July 21 (Bloomberg) -- Freddie Mac , the second-largest U.S. mortgage-finance company, may cut purchases of home loans from banks and bonds backed by housing debt to shore up its capital amid record delinquencies.

IN further evidence that the property market has been spooked by rising interest rates and an uncertain economic outlook, it has emerged that the nation's largest mortgage broker last month sold 22 per cent fewer mortgages than it did in the same month a

Believing that the collapse of Bear Stearns marked a bottom and the worst is over, investors have shifted their focus from the effects of the credit crisis on the finance industry to fretting about its longer-term consequences on the economy.

WASHINGTON–Global banks have taken important steps toward cleaning up bad debts on their balance sheets, but they face lingering strains from the U.S. housing market, the International Monetary Fund said Thursday.

Federal regulators are expected to extend through mid-August a temporary order banning a certain kind of short-selling of the stocks of mortgage-finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and 17 large investment banks.