Financial System | featured news

They’ve tried dumping $2 trillion in cash into the financial system, slashed overnight interest rates to zero and made an unprecedented promise to keep rates low for at least another two years.

Chanting and cheering down Wall Street on Saturday to mark six months since the birth of the Occupy movement, some protesters applauded the Goldman Sachs employee who days ago gave the firm a public drubbing, echoing the movement's indictment of a financial system demonstrators say is fueled by reckless greed....

It was just last summer that the Dow Jones industrial average shed 2,000 points in three terrifying weeks. Investors had a host of things to worry about, including the possibility of another recession. Now the Dow is within reach of the rarefied 13,000 mark — a level it hasn't seen since May 2008, four months before the financial system almost came apart.

Major central banks around the globe took coordinated action Wednesday to ease the strains on the world's financial system, saying they would make it easier for banks to get dollars if they need them. Stock markets and the euro rose sharply on the move.

The global "Day of Rage" against the world's financial system won some limited sympathy from political and economic leaders on Sunday, after protests that were peaceful everywhere but Italy.

A decision by European central banks to support the region's financial system helped calm Asian markets, setting off a rally across the region in Friday trading....

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has been probing major financial firms' exposure to BP Plc to ensure that if the oil giant buckles under the costs of the Gulf oil spill, it won't put Wall Street or the global financial system at risk, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Recently released emails show how Goldman Sachs built its mortgage business by closely working with lenders such as Washington Mutual and Long Beach, two firms that a Senate review said "polluted the financial system" with souring loans.

Progress has been made toward stabilizing the global financial system but G20 countries must recommit to deliver on reforms that led to the crisis, G20 steering group leaders said in a letter on Tuesday.

Members of a government committee questioned whether the support that Citigroup received could pose future risks for the financial system.