Daily FNArena News - FYI

National Australia Bank doesn’t expect a quick turnaround in the US economy and has revised down its growth forecasts accordingly.

Weekly musings from your editor, who looks like a goose on Thursday morning as the US market did exactly the opposite he thought it would do. Wednesday’s version has been amended.

Higher interest rates will impact on activity in the sector but St George Bank expects Australian residential property prices will grow by 5-10% over the next year.

It has been revealed that as the Fed assisted in orchestrating the end of Bear Stearns on the weekend, it was simultaneously appealing to investment banks to rally around colleague Lehman Bros.

As the Fed steps up its financial market rescue, expectations are increasing that the G7 will be forced to intervene to save the US dollar.

Bear Stearns is small fry compared to America’s large commercial banks. James Turk looks at the biggest of them all – Citibank – and how it shapes up alongside the investment banks.

JP Morgan has acquired Bear Stearns not for US$20ps, but for US$2ps – all scrip. Goldman Sachs set to announce big losses. The Fed cuts the discount rate.

JP Morgan may have bought Bear Stearns by this morning while the Fed could cut 100 points.

The temporary bail-out of distressed US investment bank Bear Stearns poses all sorts of problems of its own.

Last night’s announcement by Standard & Poors that an end to subprime write-downs is in sight means little in the wider scope of the credit crunch.