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This month has been the busiest August on record for global corporate bond issuance as low-risk free yields on government bonds pushed investors to find better returns in corporate credit.

Banks involved in London interbank offered rate benchmark, or Libor, manipulations could be liable for billions of dollars in lawsuits from a slew of financial firms and investors who were affected by the distortions, according to reports.

The good news for investors in Facebook (Nasdaq: FB), the No. 1 social networking site, is that the shares didn’t set a new, post-initial public offering low on Wednesday. But they have come close, trading as low as $18.96 before recovering to $19.40, up 24 cents in late trading.

Bank of America Corp. (BAC) discontinued credit protection services to customers as it came under scanner for allegations of customer enrollments through improper practices and charging customers without consent. A class action suit is reportedly pending against BAC on the issue.

Shares of Facebook (Nasdaq: FB), the No. 1 social networking site, fell to a new record low of $19.01 in midday Friday trading, a day after insiders were allowed to sell as many as 241 million shares they had been required to hold since the May 17 initial public offering.

European investors looking to bet on risky derivatives will be able to use gold to back their trades, one of the Continent's major exchanges said Friday, a development that could both make the yellow precious metal a more valuable asset and foster the growth of derivative trading volume.

Deutsche Bank, Barclays, JPMorgan Chase, RBS, HSBC, UBS and Citigroup have all received subpoenas, related to the joint New York-Connecticut investigation of possible manipulation of the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor)

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM)'s multibillion-dollar "London Whale" trading mess sent some well-known money managers running for the exit, but new regulatory filings show that several big hedge-fund players loaded up on JPMorgan as they saw the stock's 22 percent drop in the second quarter as a buying opportunity.

Any trial in U.S. District Court of the more than 50 shareholder lawsuits alleging fraud by Facebook (Nasdaq: FB), the No. 1 social networking site, and its underwriters could be as much as five months away, lawyers said.

Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC), the lender divesting assets to raise capital, said Monday it has agreed to sell Merrill Lynch's International Wealth Management business outside the U.S. to Swiss private bank Julius Baer Group Ltd.

Samsung's Galaxy S3 has become one of the leading smartphones on the market, hitting the 10 million-unit sales mark in less than two months after its launch. Although the device has been dubbed as the Korea-based company's flagship smartphone of 2012, it does come with its share of issues.

BlackBerry investor Victor Alboini said he welcomed a bid for Research in Motion's enterprise business by IBM, saying it would greatly enhance value of an undervalued asset.

BlackBerry developer Research in Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM) has been approached by International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) about a possible sale of its enterprise services unit, Bloomberg News reported, citing two insiders.

U.S. regulators directed five of the country's biggest banks, including Bank of America Corp and Goldman Sachs Group Inc, to develop plans for staving off collapse if they faced serious problems, emphasizing that the banks could not count on government help.

Shares of Peregrine Semiconductor Corp. (Nasdaq: PSMI) jumped 7 percent to $15 a share as they started trading the first time as a public company. Peregrine becomes the third technology initial public offering in a month to rise at the opening of trade, jn contrast to the May 18 IPO of Facebook (Nasdaq: FB), the No. 1 social networking site.

Peregrine Semiconductor, which has sold more than a billion high-frequency chips to the mobile industry in the past five years, raised $77 million in its IPO on Tuesday and plans to start trading Wednesday, the latest technology IPO since the Facebook fiasco.

Offshoring of back-office work to India, a trend among banks and accounting firms, came under new scrutiny with allegations that Standard Chartered Plc moved compliance oversight work dealing with Iranian banking transactions to India to avoid U.S. regulators.

There's one developing storyline in the saga of Knight Capital Group Inc., the Wall Street market maker that lost more than $440 million Wednesday when an automated trading program it had just installed went berserk, that's not being talked about: It is being propped up by the very people it tried to screw over.

The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday said it plans to sell $4.5 billion in American International Group Inc. (NYSE: AIG) shares, further cutting its ownership stake in the bailed-out insurer.

Shares of U.S. banks of all sizes and specialties rose Friday over 3 percent, handily beating the performance of the wider stock market, which itself was in a head-first rally following a week of disappointing news. But there was one big exception to the equity party: megabank JPMorgan Chase and Co. (NYSE:JPM), which looked poised to underperform its peers in late-afternoon trading.

The U.S. government's report Friday that 163,000 jobs were created last month, far more than expected, sparked a risk-on sentiment among investors.

The firm at the center of a software glitch that prompted highly irregular trading patterns Wednesday morning in shares of more than 100 New York Stock Exchange issues is hanging on by a thread.

OCZ Technology Group, Green Dot, Exelixis, Mellanox Technologies, Nokia Corp, Synacor, Microsoft Corp, Statoil ASA and JPMorgan Chase & Co are among the companies whose shares are moving in pre-market trading Monday.

Next week could see some major worldwide financial implications, depending on what three of the world's largest central banks do at their scheduled meetings.

Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT), the largest maker of construction and mining equipment, reported a 67 percent jump in its second-quarter profit that topped analysts' estimates and boosted its full-year outlook as demand increased from North American builders and overseas miners.

Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT), the world's largest maker of construction and mining equipment, is expected to report strong second-quarter profit as resurgent sales of construction machinery in the U.S. and ongoing global demand for mining equipment offset weakening sales in Europe, China and Brazil. The impact of acquisitions will also play a part.

Philips Electronics, PhotoMedex, Deutsche Bank, Banco Santander, Morgan Stanley, United States Steel Corp, Bank of America Corp, Ford Motor and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are among the companies whose shares are moving in pre-market trading Monday.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is proposing that money market managers be empowered to hold back depositors' money for 30 days in the event of a run on funds. The controversial proposal is being called by critics a kind of capital control.

Two months after the trading fiasco in the initial public offering of Facebook (Nasdaq: FB), the No. 1 social networking site, tech IPOs are soaring again. Palo Alto Networks (Nasdaq: PANW) and Kayak Software (Nasdaq: KYAK) shares soared in their IPOs.