A round-up of the key stories across the specialist financial media, including news that Bank of America is stopping the sale of new home loans to Fannie Mae.
BofA squeezes mortgage pipeline to Fannie
Bank of America is stopping the sale of new home loans to government-owned Fannie Mae as a dispute over who should bear the costs for defective mortgages escalates.
European stocks posted mild gains Friday with positive earnings from Telecom Italia proving to be a welcome surprise, but Lloyds Banking Group shares slid after it posted less-than-pleasing results.
Mentor of central bankers Fischer rues complacency in new growth
Stanley Fischer in December 2008 connected the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and Bernard Madoff’s fraud to a false sense of security that brought the world to the brink of depression. Three years later, he rues the same creeping complacency.
Glencore and Xstrata are to seek approval from Brussels for their proposed merger in a move that suggests antitrust clearance could prove a bigger hurdle than initially expected.
Britain’s economy contracted in the fourth quarter of last year in line with an earlier estimate, with a sharp drop in business investment offsetting the rise in household consumption.
