Chinese banks scaled back lending in May from April, the central bank said, prompting analysts to warn Monday of threats to growth in the world's second largest economy. Banks extended 667.4 billion yuan ($108 billion) in new loans last month, less than the 792.9 billion yuan in April, the People's Bank of China said Sunday. Actual May lending was far below the 821.3 billion yuan expected in a Dow Jones Newswires poll of 14 economists. "Liquidity conditions were much tighter than expected," investment bank Goldman Sachs said in a research report on Monday.

NEW YORK, N.Y. - Total U.S. money market mutual fund assets rose $12.2 billion to $2.613 trillion for the week that ended Wednesday, according to the Investment Company Institute. Assets of the nation's retail money market mutual funds rose $1.52 billion to $895.16 billion, the Washington-based mutual fund trade group said Thursday. Assets of taxable money market funds in the retail category rose $970 million to $707.29 billion. Tax-exempt retail fund assets rose $550 million to $187.87 billion.

WASHINGTON - U.S. sales of new homes rose in April and nearly matched the fastest pace in five years, driving the median price to a record high. The gains suggest the housing recovery is strengthening. New-home sales increased 2.3 per cent in April from March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 454,000, the Commerce Department said Thursday. That's only slightly below January's pace of 458,000, which was the fastest since July 2008.

MACAU, Macau - Goldman Sachs has sold its remaining stake in China's biggest commercial lender for $1.1 billion. A person familiar with the deal said Tuesday that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. sold just under 1.6 billion shares of state-owned Industrial Goldman was one of a number of Western banks that bought stakes in China's major state-owned commercial lenders before they held initial public stock sales over the past decade.