Wall Street Stock Research: Soon, Less Independent

The last time we realized the financial system had sold us out—this was way back in 2001/2002—one of the results was a half-a-billion-dollar settlement with Wall Street’s stock analysts. As you might recall, investment banks had a bad habit of issuing overly rosy opinions of companies, particularly the ones the banks were courting for other sorts of business. Twelve companies, including Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, J.P

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It’s down to business as Brown hails new era

After the pageantry and splendor of audiences with the Queen and dinner at Downing Street, G-20 leaders could be forgiven a sense of anti-climax as they arrived for work Thursday for a summit heralding a "new era of international partnership," according to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

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Asian economic outlook ‘bleak’ for 2009

Asia’s economic growth will tumble to the slowest pace since the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said in a report released Tuesday. “The short term outlook for the region is bleak as the full impact of the severe recession in industrialized economies is transmitted to emerging markets,” said Jong-Wha Lee, acting chief economist for the ADB. The Asian Development Outlook 2009 forecasts that economic growth in developing Asia will slip to 3.4 percent in 2009, down from 6.3 percent last year and 9.5 percent in 2007.

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Brown: G-20 will rise to challenge

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Monday he believed world leaders would "rise to the challenge" at this week’s G-20 summit by agreeing firm measures to set about tackling the global financial crisis. Brown, who hosts Thursday’s meeting in London, has spent the past few weeks courting a succession of world leaders in a bid to persuade them to sign up to a package of proposals he has described as a “global new deal,” including tighter financial regulations and further government stimulus measures. But other leaders have distanced themselves from Brown’s agenda, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel apparently speaking for other European leaders when she expressed skepticism this weekend about the wisdom of pouring further public money into economies already in recession

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