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In the UK, a full-blown recession is now unfolding: export growth set to collapse, credit crisis to hit investment, but consumption benefiting from lower oil prices.

Now, the day has come that other troubled companies also saw reason and ask to be baptised bank holding company.

Morgan Stanley, the once-upon-a-time investment bank has recently been converted into a bank holding company to avoid bankruptcy.

Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp., and Chrysler LLC are all queuing up for cash as sales demand has dropped to record lows amid the global recession.

Merrill Lynch Co. only recently eliminated more than 5,000 jobs that accounted for almost 8 percent of its total workforce.

General Motors shares soared by 33% on Monday, 13th October on reports stating that the worlds largest automaker is looking for a merger partner.

The US government is pumping liquidity into its banks in return of a stake. Treasury Secretary Paulson announced plans of using $250 billion taxpayer’s money to make investments in nine banks, for a start.

Iceland’s government has taken control of 3 commercial banks in the past few days to ensure continued operations.

The agency has already been investigating the recent financial collapses of Lehman Brothers and AIG, based on allegations for mortgage fraud.

The number of US businesses bankruptcy filings has risen 49% in April compared to a year earlier. This is a worry.

UBS AG Chief Executive Officer Marcel Rohner confirmed analysts fears that UBS, will put its investment banking business on a much tighter leash.

The dollar’s vulnerability was highly underscored by the announcement of South Korean’s National Pension Fund that would no longer buy US treasuries as yields were too low.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., the largest underwriter of mortgage-backed bonds is eliminating 5% of its total employees.

A report released on March 7 by the Labor Department showed that job cuts continued in February for the second straight month.

Housing statistics for the state of California were released by the California Association of Realtors (CAR).

Bear Stearns announced an extra 800 cut in its mortgage employees. The overall number of redundancies has risen to 1,400 – 10% of previous year’s head count.

Despite the rumours yesterday that Deutsche Bank was going to report a massive loss, the bank came out this morning with a surprisingly good set of numbers.

The world’s biggest automaker blames rising costs for the 4th quarter’s loss. How many more to come?

Credit Suisse Group, Switzerland’s second biggest bank, announced that fourth quarter profit fell as much as 72%.

Alliance & Leicester stock was down another 5% today. It has fallen a total of 16% in just one week’s time!