Banks borrow more, investment firms less from Fed (Washington Post)

WASHINGTON -- Commercial banks borrowed more, while investment firms drew less over the past week from the Federal Reserve's emergency lending program.

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Publicly Held Investment Firms See Stock Boost in 2009 (New York Times)

For publicly held buyout firms and hedge funds, the new year seems to have brought a positive fresh start to their stock prices. As of Thursday morning, shares in Fortress Investment Group , the Blackstone Group and GLG Partners are up by double-digit percentages.

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Barclays Hires 10 Staff for Japan Investment Banking (Update1) (Bloomberg)

Jan. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Barclays Plc , the U.K.’s third biggest bank, said it hired 10 staff, including former bankers at Nomura Holdings Inc. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., to expand its investment banking business in Japan.

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Kuwaiti investment bank in default (International Herald Tribune)

Global Investment House was the first of several expected casualties among Kuwaiti financial companies because of the global credit crunch.

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Singapore's Outperforming Merrill Investment (Portfolio.com via Yahoo! Finance)

The FT says today that the government of Singapore's $23-a-share investment in Merrill Lynch was worth just $12.10 per share at the end of 2008, a drop of 47%. A paper loss of more than $2 billion is tough for any investor to swallow, but for a stake in an investment bank bought at the end of 2007, this is actually an impressive outperformance. ...

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US investment guru sees future in China, despite hard times (AFP via Yahoo! News)

When asked for his advice on how to survive the financial crisis, global investment guru Jim Rogers often tells his interlocutors: "Teach your children Mandarin."

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Banks borrow more, investment firms less from Fed (San Francisco Chronicle)

Commercial banks borrowed more, while investment firms drew less over the past week from the Federal Reserve's emergency lending program. The Fed report, released Thursday, showed commercial banks averaged $87.9 billion in daily borrowing over the week ending...

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