Here are your top business and financial news headlines for Thursday, March 22, 2012: – U.S. housing market less of a drag on the recovery – Boom in natural gas production hits new pressure point – GM to invest $1.04B in its Australian operations over the next decade – China’s economic momentum slowed in March [...]

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Richard D. Parsons, chairman at Citigroup Inc., has announced that he will step down after 16 years on the board. Parsons, 63, told fellow directors this afternoon that he doesn’t plan to stand for re-election at the April shareholders meeting in Dallas, according to sources. The Citigroup board is expected to name Michael E. O’Neill, [...]

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Yelp plans to raise up to $100 million in what could end up being the first initial public offering from a major internet firm so far this year. The San Francisco-based company said it would offer 7.15 million shares for about $12 to $14 each, according to yesterday’s regulatory filing. The stock will be traded [...]

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It’s official. Iconic photo-equipment company Eastman Kodak Co. said early this morning that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The firm said the move “is intended to bolster liquidity in the U.S. and abroad, monetize non-strategic intellectual property, fairly resolve legacy liabilities, and enable the company to focus on its most valuable business [...]

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The global, financial time bomb continues to tick as today, Standard and Poor‘s adjusted the credit ratings of several big banks after applying new criteria to the world’s 37 largest financial institutions. Among those to suffer a ratings cut: Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, and JPMorgan Chase. Ratings for  Bank [...]

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The so-called Super Committee’s failure to reach a compromise on a debt-reduction plan exposes the U.S. credit rating to more downgrades, with ratings agencies expected to act before the end of the year. “It is just a matter of time before the government’s rating is cut,” says Steve Ricchiuto, Mizuho Securities’ chief economist. “I would [...]

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It’s finally happened.  Hyper-local recommendation site Yelp has filed an S-1 for an Initial Public Offering (IPO), wanting to raise $100 million. The popular site generated $58.4 million in revenue over the first nine months of this year, which represents 80 percent growth over the same period in 2010. They operated at a net loss [...]

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In a truly bizarre move, Federal Housing Finance Agency, the federal agency responsible for overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, filed lawsuits yesterday against 17 financial institutions in an attempt to recover billion-dollar-losses that resulted from risky, subprime mortgage loans. In the complaints, the FHFA says the lenders misrepresented the quality of the loans. “Based [...]

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Big trouble today for Epsilon, the world’s largest permission-based email marketing company.  The company has confirmed that it suffered a breach in security on Friday and the list of companies that were affected is growing larger and larger. TiVo users were among the first to be alerted that the email address they’d used to register [...]

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Jessica Fashano, a 27-year-old Citigroup analyst and local philanthropist, jumped to her death from the roof of Trump Place on Saturday. At this point, no one seems to know why Fashano would have committed suicide. She was a popular business woman and a charitable person. She organized spearheaded fundraisers for the Acumen Fund, and within [...]

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“Oops.  My bad.” Those were likely the words of a trader on Wall Street today who caused one of the most dizzying 30 minutes in stock market history. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted almost 1,000 points before recovering in what could have been a case of human error. According to multiple sources, a trader [...]

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It’s official. The S&P 500 has fallen 53 percent from its high back in October of 2007 and has now seen its worst six-month drop in percentage terms – 42.7 percent – since 1932.  In that year, it fell 45.44 percent within a span of six months. A late flurry of selling activity finished off [...]

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