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This is Money
The debt markets in the US and Europe have begun to flash warning signals yet again, raising fears that the global credit crisis could be entering another turbulent phase. The cost of insuring against default on the bonds of Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and other big banks and brokerages has surged over the last two weeks, threatening to reach the stress levels seen before the Bear Stearns debacle.
Credit default swaps on Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch debt have risen
Barclays Bank has revised down its calculation of analysts' consensus for its full-year profit for the second time this month cutting the figure for 2008 by nearly 8 per cent after a drop of 15 per cent two weeks ago.
Barclays full-year earnings consensus revised down
Hopes that the worst is over for mortgage borrowers were dashed yesterday after Abbey announced yet another round of rate rises. The Santander-owned bank will today increase its fixed rates by up to 0.56 percentage points after a sharp increase in the cost of wholesale funds, only one week after trumpeting a smaller rate cut of 0.17 points on some deals.
Relief on mortgages over as Abbey lifts rates
The housing slump is going global, with the adverse effects of the credit crunch on property values spreading from Europe and the US to the rest of the world.
Credit crunch sends property prices falling worldwide
One by one, countries across Asia and the Middle East are being forced to abandon price controls on fuel and energy, bringing hundreds of millions of consumers face to face with the true market cost of oil. The effect has already begun to chip away at world demand and may ultimately trigger a slide in crude prices.
Asian countries begin to burst the oil bubble
Five Arctic coastal countries will meet in Greenland on Wednesday to discuss how to carve up the Arctic Ocean, which could hold up to one-quarter of the world's undiscovered oil and gas reserves, far more than Saudia Arabias.
Diplomatic battle begins over Arctic
The next scourge to afflict the global economy after soaring oil and food prices will be a surge in the cost of water brought on by growing scarcity, one of the world's biggest companies warned yesterday.
Water shortages and drought are the next scourge, warns US group
A California man has been indicted for an inventive scheme that allegedly siphoned $50,000 from online brokerage houses E-trade and Schwab.com in six months -- a few pennies at a time. Largent allegedly used an automated script to open 58,000 online brokerage accounts, linking each of them to a handful of online bank accounts, and accumulating thousands of dollars in micro-deposits.
Man Allegedly Bilks E-trade, Schwab of $50,000 by Collecting Lots of Free 'Micro-Deposits'