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The Bank of Canada will keep rates on hold until the third quarter of next year amid slow global growth and the risk that Europe's debt crisis will linger on, according to a Reuters survey released on Tuesday.

Gold could fall below $1,500 an ounce in the near term, as bullion has underperformed other assets and appears to have lost its safe-haven appeal, CitiFX said on Tuesday.

A double-notch downgrade to Spain's credit ratings has piled more pressure on European leaders to make rapid progress on solving the region's debt crisis or face unbearable borrowing costs.

Goldman Sachs reported a third quarter loss of $393 million on Tuesday, marking only the second time the investment bank has had an unprofitable quarter since going public in 1999.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc posted a wider-than-forecast loss of $428 million for the third quarter, only its second quarterly loss as a public company, hurt by sharp declines in the value of investment securities and customer trading assets.

The Kenyan shilling reversed earlier losses to close firmer against the dollar on Monday for the fourth straight session, helped by new limits on the amount of foreign exchange banks can hold, while stocks edged up on bets the recent sell-off was overdone.

South Africa's rand fell as much as 2 percent against the dollar on Tuesday, breaching 8.0 in thin volumes that exaggerated its moves, before clawing back ground as some players found themselves oversold on the currency.

South African government bonds and the rand currency ended firmer on Wednesday, boosted after a minister said the government would keep a lid on spending and tracking gains elsewhere as global risk appetite picked up.

The Kenyan shilling fell nearly one percent against the dollar on Monday on dollar demand from energy sector importers and the interbank market, while stocks were marginally lower as foreign investors sold on global risk aversion.

New Zealand suffered its second ratings downgrade within hours on Friday as Standard & Poor's cut the country's rating by one notch because of its growing foreign debt, after rival Fitch Ratings' had taken similar action.

THE ISSUE: The S&P Indices/Case Shiller recorded a fourth consecutive month of increases. Existing home sales jumped in the latest report. Low-rate mortgages have boosted affordability measures. Is it time for investors to start looking for real estate?

European government officials and financial institutions are starting to make dramatic steps needed to manage their way through a debt crisis that threatens to drag the world economy into recession.

The board of UBS meets on Friday amid the glamour of Singapore's Grand Prix event to decide the future of its scandal-hit investment bank and CEO Oswald Gruebel, on whose watch it lost $2.3 billion in rogue trading.

Gold prices plunged Thursday when investors stampeded out of precious metals, as well as stocks, into the perceived safety of the U.S. dollar.

Gold prices plummeted more than 3 percent Thursday after the Federal Reserve pronounced the economy seriously ill but then prescribed what many traders and analysts saw as a virtual aspirin.

The Federal Reserve's 'Operation Twist' to bring down bond yields and stimulate the economy is likely to cause pain for the nation's largest pension funds, already struggling with funding shortfalls from the recent stock market decline.

UBS CEO Oswald Gruebel will ask the board of the Swiss financial giant to back his leadership and keep its investment bank after a $2.3 billion loss blamed on a rogue trader piled pressure on him to scale back or even split off the division.

UBS CEO Oswald Gruebel will stress to the board of directors that he wants the investment bank to remain part of Swiss bank's "integrated banking model" in meetings on Thursday and Friday, sources said, after rogue trading cost the bank $2.3 billion.

As the U.S. economy slouches toward another recession and confidence in policymakers erodes, investors are coming to grips with the notion that the country may already be several years into a Japan-style lost decade.

Gold and silver fell hard Thursday after five major central banks announced a coordinated plan to inject U.S. dollars into European banks straining under the load of the continent's sovereign debt crisis.

In a groundbreaking announcement, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) has advised municipal bond market participants that many “bank loans” currently being structured for state and local governments are likely to be classified as municipal securities, even though these “bank loans” are often being privately placed.