Financial Crisis | featured news

Investments that were vulnerable in the last financial crisis and believed to be gone for good have largely escaped new rules that were made to prevent another crisis.

Four and a half years after insurance giant AIG collapsed, leading to the biggest bailout of the financial crisis, former CEO Hank Greenberg has one message: Don't blame me....

Punishing the bankers who brought on the financial crisis has proved distressingly difficult. None have gone to jail. A few young traders, who hid their post-crash losses and thereby stole from the banks, are behind bars. The rest are untouched by the tragedy.

Standard & Poor's Corp. helped cause the financial crisis by misleading investors with falsely high credit ratings on bonds backed by toxic subprime mortgages, federal officials alleged Tuesday in announcing a civil suit against the company.

The Justice Department and state prosecutors plan to file civil charges against Standard & Poor’s Ratings Service, accusing the firm of fraudulently rating mortgage bonds that led to the financial crisis, people briefed on the plan said.

The Dow rose higher and briefly topped 14,000 Friday, hitting a milestone not seen since before the financial crisis rocked the world economy.

The US Federal Reserve may have underestimated the looming 2007 global financial crisis, released transcripts from its meetings that year have shown. The documents suggested Fed Governor Ben Bernanke wanted to hold off from addressing rising panic in the markets.

Next year, $1.5 trillion of bank deposits will lose an unlimited government guarantee granted during the financial crisis, and boutique firms are offering new shelters for the cash.

Since the financial crisis Citigroup has managed to firm up its balance sheet and fence off most of the toxic assets that brought the bank to its knees. Some shareholders want the firm to go further though, and the latest call for a breakup comes from an unlikely source.

...The boom in resource markets that started 10 years ago attracted many big banks to trade oil, metals and agriculture, but the 2008 financial crisis forced a painful retreat and tighter regulation now means some banks may throw in the towel.