London equities slipped back, with banks under pressure after Barclays revealed net losses relating to strained credit markets[...]

About 4,000 JPMorgan Chase workers could be fired as the investment bank adds employees from beleaguered Bear Stearns, sources said Wednesday.[...]

The groups led by Spain's Abertis Infraestructuras SA (ABE.MC) and investment bank Goldman Sachs (GS) are the only two that made the final round for the 75-year lease of the Pennsylvania Turnpike in the U.S., reports Expansion in its Thursday Internet edition.[...]

Where others think annual download of (mostly dry) information to shareholders, Blackstone thinks: "lifestyle spread". Blackstone has produced an 80-page annual report, entitled "Welcome." The main spiel from Steve Schwarzman is penned to "Dear Fellow Unitholders" but we didn't get any further because we were agog at the pictures.[...]

Barclays, which has since last summer been reassuring investors that it would not be a major victim of the credit fallout, yet again sounded the all clear on Thursday. They'll be no immediate capital raising, though capital ratios are falling, with equity Tier 1 expected to come in below the [...]

After months of anxiety, investors have chilled out. Popular measures of volatility suggest that the investment community is no longer collectively teetering at the precipice of a cliff, in marked contrast to the activity that dominated the latter half of 2007 and first few months of 2008. For the most [...]