Bailouts | featured news

Fannie Mae earned $17.2 billion last year, the biggest annual profit in the U.S. mortgage giant's history, helped by a record fourth quarter.

The benchmark index has repeatedly come close in recent days, but has pulled back each time as investors grappled with concerns about the banking crisis in Cyprus. The benchmark index was recently trading over 1,565.15 points, up 0.2 percent, despite a report of rising claims for unemployment benefits.

Banks on the tax haven of Cyprus opened Thursday for the first time in 12 days amid the island's continuing financial crisis. Strict limits on the amount of money that could be withdrawn have been imposed – people will be able to withdraw 300 euros ($383) a day and no checks will be cashed – amid fears of a run on the banks.

Cyprus has imposed limits on money transfers and hired extra security guards to prepare for the reopening of its banks, which have been shut for almost two weeks to avoid a run during the country's financial drama.

As Cypriot politicians raced to find a new financial rescue plan ahead of a Monday deadline, tensions built in the streets of the capital. Residents withdrew what money they could from ATMs amid concern the banks could collapse.

Europe has spent hundreds of billions of euros rescuing its banks but may have lost an entire generation of young people in the process, the president of the European Parliament said.

Insurer AIG says it will not join a $25bn (£16bn) lawsuit against the US government, which alleges that the terms of its rescue deal were unfair.

A lawsuit claims that the rescue by the government deprived A.I.G.'s shareholders of tens of billions of dollars and took private property for public use without appropriate compensation.

The U.S. government's short stint in the auto business is coming to an end. The Treasury Department said Wednesday that it will sell its remaining stake in General Motors by early 2014, writing the final chapter of a $50 billion bailout that saved the auto giant but stoked a heated national debate about the government's role in private industry.

The Treasury Department plans to sell its remaining holdings of common stock in the American International Group, essentially ending taxpayers' four-year ownership of the bailed-out insurer.