will restore stability by 2010/11, albeit at lower growth levels than we’ve been accustomed to. A third scenario, in which failing confidence in the US economy leads to mass withdrawal from dollar-denominated assets and a collapse in the US currency, carries a 10% probability.

President Obama’s strategy to combat the recession courts disaster.

The Obama administration on Thursday, announced a sweeping overhaul of Great Depression era financial regulation and said it wants large financial institutions to hold more capital.