GOLDMAN SACHS

Bear Stearns Cos Inc said on Thursday quarterly profit plunged 61 percent to its lowest level in five years on bad bets on subprime mortgages and disrupted fixed-income trading.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc said on Thursday that quarterly profit surged 79 percent, blowing away expectations of weak results, as the investment bank generated its second-highest revenue ever despite turbulent summer markets.

Benchmark stock indexes looked likely to open lower on Thursday, index futures showed, and analysts said earnings from two top banks and remarks by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke would be in focus.

U.S. stocks rose on Wednesday, adding to the previous session's surge and lifting the Standard & Poor's 500 index by 1 percent, as investors bet the Federal Reserve's aggressive rate cut would help prevent an economic slowdown.

Morgan Stanley on Wednesday said third-quarter profit fell as the summertime freeze in mortgage and corporate loan markets forced the bank to mark loans down by $940 million, but shares held their own on optimism that financial markets may be starting to revive.

Global equities rallied on Wednesday after an aggressive U.S. rate cut allayed fears that a credit crunch which has plagued markets could drag the U.S. economy into recession, but the dollar suffered a blow. The dollar struck a 15-year low against a basket of currencies after the Fed rate cut eroded the yield appeal of the U.S. currency. The weakness of the dollar pushed gold prices to 16-month highs.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. posted a 3.2 percent decline in quarterly earnings on Tuesday as the U.S. investment bank wrote down mortgage and leveraged loan assets, but the results beat expectations and its shares rose. The results soothed investors concerned that the widening U.S. subprime mortgage crisis would wallop investment bank earnings.

Goldman Sachs on Monday forecast U.S. oil prices will surge to $85 by the end of the year, and said crude could climb as high as $90 due to tight supplies.

Business Objects, a French-American business intelligence software maker, is looking for a buyer and has appointed Goldman Sachs to find an investor, Le Figaro newspaper said.

Wall Street reports earnings next week but outsiders don't really have a clue what they'll be.

Wall Street expects Federal Reserve policy-makers to cut interest rates next Tuesday to help ease a global credit squeeze, a much anticipated event that spurred stock prices higher this week and could boost them next week.

Merrill Lynch & Co warned on Friday that shaky credit markets forced the world's largest brokerage to adjust the value of securities linked to risky subprime mortgages and other products, a move that could hurt third-quarter profit.

U.S. stocks rose on Thursday after a Wall Street analyst said brokerage shares were undervalued and McDonald's Corp raised its annual dividend by 50 percent.

Oil rose to an all-time high of $80.20 on Thursday after Hurricane Humberto forced the closure of some U.S. Gulf refiners and stoked concerns of fuel shortages this winter.

Countrywide Financial Corp shares closed down almost 2 percent on Tuesday following a report the largest U.S. mortgage lender was working on a strategic investment similar to the deal with Bank of America Corp last month in which it received a $2 billion injection.

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. is close to making a concession to the banks financing its $26 billion leveraged buyout of payment processor First Data Corp, a source said on Monday.

Technology stocks have emerged as a safe haven for investors amid turmoil.

Blackstone Group plans to buy a 20 to 40 percent stake in chemicals company China National BlueStar (Group) Corp for up to $500 million, marking its first major investment in the world's fastest-growing major economy.

Shares in some of the biggest U.S. entertainment and media companies fell on Wednesday after Goldman Sachs downgraded its view on the sector to cautious from neutral due to concerns about the U.S. economic slowdown.

Shares of Sony Corp jumped on Wednesday after the electronics conglomerate said it would list shares of its financial arm on the Tokyo Stock Exchange next month after raising up to $3 billion in an initial public offering to fund its core electronics business.

European share indexes rose on Monday as remarks by executives of Barclays and Deutsche Bank eased fears of losses from the recent credit market turmoil, but utilities fell after news of a big French merger.