Financial Service News

Over the last year it's become abundantly clear that the stock market can devastate even seemingly healthy retirement accounts.

John S. Reed , who helped engineer the merger that created Citigroup Inc. , apologized for his role in building a company that has taken $45 billion in direct U.S. aid and said banks that big should be divided into separate parts.

The Alabama National Guard has identified the soldier who was injured in the shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas.

Nov. 6 -- Jan Hatzius, chief U.S. economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., talks with Bloomberg's Deidre Bolton and Erik Schatzker about his outlook for the economy, labor market and Federal Reserve monetary policy.

Regulators have shut small banks in Georgia and Michigan, bringing the number of bank failures this year to 117 amid the struggling economy and a cascade of defaults on loans.

CF Industries Holdings Inc. rejected rival fertilizer producer Agrium Inc.a s increased $4.52 billion takeover offer, saying it a oesubstantiallya undervalues the company.

Oil prices climbed toward $80 a barrel Friday, catching up with a surge in global stock markets and assisted by a slightly weaker dollar which made crude more attractive to international investors.

NEW YORK - Big bonuses could be back in store for some top executives and traders on Wall Street as profitability returned to the investment banking industry in 2009, according to a new study released today.

Some of New York's biggest companies, including Wall Street giants Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, received doses of swine flu vaccine for at-risk employees, drawing criticism that the hard-to-find vaccine is going first to the privileged.

Nov. 5 -- Michael Morris, an analyst with UBS AG, talks with Bloomberg's Carol Massar, Adam Johnson and Jon Erlichman about the outlook for CBS Corp.'s earnings.

WASHINGTON - Thousands of borrowers on the verge of foreclosure will soon have the option of renting their homes from Fannie Mae, under a policy announced today.

Criminal charges have been filed against 14 people, including attorneys and Wall Street professionals, in a widening $53 million insider trading case that has already snared one of the richest men in America, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

The European Central Bank and the Bank of England kept interest rates at record lows Thursday as their economies struggle to emerge from recession.

A A A' With the recession apparently over, the Federal Reserve held a key interest rate at a record low and again pledged to keep it there for an "extended period" to foster the fragile economic recovery.

Wall Street's top trading firm saw $100 million-plus in revenue more days than not last quarter, comfortably bankrolling an 80% hike in average pay for its 31,700-strong work force.

Nov. 4 -- David Resler, chief economist at Nomura Securities International Inc., talks with Bloomberg's Carol Massar and Erik Schatzker about today's report from ADP Employer Services which says companies in the U.S. cut an estimated 203,000 jobs in October.

GOLDMAN Sachs has agreed to sell half of its holding in Shineway Group, China's top meat processor, to a Chinese fund for about US$150 million, earning roughly five times its investment from the landmark 2006 deal, sources with direct knowledge of the matter said yesterday.

Bank of Ireland has suffered almost a 1bn losses in six months this year, it revealed today.

Goldman Sachs was one of the last Wall Street giants to enter the subprime lending world, but when it did, it quickly climbed into bed with profligate, highflying firms - companies such as New Century Financial Corp.

The head of Rhode Island-based Citizens Financial Group says it won't be sold by its parent company, the Royal Bank of Scotland, as a condition of the British government pouring billions of dollars into the firm.