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Asian and European stocks tracked Wall Street lower and the dollar slipped on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve's interest rate cut disappointed investors hoping for more aggressive action.

U.S Stocks fell for a second day Tuesday, as major stocks fell on news of deteriorating credit markets.

Singapore's Temasek, Asia's pioneer sovereign wealth fund with stakes in Barclays and Standard Chartered, looks to be calling the top of the China stock boom and is scouting for cheaper targets in the West.

Stocks fell on Tuesday after a brokerage cut its earnings outlook for major Wall Street companies and as uncertainty about the outlook for a credit crisis recovery mounted.

Merrill Lynch & Co named the NYSE Euronext Chief Financial Officer, Nelson Chai, as its own CFO today, replacing Jeffrey Edwards.

Merrill Lynch & Co named the NYSE Euronext Chief Financial Officer, Nelson Chai, as its own CFO today, replacing Jeffrey Edwards.

E*Trade's firesale of its mortgage-backed assets may be banks' new worst case scenario.

Morgan Stanley Co-President Zoe Cruz is retiring as the subprime mortgage crisis ends a 25-year tenure for a woman who had been seen as the front-runner to succeed Chief Executive John Mack.

Morgan Stanley Co-President Zoe Cruz is retiring as the subprime mortgage crisis ends a 25-year tenure for a woman who had been seen as the front-runner to succeed Chief Executive John Mack.

Merrill Lynch & Co Inc Co-President Greg Fleming told employees on Monday he has tremendous confidence in the company's long-term prospects and said the company's strategy is fundamentally sound. Our core businesses continue to perform well, our strategy is fundamentally sound and our incomparable global footprint and capabilities position us to take advantage of market opportunities around the world, he said.

The cost of Thanksgiving is soaring, according to investment bank Merrill Lynch & Co, which may help explain the gloom among U.S. consumers as they head into the holiday season.

U.S. activist investors are preparing a flurry of corporate ballot measures at Wall Street banks in hopes that some big items on their wish lists, such as CEO pay reforms, will gain new traction amid the subprime lending crisis.

Buying Ford Motor Co's premium Jaguar and Land Rover brands would catapult Tata Motors or Mahindra & Mahindra onto the global stage, but doubts either Indian automaker can successfully pull off such a deal are weighing on their share prices.

China and India may be strong enough to make up for a slowdown in the world's largest economy

NEW YORK, Nov 16 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on Friday after a day of sharp price swings, helping the S&P 500 narrowly avert a third straight week of losses as bargain-hunting lifted the beaten-down technology sector while shares of oil companies advanced on buoyant crude prices.

With multibillion dollar subprime market losses, investors are asking questions.

Merrill Lynch has expanded its presence in Russia, one of its core markets, announcing Friday that it acquired a 10 percent stake in TRUST Banking Group, a potential top 20 private bank in Russia in terms of capital and assets.

Hedge fund Pardus Capital Management LP, lobbying for a merger between Delta Air Lines Inc and UAL Corp, plans to pitch its proposal to other investors on Friday, sources close to the situation told Reuters.

Money manager BlackRock Inc's chairman Larry Fink said he intended to stay with the firm he co-founded, after news reports tipped him as a candidate to takeover the chief executive slot at Merrill Lynch.

Barclays Plc, Britain's third-biggest bank, unveiled a 1.3 billion pound ($2.7 billion) writedown for losses on securities linked to the U.S. subprime housing crisis, less than was feared. In a surprise trading update on Thursday, the Barclays Capital investment bank unit said it would write down 500 million pounds for the July-September quarter and 800 million pounds for October.

Major finance houses went some way on Wednesday to reassure investors that after months of credit market havoc, fallout from the U.S. subprime mortgage meltdown is containable.

Merrill Lynch & Co Inc on Wednesday named NYSE Euronext Chief Executive John Thain as its new CEO, a move that acknowledges it needed an outsider with a Goldman Sachs pedigree to repair an image battered by wrong-way bets on subprime mortgages. Thain, 52, replaces Stan O'Neal, who was ousted as Merrill's CEO and chairman last month after the company wrote down $8.4 billion in assets during the third quarter.

HSBC Holdings Plc, Europe's biggest bank, said its third-quarter profits were ahead of last year's and revenue growth across the group offset a jump in its charge for bad debts in the United States. The trading update on Wednesday reassured investors that HSBC was not further exposed to big debts in mortgage-related financial products and was benefiting from its broad spread, and its shares jumped over 4 percent.

Money manager BlackRock Inc is launching more distressed securities funds to take advantage of the current credit market troubles, Chairman and Chief Executive Laurence Fink said on Tuesday.

Shares of E*Trade Financial Corp rebounded on Tuesday as investor fears eased a day after an analyst said mounting credit losses of the online banking and brokerage company could put it at risk of bankruptcy.

Bank of America Corp, the second-largest U.S. bank, said on Tuesday it expects to write down $3 billion of debt in the fourth quarter as fallout from the nation's housing slump deepens.

Bank of America Corp, the second-largest U.S. bank, said on Tuesday it has suffered a $3 billion loss stemming from its exposure to collateralized debt obligations. The pretax loss would be reflected in fourth-quarter results, and could grow if market conditions worsen, according the Merrill Lynch Chief Financial Officer Joe Price.

Merrill Lynch is resorting to its trademark bull logo to convince the world it is in good shape, despite taking its biggest quarterly loss ever.

Unsold goods are piling up in warehouses as the housing meltdown and soaring oil prices strain consumers, raising fears that already glum fourth-quarter growth prospects may tip toward recession. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned last week that economic growth would slow from the third quarter's surprisingly strong 3.9 percent annual rate. But recent data on inventories suggests the slowdown may be even more severe than the central bank has anticipated.