Business news for Wed, 14 Nov 2007 & with word bank. 89 news.

DundeeWealth Inc. reported a $121.4-million loss for the third quarter after taking a $133-million charge on the sale of its Dundee Bank subsidiary to Scotiabank in September.

Kookmin Bank moved to enter the booming Korea's domestic brokerage sector, agreeing to buy a 95.8% stake in unlisted securities firm Hannuri for $289.8 million.

Wages growth in Australia remained relatively contained in the third quarter despite a red-hot economy and a tight labor market, giving the central bank time to wait on the policy sidelines.

AUSTRALIA'S fifth largest bank St George has completed a $766.50 million capital raising and reaffirmed its fiscal 2008 guidance.

Is E-Trade Financial Corp. back? After opening the week by losing more than half its market value in one day, shares of the mortgage-muzzled online broker and bank continued an impressive climb Wednesday.

TROUBLED Wall Street investment bank Merrill Lynch overnight chose NYSE Euronext head John Thain as its new chief executive and chairman.

JPMorgan has launched a micro-finance unit as part of its emerging markets strategy, becoming the latest investment bank to enter the fast-growing sector

AMARANTH Advisors LLC, the hedge-fund firm that failed last year after losing US$6.5 billion, has sued JPMorgan Chase & Co. It is accusing the bank of sabotaging its efforts to stave off collapse, Bloomberg News reported. Amaranth lost 65 percent of assets in September 2006 because of a wrong-way wager on natural gas. JPMorgan, the third-largest United States bank, and hedge-fund manager Citadel Investment Group LLC later took over the Greenwich, Connecticut-based firm's energy trades. Amaranth returned cash to investors this year. In a letter on Tuesday to investors, founder Nicholas Maounis said US$2.5 billion of the firm's losses came from a cash concession made to JPMorgan for taking over the energy-derivatives portfolio. He said the bank interfered with his attempts to strike a better deal with Goldman Sachs Group Inc or Citadel. "JPMorgan used its position as the fund's clearing broker to prevent the fund from executing a more favorable transaction, to extract

ASIAN stocks rose the most in eight weeks yesterday, extending a global rally. Toyota Motor Corp and Canon Inc climbed after the yen weakened against the dollar and Wal-Mart Stores Inc's profit beat estimates, boosting confidence United States consumers will keep spending. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc and National Australia Bank Ltd paced gains among banks after Goldman Sachs Group Inc said it doesn't plan significant writedowns on mortgage-related securities, easing concern that credit-market losses will spread and helping US stocks rally the most in a month, Bloomberg News reported. "The Wal-Mart result shows the US consumer is still spending," said Paul Xiradis, who manages about US$8.3 billion at Ausbil Dexia Ltd in Sydney. "On the US investment-banking front for the moment, things are looking better than expected." The Morgan Stanley Capital International Asia Pacific Index added 2.7 percent to 162.49 at 6:11pm in Tokyo, the most since September 19.

REGULATORS from China's mainland and Hong Kong discussed the risks of introducing a program allowing mainland individuals to invest directly in the city's equities, Hong Kong Monetary Authority Chief Executive Joseph Yam said yesterday. The officials assessed threats to the two stock markets from a flow of funds across the border and how to educate mainland investors, Yam said after meeting Liu Mingkang, chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission in Beijing yesterday. The mainland government on August 20 announced a pilot program, also known as "through-train," under which nationals with a Bank of China Ltd account in Tianjin would be allowed to buy Hong Kong equities. Premier Wen Jiabao said on November 3 that the government needed more time to assess the risks to the stability of Hong Kong's financial system. "One of the issues was the through-train plan and we exchanged our views on risk," said Yam. "When the flow of funds reaches Hong Kong,

MIZUHO Financial Group Inc, Japan's second-biggest bank by market value, has cut its full-year profit forecast by 13 percent. The call comes because of mounting losses on United States subprime mortgage investments and rising bad debt provisions, Bloomberg News reported. Mizuho expects full-year profit of 650 billion yen (US$5.8 billion) from 750 billion yen in May. The bank's first-half net income fell 17 percent as it set aside more money for riskier loans and lost money on investments related to US home loans to borrowers with poor credit histories. "Japanese banks are starting to feel the ripple effects from subprime, particularly in their securitization businesses," said Naoki Fujiwara, who helps oversee US$3.2 billion as a fund manager at Shinkin Asset Management Co in Tokyo. "Losses here could balloon in future so it's hard to make a case for buying bank stocks right now." Japan's five biggest banks, including Mizuho and larger Mitsubishi UFJ

HSBC Holdings Plc, Europe's biggest bank by market value, said yesterday that pre-tax profit in the third quarter rose from a year ago. This was despite the fact that it increased loan-loss reserves for United States mortgage defaults, Bloomberg News reported. Shares of the London-based bank rose 3.6 percent after it said pre-tax profit in the corporate, investment banking and markets unit in the quarter was "broadly in line" with the year-earlier quarter. It will set aside US$3.4 billion in the quarter to cover US defaults, HSBC said yesterday in a statement. "Given that they have increased provisions by US$1 billion, for them to say pre-tax profit in the third quarter is ahead is little short of amazing," said Alex Potter, a London-based bank analyst at Collins Stewart Plc. He rates the shares "buy." HSBC, helped by lending in Asia and Latin America, has held up better than most of Europe's banks this year. Still, US bad loans have increased

THE Bank of England signaled it needs to cut its benchmark interest rate at least once next year to reach its inflation target as economic growth slows. The inflation rate will settle to the central bank's two-percent goal in 2009 after rising above it next year, it said. Its forecasts are based on market assumptions the central bank will cut the main rate by 25 basis points to 5.5 percent in the first quarter and that the rate will average 5.3 percent in the second half of 2008. Growth risks are "on the downside" and inflation risks are "balanced," the central bank said. "The central projection is for growth to slow sharply in the next year," Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said in London yesterday. "There has been some tightening of credit. Residential and commercial property investment are likely to moderate, possibly quite sharply. The near term outlook is less benign for both inflation and growth." Economists have lowered

CHINA'S central bank will "moderately" step up efforts to prevent the economy from overheating, the Financial News reported yesterday, citing Governor Zhou Xiaochuan. The People's Bank of China will seek to maintain "reasonable" money and loan growth, stabilize inflation expectations and prevent negative real interest rates, the newspaper quoted Zhou as saying. The central bank will enhance co-ordination between interest-rate and exchange-rate policies, Zhou said without being specific. He reiterated that China will further improve the exchange-rate mechanism and increase the flexibility of the yuan.

The central bank, in its first formal look at the economic impact of the credit crunch, said growth might slow sharply to just over 2 percent next year.

As part of a transparency drive, the US central bank will issue three-year forecasts for headline inflation as well as its preferred core measure

Gold is likely to see a significant correction before the end of the year but prices are forecast to reach a new record early in 2008, according to the Royal Bank of Canada

LONDON (AP) -- HSBC Holdings PLC, Europe's biggest bank, reported another big hit from exposure to the U.S. mortgage crisis Wednesday and warned that bad debts could increase if the U.S. housing market weakens further....

NEWLY installed St George Bank chief Paul Fegan has wasted no time putting his stamp on the bank, yesterday announcing a $750 million capital raising which will be used to partly fund market opportunities as it looks to accelerate growth.

Merrill Lynch is on the verge of naming NYSE Euronext head John Thain as the investment bank's new chief executive.