Financial News reports that Barclays Wealth has pulled its branding (although not its sponsorship) from a British Masters Invitational show-jumping event at Chester this weekend, after two 'provocative' pictures of a couple of the UK's leading horsewomen 'brandishing whips and lying in the hay' were released to the press to [...]

Morgan Stanley suggests avoiding parcel stocks.[...]

The Jefferies-Reuters CRB index, a global commodities benchmark, lost 10 per cent, its largest monthly decline since it fell 10.5 per cent in March 1980, amid worries about lower economic growth damping demand for raw materials. Natural gas, corn, wheat and freight costs plunged last month between 10 and 30 [...]

Four days before Merrill Lynch & Co. stopped supporting the auction-rate securities market and left thousands of individual investors stuck with securities they couldn't sell, the firm's analysts recommended clients buy. ``Reports of the imminent demise of the auction market seem to be greatly exaggerated, again,'' analyst Kevin Conery wrote [...]

Former Bear Stearns CEO Alan Schwartz is leaving JPMorgan Chase (JPM) following the $10-per share deal that ended Bear's 85 years as a stand-alone company. Schwartz joined in 1976, and climbed the corporate ladder, becoming CEO in January of 2008 when the stock was at just over $75 per share.[...]

There are many things to admire about the United States, but one of them certainly is the swiftness with which certain questionable commercial activities find themselves under the regulatory microscope. And, in full view of the public. In part, this is due to the legions of public office holders and [...]