Even as consumers face soaring energy costs, rising food prices and higher mortgages or rent, it seems clear they’re not prepared to forgo many of life’s little treats — alcohol, cigarette and candy makers are all reporting healthy sales amid the gloom.

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Although the herd mentality may help you find greener pastures if you are a bison, it won’t help you find untrampled pastures. In investments, every bison ahead of you has already run the price up, and the only buyers of your investment are behind you. Straggling along at the back of the herd doesn’t stop you from reaching the watering hole, but being toward the end of a run-up in the markets can be as deadly as drinking from fouled water.

Clinical Data Inc., a global biotechnology firm based in Massachusetts, has agreed to buy a Charlottesville biotech company in a deal that could be ultimately worth up to $66 million.

“We definitely believe that that there is no more risk to the public at this point,” said Thomas Jefferson Health District pathologist Elizabeth Davies

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Think of confidence as a continuum: Lack of confidence is paralyzing, self-confidence is good, but overconfidence is deadly.

Don Rich figures his decision to open a local Segway dealership puts him ahead of the curve of a movement toward communities in which residents don’t depend on cars to get around.

The nation’s unemployment rate climbed to a four-year high of 5.7 percent in July as employers cut 51,000 jobs, dashing the hopes of an influx of young people looking for summer work.

About 2 million Americans get a raise Thursday as the federal minimum wage rises 70 cents. The bad news: Higher gas and food prices are swallowing it up, and some small businesses will pass the cost of the wage hike to consumers

Wachovia Corp. reported a surprisingly large second-quarter loss Tuesday, deflating Wall Street’s hopes that the nation’s big banks are weathering the credit crisis well.

Decide to become a homeowner and, inevitably, you’ll have to confront your credit score.

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It’s an anxious summer for watermen harvesting the Chesapeake’s best-loved seafood, the blue crab. The way some see it, the crabbing business here isn’t just dying. It’s already dead.

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Researchers have identified dozens of mental shortcuts. One heuristic that the brain uses to solve complex evaluations is to make an initial guess and then adjust from that point as we receive additional information to find a better answer. This mental process is called “anchoring.”

Consumer prices shot up in June at the second fastest pace in 26 years with two-thirds of the surge blamed on soaring energy prices.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress Wednesday that troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are in “no danger of failing.“

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress Tuesday the fragile economy is facing “numerous difficulties” despite the Fed’s aggressive interest rate reductions and other fortifying steps.

A weekly listing of property transfers and building permits in and around Charlottesville.

Local business announcements.

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