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Growing evidence of home loan fraud is forcing the City watchdog into a crackdown on UK brokers that could see them facing tougher scrutiny

Shareholders have shunned multi-billion-pound fundraisings by Barclays and HBOS as investors owning more than 80 per cent of each chose not to take up their rights to buy new shares

Inflation in luxury goods and services has dropped sharply in the past year, suggesting even the wealthy are feeling the effects of the downturn

BP's shares have under-performed its peers by 4 per cent since the dispute with its Russian joint venture partners flared up in March

Defence group to publish audit of its ethical conduct earlier than expected, as part of a series of measures to restore its reputation in the wake of allegations of corruption

Strategic review could see group's development and manufacturing division floated or sold with a price tag of up to $1.5bn

Plan to take Jaguar and Land Rover brands upmarket into the £100,000-plus pricing territory currently occupied by only a handful of luxury carmakers such as Bentley

The UK prime minister was criticised by his rivals after it emerged the government was considering relaxing his vaunted fiscal rules to allow borrowing to rise

Citigroup capped a wild week for US equity markets, unveiling $7.2bn of writedowns and a smaller-than-expected loss that prompted investors to return to financial stocks as despair again gave way to relief

Acquisition will boost Israeli group's position as the largest seller of off-patent medicines

Just three weeks before the Beijing games, concerns are growing that sweeping security measures could suck all the fun out of the world's biggest sportsfest

The Qatar Investment Authority has become Barclays' largest investor after less than a fifth of the bank's existing shareholders participated in its £4.5bn capital-raising issue.

Eurozone growth is likely to rebound later this year after the current weak patch, Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, has argued in comments that suggested he sees the region avoiding a severe downturn

Qantas Airways said it would scrap plans to hire another 1,200 workers in the new financial year and said it would close US and UK call centres in Arizona and London

Supply disruptions in Nigeria saw price of regain some of the ground it lost earlier in the week. Agricultural commodities dipped amid improved weather in the US Midwest

Chairman accuses senior executives of endangering the German car parts group's future by opposing ?11bn hostile bid from rival Schaeffler

BP's shares have under-performed its peers by 4 per cent since the dispute with its Russian joint venture partners flared up in March

Shareholders have shunned multi-billion-pound fundraisings by Barclays and HBOS as investors owning more than 80 per cent of each chose not to take up their rights to buy new shares

Facebook filed a copyright lawsuit against StudiVZ, a German company that it has accused of running a "knock-off" of the social networking website

Strategic review could see group's development and manufacturing division floated or sold with a price tag of up to $1.5bn

Inflation in luxury goods and services has dropped sharply in the past year, suggesting even the wealthy are feeling the effects of the downturn

Just three weeks before the Beijing games, concerns are growing that sweeping security measures could suck all the fun out of the world's biggest sportsfest

Growing evidence of home loan fraud is forcing the City watchdog into a crackdown on UK brokers that could see them facing tougher scrutiny

Acquisition will boost Israeli group's position as the largest seller of off-patent medicines

The mobile phone group reported a sharp drop in profits to ?8m as its focus on high-end handsets left it exposed to a European slowdown

Shares in the world's biggest cosmetics company fell sharply after disappointing sales led the group to reduce its 2008 growth forecast

Deals on climate change, food security and energy could drift out of reach if next week's Geneva talks on world trade collapse, the EU's chief trade negotiator said

Worries that an economic slowdown was starting to eat into profits at both Google and Microsoft hit shares of the tech industry arch-rivals late after each reported quarterly earnings that fell short of most analysts' estimates

Richard Shelby, the powerful Republican senator, said that the US Treasury department's plan to rescue Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could be approved by Congress within two weeks, in a sign that opposition to the proposal on Capitol Hill is waning

Taiwan has abandoned a move to buy 66 F-16 fighter jets from the US in an attempt to rescue a larger arms package, according to national security officials in Taipei

Growing evidence of home loan fraud is forcing the City watchdog into a crackdown on UK brokers that could see them facing tougher scrutiny

Demand for new homes on the outskirts of US towns has fallen spectacularly in the last three years, while foreclosures and speculative building have created a far greater supply of homes than there are buyers

Inflation in luxury goods and services has dropped sharply in the past year, suggesting even the wealthy are feeling the effects of the downturn

Just three weeks before the Beijing games, concerns are growing that sweeping security measures could suck all the fun out of the world's biggest sportsfest

George W. Bush has agreed to commit the US to a "time horizon" for withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq, marking a significant shift by a president who has long opposed setting target dates for ending the war

When Barack Obama departs this weekend for his much-heralded trip to Europe and the Middle East, he will be joined by the glitterati of US political journalism

Eurozone growth is likely to rebound later this year after the current weak patch, Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, has argued in comments that suggested he sees the region avoiding a severe downturn

The UK prime minister was criticised by his rivals after it emerged the government was considering relaxing his vaunted fiscal rules to allow borrowing to rise

In a country ravaged by decades of war and a genocide, the party's guarantee of stability appears to have more clout than calls for government rotation

Ministers, farmers and car manufacturers piled pressure on the EU's trade negotiators to stand firm in next week's round of talks in Geneva

Bulgarian opposition leaders debated whether to start impeachment proceedings against Georgi Parvanov over alleged links with a suspected criminal group

Emerging economies must make the fight against inflation their 'top priority', the fund said, as it sharply raised its forecast for price increases in the developing world

A closely choreographed stint of foreign policy speeches and travel marks a crucial moment in Barack Obama's campaign, as he seeks to tackle widespread doubts among US voters about his qualifications to be commander-in-chief

Reassuring results from leading investment banks and a dramatic slide in oil prices helped fuel a strong recovery in investor risk appetite this week, driving US and European equity markets higher and helping the dollar rally off a record low against the euro

US stocks were mixed but were set to break their longest run of weekly losses in four years after Citigroup posted better-than-expected earnings, offsetting some poor results from Google, Microsoft and Merrill Lynch

HBOS, Barclays and Lloyds TSB push ahead as Citi earnings olster sentiment

European stocks ended a volatile week firmly in positive territory as bid activity sprang to life and banks got a shot in the arm from US peers

US currency recovers after oil price retreats nearly 10 per cent and some of the biggest US banks posted better-than-feared results

Supply disruptions in Nigeria saw price of regain some of the ground it lost earlier in the week. Agricultural commodities dipped amid improved weather in the US Midwest

Major Asian equities found little direction with the lower oil prices simultaneously weighing on resource stocks and bolstering refiners

US regulators said they would grant some leniency to certain market makers who sell stocks short, responding to pressure from fund managers and brokerages to clarify how new restrictions on the practice would work

Fresh efforts are underway throughout the securitisation industry to revive the mortgage lending and securitisation business, which has been at a virtual standstill in the wake of the credit crisis

The Chicago Board Options Exchange plans to launch a family of volatility indices for commodities, after the introduction this week of a volatility index for oil prices

Shares in Indonesia's second biggest coal miner Adaro Energy gained 57 per cent on its debut, as investors were eager to gain exposure to the country's fast-growing coal sector

Convertible bonds, especially for auto companies and financial firms, suffered sharp declines amid forced selling by hedge funds specialising in such securities, market participants said

June's increase in benefit claimants to 840,100 was the fifth consecutive monthly rise. Analysts expect the figure to continue rising as the economic downturn spreads

The cost of raising debt for companies is likely to increase over the coming months owing to concerns about liquidity and a lower appetite for risk, according to credit portfolio managers at large global banks and financial institutions

Retail investors in Hong Kong have returned applications for half their shares in Wednesday's listing of the Macao gaming company owned by casino tycoon Stanley Ho, even as a Hong Kong court on Tuesday reaffirmed the offering's legality

The beauty of short-selling is that it gives people with financial expertise a motive to root in company accounts and look for problems, writes John Gapper

Comedy has never been more important to American politics, writes Christopher Caldwell. Perhaps as a consequence, it has never been less funny

Carmakers spend huge sums on lavish 'ride-and-drive' events in faraway places to flaunt their new vehicles to journalists. Bernard Simon wonders whether value for money should be more of an issue in today's straitened times

There is little the Union can quarrel with in the broad thrust of the national security strategy set out by the US Democratic presidential candidate this week, writes Philip Stephens. There are some caveats but they can be sorted out if the framework of the relationship is sound

Ideas popular with politicians that aim to empower users to select from among public service providers do not provide enough choice, writes Samuel Brittan

A big casualty of the credit crisis may be the growth of financial markets in developing countries, write Erik Berglof and Raghuram Rajan

The rescue of these government-sponsored agencies underlines the flaw in global financial market regulation, write John Eatwell and Avinash Persaud

Unlike the Joint Strike Fighter programme, the US will not share the F-22 with its allies because it wants to keep hold of the technology. However, it does not want to buy many of the aircraft either, which has made each fighter absurdly expensive, writes John Gapper

History shows attempts to alter the Fed's role attract strong political resistance and serious policy consequences, writes Sam Natapoff

As companies breach their emissions limits, it cannot be long before the market for allowances recognises a fundamental imbalance in supply and demand, writes Kevin Parker

The austerity hoteliers believe they can maintain their cracking pace of growth through the current economic turbulence, writes Jonathan Guthrie

Next week's confidence vote might be a chance to bid good riddance to the communists and their stranglehold over the country's economic future, writes Joe Leahy

It is almost a year since the US subprime crisis went global.The hope that the repricing of risk would be no more than a brief interruption has been disappointed. So where is the world economy now? Martin Wolf suggests some answers

The costs of the casual assumption of government obligation for private actions will continue to mount, writes John Kay

Commentators often depict a shrinking middle class, with rising financial inequality. But, globally, this is simply not true, writes Jim O'Neill

Ben Bernanke called on Congress to consider sweeping changes to financial regulation, including much tighter supervision of investment banks

Swiss regulators have stepped up plans to impose higher capital requirements on UBS and Credit Suisse in the wake of the banks' massive losses in the credit crunch

It promises to be a long hot summer for UBS and Credit Suisse, Switzerland's two world-scale banks

Large US investment banks will be able to access emergency cash from the Federal Reserve into next year if market turmoil persists, Ben Bernanke said in a sign of the growing concern among policymakers that financial strains could continue for some time

Banks are set to cushion the blow of more credit-related losses by using an accounting rule that enables them to record gains when their financial health deteriorates

The biggest hedge funds are on a hiring binge, taking advantage of cutbacks at investment banks to recruit star traders, senior executives and whole teams to help them expand

As Goldman Sachs' rivals are trying to copy the formula of its success, its decision to put an industrialist rather than a banker on its board could be influential

Proposed system to avoid losses marks a shift from charging at a fixed spread above Libor and targets undrawn loans agreed before the credit crunch hit last summer

Citigroup is planning to overhaul its bonus system for hundreds of top managers in an effort to increase co-operation and minimise in-fighting among the disparate parts of the sprawling financial services conglomerate