Business News

With Bank of America buying troubled Wall Street firm Merrill Lynch and uninterested banks letting Lehman fall to bankruptcy, the sub-prime mortgage crisis continues to claim victims.

Lehman Brothers, burdened by $60 billion in soured real-estate holdings, said it is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after attempts to rescue the 158-year-old firm failed.

Oil prices fell below $99 a barrel on Monday after Hurricane Ike inflicted minimal damage to oil installations on the Texas coast.

Light, sweet crude for October delivery declined $2.28 to $98.90 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange midafternoon in Singapore. The contract rose 31 cents on Friday to settle at $101.18 after dropping as low as $99.99 per barrel. Before that, the last time Nymex crude traded below the $100 mark was April 2.

'Now that Ike has come and gone, initial reports indicate no real damage to the oil infrastructure in the Gulf coast area,' said Victor Shum, an energy analyst with consultancy Purvin & Gertz in Singapore.

The Italian government is holding emergency talks with unions and investors over a plan to save Alitalia as the bankrupt airline risks having to ground flights for lack of fuel.

The rescue plan would have investors buying profitable assets and investing $1.4 billion amid wage cuts and layoffs that are opposed by the unions.

The government is mediating emergency talks that started Saturday and resumed Sunday morning.

Talks broke down on Friday when the investors walked out after failing to win the unions' crucial support. The investors' offer remains on the table, and officials are trying to break the deadlock.

A passenger jet travelling from Moscow crashed as it was preparing to land in central Russia, killing all 88 people aboard.

Tighten your seat belt. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues are doing just that as they prepare to ride out economic and financial storms by holding their most important interest rate steady this week and probably through the rest of this year.

Unemployment is rising, consumers are clamping down as paychecks shrink and the government snatched control of troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as it battles the worst financial and credit crises in decades.

The Fed is also working with the Treasury Department to help resolve Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s search for a financial lifeline. Fed officials have been having conversations with relevant parties and getting updates, but a resolution is not expected to involve the use of government money.

Barclays PLC has pulled out of talks to buy parts of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., according to a person at the British bank with knowledge of the negotiations. The move complicates efforts to find a buyer for Lehman and save it from collapse.

The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing company policy, said the decsion was 'very unlikely' to change.

The person said that while Lehman was attractive, the investment bank did not meet what he described as Barclay's stringent requirements.

Report: Lehman Investment Unit Gets Offers From Bain Capital and Clayton Dubilier & Rice FOXBusiness Private-equity firms Bain Capital LLC and Clayton Dubilier & Rice, Inc.

Gold snapped its longest losing streak in 8 years Friday to climb with other precious metals. The upward moves helped recover metal losses for the week where London silver, gold and platinum plunged 12.8 percent, 7 percent and 13 percent, respectively. The Dow gained 1.8 percent and the Nasdaq 0.2 percent.

NEW YORK : Stocks retreated Friday following an unexpected slowdown at cash registers last month and as investors tried to glean insights into Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s race to sell itself or somehow ...

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is against any use of government money to bail out Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

Tracking the Dollar - Analysis and Discussion with Ashraf Laidi of CMC Markets

New York gold futures fell further Thursday, reaching an impressive nine-day losing streak and smashing through the mental $750 barrier. Silver and platinum faltered as well, while the US dollar gained against the euro.

Government data show new applications for unemployment benefits fell less than expected last week as the struggling economy continues to take a toll on workers.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that applications for jobless benefits dropped to a seasonally adjusted 445,000, down by 6,000 from the prior week. That is above analysts' expectations of 440,000.

The four-week moving average, which smooths out week-to-week fluctuations, rose slightly to 440,000.

Deutsche Bank AG, confirming market rumors and conjecture, said that it is in what it called advanced talks with Deutsche Post about taking a stake in Postbank, Germany's largest consumer retail bank.

Germany's largest bank also said it had signed an agreement with Russia's UFG Asset Management to create a strategic partnership and promote business cooperation in Russia.

In a statement released late Wednesday, Deutsche Bank 'confirms that it is in advanced discussions with Deutsche Post regarding a potential acquisition of a stake in Postbank. The outcome of these discussions is not yet finalized.'

WASHINGTON : Federal regulators were upbeat in assessing efforts to educate the people of Wilmington, N.C., as the city shifted to digital TV broadcasting this week, more than five months before the rest of the ...

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. has presented its rescue plan, now it has to convince Wall Street it can make good on its promises.

On Wednesday, the 158-year-old investment bank outlined a blueprint to sell off its well-respected investment management unit and spin off its commercial real estate assets. The strategy is part of a last-ditch effort to rescue the investment bank from bad bets on real estate-related holdings that have already laid low other storied Wall Street firms.

Effective in December, Force Acquirers to Compute a Target's Assets as Market Prices, vs.

Oil prices closed below US$104 a barrel Tuesday for the first time since early April as traders bet that hurricane Ike would miss critical Gulf Coast oil installations and in Vienna, OPEC's president signalled ...

Six weeks on from a momentous annual meeting that shook up Yahoo's underperforming board, investors and analysts are asking what happened to the expected aftershocks of change.