Daily News Channel
As Bear Stearns careened toward its eventual fire sale to JPMorgan Chase last weekend, the cost of protecting its debt, through an instrument called a credit default swap, began to rise rapidly as investors feared that Bear would not be good for the money it promised on its bonds. Not familiar with credit default swaps
The last living survivor of the Titanic earned only a small fraction of what auctioneers hoped to raise when she sold her final remaining mementos of the doomed ship to pay nursing home bills. The 17 items belonging to 97-year-old Millvina Dean sold for about $8,000 on Saturday, according to auctioneer Alan Aldridge — not enough to pay for two months at her nursing home.
The winning bidder of a pair of Chinese bronzes auctioned off in Paris, France, emerged Monday as a collection adviser from China’s National Treasures Fund, and he has refused to pay, Xinhua news agency reported. Cai Mingchao placed the $39.63 million (31.49 million euro) phone bid on Wednesday for the two sculptured bronze heads of a rat and a rabbit dating from China’s Qing Dynasty. The relics were part of the late Yves Saint Laurent’s private collection of arts and antiquities.
China has criticized Christie’s auction of two Qing dynasty bronzes looted by invading French and British forces in 1860, saying the sale would hurt the auction house.