business - "credit"

EnergySolutions CEO Steve Creamer and CFO Philip Strawbridge to Address credit Suisse Engineering & Environmental services Conference

Where is the stock market going? Tough question of course. After a difficult October-through-March, stocks rallied in April. In May - with one day left - stocks have held on to those gains. Two views of the state of the stock market caught my eye today. They mostly contradict each other:Jay Collins of DT Trading in Chicago says: 'I still am sticking with the line that we are in a longer term bear market, and in the very early stages of it, as the easy credit period will take years to unwind, not months, and am currently in one of the periodic bounces that will happen within the bear move.'Alexander Young of Standard & Poor's (which, like BusinessWeek, is owned by the McGraw-Hill Companies) notes 'the S&P 500 remains well off its March 10 lows of 1270.' Young doesn't dismiss the trouble ahead, especially worries over consumer spending in the second half of the year, but he says earnings outside the financial sector are healthy and overseas revenues remain strong. Therefore, he

Bear Stearns shareholders OK'd JPMorgan's $2.2B buyout of the investment bank whose wagers on subprime mortgages made it the largest corporate casualty of the credit crisis.

The mortgage meltdown and credit crunch continued to take their toll on the battered financial industry in the first quarter, according to a government report on the banking sector released Thursday.

Prudential Financial Inc , one of the largest U.S. life insurers, said on Thursday it does not expect net credit losses from residential mortgage investments, including subprime, to exceed $400 million over five years.

BusinessWeek Online - In Charlotte, N.C., gasoline at nearly $4 a gallon is cracking 'the survivors,' as credit counselor Bruce G. Hamlett calls them. They're the people who played by the rules and kept up their mortgage and utility payments even as neighbors gave up and moved away, leaving empty homes. Now, crazy prices at the pump are pushing even these survivors over the edge. 'They're asking, 'Do I put gas in my car or do I pay this utility bill or do I pay the mortgage?'' says Hamlett, director of economic independence for Charlotte's United Family services. ...

Imposing credit quotas and raising rates may do more harm than good to the economy at large.

Caught in U.S. credit-market chaos, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce is reporting a second-quarter loss of $1.1 billion, compared with a profit of $807 million a year earlier

The U.S. economy plodded ahead at a 0.9 percent pace in the first quarter - slightly better than first estimated - but still underscoring caution on the part of consumers and businesses walloped by housing, credit and financial problems.

PIMCO, an investment management firm, has hired Eve Tournier as the new executive vice president and portfolio manager in its corporate credit group.