Germany's biggest bank, Deutsche Bank, dropped earnings targets for 2008 after posting Tuesday its first quarterly loss in five years as a result of the global credit squeeze.

Freddie Mac posted a smaller-than-expected quarterly loss on Wednesday and the second-biggest U.S. home-finance company said it would raise capital to expand, sparking a rally in its shares.

You can look at the current food crisis worldwide and wonder what you can do to help alleviate the pain or ask yourself how you can profit from the commodity boom that has brought about the trouble. Those would seem to be opposite positions -- altruistic

The Serious Fraud Office has launched investigations into both failed finance company Bridgecorp, and the Blue Chip property investment scheme. The SFO made the announcement a short time ago.

A few months ago I found myself at a meeting of economists and finance officials, discussing - what else? - the crisis. There was a lot of soul-searching going on. One senior policymaker asked, ``Why didn't we see this coming?''