Sponsored by Bank of america

Bank stocks are clearly trading as if a redux of Lehman Brothers is imminent.

Bank of America Corp is in talks to sell its correspondent mortgage lending unit to a division of Fortress Investment Group LLC, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

A Bank of America Corp shareholder sued the bank on Friday for what he said was a failure to disclose it potentially owes more than $10 billion to American International Group Inc in connection with mortgage-backed securities.

Let's face the mounting facts and just say it in plain language: The world is slipping into Global Recession 2011 and governments don't have the gunpowder to ward it off. The U.S. economy is barely growing at all. Companies aren't hiring. The federal budget deficit is above $14.5 trillion. Companies are stockpiling cash because, as Ford CEO Alan Mulally said in a press conference this week, because the consumer has pulled back.

The Dow has lost 6.74 percent over the past four days.

U.S. stocks are suffering a massive sell-off, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeting more than 400 points, in the wake of a grim outlook from the Federal Reserve. Treasuries are rallying, the yield on the 10-Year note is at 1.76 percent, an all-time low.

Stock index futures pointed to a lower open on Wall Street, with futures for the S&P 500, Dow Jones futures and Nasdaq 100 futures down between 1.4 to 1.8 percent at 0923 GMT.

Stocks plunged late Wednesday after the Federal Reserve announced it will sell $400 billion worth of short-maturity bonds and reinvest in bonds with maturities of six to 30 years in the coming year. The program has been commonly referred to as Operation Twist.

Bank of America Corp dismissed 13 investment bankers in its industrials group and may cut more, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing two people with direct knowledge of the actions.

The stock price has been languishing for more than two years -- shares have lost almost half their value year-to-date.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has recruited a former Morgan Stanley Smith Barney broker who brought in $1.8 million in revenue last year.

In the second quarter of 2011, the bank lost an astounding $8.8-billion, partially due to the burden of its enormous mortgage/legal liabilities.

Sany Heavy Industry Co Ltd , China's largest construction machinery maker, could raise up to $3.33 billion in the second biggest stock offering this year in Hong Kong, braving volatile markets to raise funds for expansion of its factories.

Countrywide Financial's lawsuit losses could compel parent Bank of America Corp to put up the unit on the bankruptcy block, Bloomberg reported citing four people with knowledge of the firm's strategy.

That's what happened in Cairo. That's what happened in Madrid. You don't want those kinds of riots here.

JPMorgan Chase & Co was sued by Wells Fargo & Co , which seeks to force it to buy back more than 800 soured mortgage loans that it oversees as trustee.

AT&T is launching its 4G LTE network in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio next week.

The unemployment rate for college graduates (that is, those holding at least a Bachelor’s degree) is only 4.3 percent.

Steve Burke, the longtime Comcast exec now in charge of the content side that he once tussled with about fees, sang the monetization tune on Wednesday.

The U.S. Department of Energy's loan program for innovative technologies was created under the Bush Administration in 2005, but the first loan guarantee wasn't extended until four years later when the loan office received funding under the federal economic stimulus.

Redwood Trust, a California-based REIT, is about to launch its second private-label RMBS of the year, a US$375.2m prime-mortgage offering called Sequoia Mortgage Trust 2011-2 (SEMT 2011-2), according to a presale report released on Wednesday by Fitch Ratings.

In July, Nomura said it would seek to reduce annual expenses at its wholesale unit by about $400 million.

Republican Bob Turner will be sworn in soon to succeed Anthony Weiner in Congress, representing New York’s Ninth Congressional District. He’ll be the first Republican to represent it since Seymour Halpern in the late 1950s.

The jobs cut is the single largest job reduction by a U.S. company this year, and the most since the U.S. Postal Service said last year it wanted to cut an additional 30,000 jobs.

On the day President Barack Obama sent his $447 billion jobs bill to Congress in a bid to solve America's unemployment problem, the Bank of America delivered an economic blow -- announcing plans to slash as many as 30,000 jobs.

Bank of America tried to grow at the peak of the U.S. financial disaster several years ago, acquiring Countrywide Mortgage and Merrill Lynch, the investment bank, but now the Charlotte, N.C.-based company is destined to shrink. The company disclosed plans on Monday to cut 30,000 jobs, as the nation's largest bank tries to cut costs as the U.S. economy continues in a slow-growth, high unemployment mode.

Bank of America Corp is looking to reduce its annual expenses by $5 billion a year by 2013 through its major cost-cutting initiative, Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan said.

The recent executive shakeup at Bank of America followed by reports of massive layoffs at the bank may leave you wondering what the turmoil means for you - either as a client of the banking colossus and Merrill Lynch, the brokerage firm it owns, or as a shareholder.

U.S. stocks tumbled on Friday after the top German official at the European Central Bank resigned in protest of the bank's bond-buying program, which has been a major tool in fighting the region's debt crisis.