UNITED STATES

As the market punishes banks and lenders for loose lending practices, investors want to know what's really at stake.

Credit spreads and collateralized debt obligations may not mean much to the average U.S. consumer, but if market gyrations persist, Wall Street's pain may come home to hurt Main Street.

It will be a weekend of high anxiety for investors on Wall Street, as they brace themselves for what will likely be another rollercoaster ride for the battered financial markets.

Countrywide Financial Corp led shares of U.S. mortgage companies lower on Friday as investors received fresh reminders that a shortage of liquidity might crimp profits.

The last time the U.S. markets experienced such wild swings as they have in the past week, Wall Street warriors in their 20s and 30s were trading baseball cards and lunchbox snacks, not stocks and bonds.

Wall Street economists do not foresee an imminent interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve despite a credit squeeze that is pressuring financial markets and forcing central banks to funnel liquidity into the system.

Central banks probably will halt their monetary tightening campaign and the Federal Reserve may start cutting interest rates to ward off a global credit crunch, financial market dealers said on Friday.

Jeffrey Blitz does not want his work stuffed into a neat little Hollywood box, which is one reason the director of Rocket Science has jumped from documentaries to feature films to television and back again.

Elvis, the man, has passed away. The legend - and the marketing - live on.

The top three U.S. wireless service providers said on Friday they would start selling the successor to Motorola Inc's Razr phone, which includes a 2 Megapixel camera and a music player.

'Galactic Suite,' the first hotel planned in space, expects to open for business in 2012 and would allow guests to travel around the world in 80 minutes.

Seventy-seven percent of Indians -- about 836 million people -- live on less than half a dollar a day in one of the world's hottest economies, a government report said.

The Bush administration said on Friday it would increase scrutiny and impose heftier fines on U.S. businesses that employ illegal immigrants as it sought to step up enforcement despite Congress's failure to reform immigration laws.

News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch has said he might make the Wall Street Journal's Web site free, a shift that could compel Britain's Pearson to do the same with the online version of its Financial Times.

Central banks around the globe pumped billions of dollars into banking systems on Friday in a concerted effort to beat back a widening credit crisis, and pledged to do more if needed. n all, central banks in Europe, Asia and North America have pumped out more than $300 billion over 48 hours in an effort to keep money flowing through the arteries of the global financial system, hoping to prevent a credit market seizure that could imperil economies.

Tighter credit, broad deterioration in the housing market and skittish consumer spending will lead to a slower U.S. economy than earlier estimated, according to the most closely watched forecast by U.S. economists.

U.S. retail sales excluding cars rose a modest 0.2 percent in July, as declining gasoline prices reined in overall sales growth, according to data from SpendingPulse released on Friday.

U.S. consumers generally expect the labor market to stay healthy, with only a third anticipating a rise in the unemployment rate in the coming year, according to a survey released on Friday.

A gauge of future U.S. economic growth fell in the latest week on lower stock prices and higher interest rates, and the measure's growth rate was down almost 1 percent, a research group said on Friday.

Sunrise Senior Living, a senior living chain exploring a possible sale, on Friday posted disappointing revenue under management, sending shares down 4 percent.

Reliant Pharmaceuticals Inc. filed with U.S. regulators on Friday to raise up to $400 million in an initial public offering of common stock.