INVESTMENT

Financial stocks plunged on Friday in the heaviest trading this year, dramatically ending Wall Street's six-day winning streak as fraud charges against Goldman Sachs and disappointing earnings sent investors running for cover.

Bank of America Corp posted its first quarterly profit since summer 2009 as it generated outsized bond trading revenue and set aside less money to cover bad loans.

Investors slammed the door on a six-day winning streak for U.S. stocks with a sell-off on Friday after Goldman Sachs was charged with fraud by U.S. regulators and corporate earnings fell short of heightened expectations.

Wall Street tumbled on Friday after a slew of big company earnings failed to meet heightened expectations, while bank shares slid, led by Goldman Sachs after it was charged with fraud by the U.S. securities market regulator.

U.S. stock index futures edged lower on Friday after Google earnings failed to meet lofty expectations, but strong results from GE and Bank of America stemmed declines.

Stock index futures pointed to a lower open on Wall Street on Friday, with equities poised to reverse recent strong gains after Google's results, and ahead of General Electric and Bank of America earnings.

A top executive at the world's largest bond fund said on Thursday that money market mutual funds should not exist in their current form.

Seven former wealthy U.S. clients of UBS AG were charged on Thursday with filing false tax returns, collectively hiding more than $100 million held offshore in Swiss accounts.

Private equity firm Quadrangle Group LLC settled its part of a long-running pay-to-play probe involving the state's $129.4 billion pension fund, but the accord excludes co-founder Steve Rattner, who remains under scrutiny.

Private equity firm Quadrangle Group is to spend the coming months laying the groundwork for raising a new fund, now that a long-running pay-to-play probe has been settled, a source familiar with the situation said on Thursday.

Jeffery Stone and his wife Janette Diller Stone, one-time operators of a now-defunct New York investment firm called Crescent Fund, are not on any government most wanted list. And they aren't exactly hiding, either. But the former Greenwich, Connecticut, residents owe U.S. regulators nearly a half-million dollars in fines and restitution for their part in a five-year-old penny stock manipulation ...

A U.S. business group on Wednesday said it welcomed China's plans to ease restrictions on foreign investment, in a sign that tensions over currency have not blocked progress on all other trade issues.

JPMorgan Chase & Co's first-quarter profit topped Wall Street expectations, as revenue from its investment bank transcended losses on consumer loans.

Japan's Shinsei Bank , one-third owned by buyout firm JC Flowers, is likely to post a net loss of about 100 billion yen ($1.1 billion) for the year ended in March and its president plans to resign, sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

In a bid to woo customers from rival Microsoft Corp, Oracle Corp will boost investment in the widely used MySQL open-source database that it acquired with its January purchase of Sun Microsystems.

The exciting news from the CFTC gold and silver hearings seem to have coinincided with the predictable gold move.

U.S. private equity firms Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co and Bain Capital are preparing for initial public offerings of Toys R Us and NXP SemiConductors , the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the deals.

Stock index futures pointed to a lower open on Tuesday as investors worried over a report Greece wants to renegotiate a financial aid package and the prospect of rising interest rates.

Stock index futures edged lower on Tuesday after a report Greece wants to renegotiate a deal it struck for financial aid reignited concerns about the stability of the debt-ridden country.

As 2009 came to a close, Fifth Third Bancorp was preparing to report its sixth loss in seven quarters.

(In paragraph 35, corrects name of Regions Financial spokesman. Error appeared in previous version of story.)