India Cuts Repurchase Rate to 5%; Private Employers Cut 697,000 Jobs in Feb.; U.S. Auto Sales Down 41% in February; Oil Rallies to Six-year High; Merrill’s Top 10 Execs Paid $209 Million Last Year

The Reserve Bank of India reduced its repurchase rate from an already low of 5.5% to 5.0%, its fifth cut since October. “We see a significant slowdown in investment,” Sailesh Jha, a senior regional economist at Barclays Capital Plc in Singapore, told Bloomberg. “There is scope for more significant rate cuts.” ADP Employer Services said that U.S. private employers cut 697,000 jobs in February, an acceleration of the revised 614,000 jobs lost in January. The figures mark the biggest job loss since the report’s ...