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The two came under heavy fire before a congressional panel hearing for being blind to financial risks that Citi took on, which ultimately led to its near collapse, prevented only by a $45-billion taxpayer bailout.

His hands visibly shaking as he answered questions, Rubin told congressional investigators he was not a decision-maker at the bank during the worst of its troubles. The former U.S. treasury secretary in the Clinton administration said Citi’s risk-assessment ability was strong.

Former CEO Prince came to the defense of Rubin saying as an advisor he was not responsible for Citi’s massive losses. Prince offered up multiple apologies for his own ignorance.

“I can only say that I am deeply sorry that our management — starting with me — was not more prescient and that we did not foresee what lay before us,” Prince said.

But some members of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission — charged by Congress with explaining the origins of the worst U.S. financial crisis since the Great Depression — did not buy the half-hearted mea culpas.

“You either were pulling the levers or asleep at the switch,” commission Chairman Phil Angelides, addressing Rubin near the end of the hearing.

Citi has been in the crosshairs of the commission for two days now in public hearings occurring just before Congress resumes debate on financial reform and as the White House ramps up its push for a regulatory overhaul.

Eight former and current Citi executives have testified. All have basically said that no one, including them, could have foreseen the problems that nearly destroyed the bank.

Vice Chairman Bill Thomas, pushed the Citi executives for answers, saying, “Behavior has to have consequences.”

Thomas challenged Rubin and Prince on the huge pay packages taken by Citi executives, despite their decisions to steer the bank into high-risk businesses that nearly brought it down.

Rubin and Prince again showed remorse, but shouldered no responsibility for Citi’s woes, or its eventual bailout.

THREE RESCUE PACKAGES

Bad bets on repackaged debt securities, consumer loans and other assets forced Citi to take three separate government rescue packages totaling $45 billion, more than any other major bank. When the dust settled, taxpayers held about a third of Citigroup’s common stock and $27 billion of its debt.

“The overriding lesson of the financial crisis was that the financial system is subject to more severe downside risk than almost anyone had foreseen,” Rubin said. “It is imperative that private institutions and the government act on that lesson.”

Some members of Congress want to break up banks such as Citi, arguing that they have become not only “too big to fail,” as some in the markets see it, but also “too big to manage.”

Prince said that that is not the case, saying “I personally do not think that Citi was too big to manage.”

Over the past two days, the commission has delved into the breakdown of Wall Street’s subprime mortgage securitization business, the complex securities it produced, and the impact those toxic assets had on financial giants, such as Citi.

In explaining their actions, Citi executives have said that they relied chiefly on the judgment of others in assessing the risks being taken in loading the bank’s balance sheet with subprime mortgage bonds and other complex debt instruments.

Rubin — a former Citi executive committee chairman and Goldman Sachs executive — expressed deep regrets for not recognizing the approach of the financial crisis.

“Almost all of us … missed the powerful combination of forces at work and the serious possibility of a massive crisis,” said Rubin.

BIG BANKS NEEDED-PRINCE

The Obama administration is backing a reform proposal that would limit the future growth of mega-banks by imposing a new market-share cap. Some lawmakers in Congress have called for breaking up large financial conglomerates such as Citi.

But Prince said he believes the financial world needs large, diversified banks. “We are past the days of exclusively small, local banks and financial institutions,” he said.

The commission will hold another hearing on Friday to hear from former executives of housing finance giant Fannie Mae (FNM.N) and former regulators who supervised it. Fannie Mae was seized by the government in September 2008.

(Additional reporting by Elinor Comlay in New York; Editing by Andrew Hay)

Source: News Yahoo.

The government struggled to reassure markets it can stay solvent after the premium that investors demand to buy Greek debt rather than the benchmark German government debt surged for the third day in a row to the highest level since Greece joined the euro.

Skepticism over a dearth of details surrounding a proposed European Union and International Monetary Fund lifeline continued to pile pressure on a country already struggling to cover its wide fiscal gap and huge public debt load.

“Despite everything the EU and the euro zone have done, there is still a lack of clarity (and) confusion about what they intend to do, when they intend do it and how much would be involved,” Chris Pryce, senior Greece analyst for rating agency Fitch, told Reuters.

“It is now up to the Greek government to go publicly to the EU and IMF and ask for the cash and the support.”

Euro zone deputy finance ministers and central bankers were likely to discuss the terms on which emergency loans could be extended to Athens later on Thursday, a euro zone source said.

Greece’s government has pledged to cut its public finance deficit by almost one-third to 8.7 percent of gross domestic product this year, but is wary of sparking public unrest after a string of riots and strikes since last year.

AVOIDING SAFETY NET

Reluctant to give in to the pressures, Greece insists it prefers to borrow from markets and will use the European Union/International Monetary Fund safety net agreed only as a last resort, a call it repeated on Thursday.

“For the time being it is not necessary to activate the aid mechanism,” said spokesman George Petalotis, adding Athens was striving not to borrow at “barbaric” interest rates.

The 10-year Greek/German government yield spread spiked almost half a percentage point to as much as 463 basis points on Thursday. Two-year government bond yields surged over 100 bps to almost 8 percent.

Germany, which can veto Athens’ access to the aid package, also held firm on its position that it is only a last ditch option, with a spokesman saying that, despite the jump in borrowing costs, “the government’s position remains unchanged.”

Dealing with its own financial problems as a local election looms, Berlin has been loath to set a bad example for other euro zone offenders by letting Greece off the hook too lightly.

The euro zone source said euro zone officials had had a “convergence of views” and the terms should be similar to IMF financing conditions and terms agreed by EU governments.

Another source said the rate of interest should not be higher than 300 basis points over comparable German debt.

Greece’s woes drove the euro close to its 2009 low against the dollar on Thursday. It slipped 0.2 percent to $1.3306 at 1227 GMT, just off its 2010 low of $1.3267, though rebounded after reassuring remarks by the head of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet..

A Reuters poll showed 64 strategists saw the crisis eroding the euro further to $1.30 in a year’s time.

NO DEFAULT SEEN

Greek Economy Minister Louka Katseli said there was “no chance at all that Greece will default” and markets were testing Athens’ ability to finance itself and profiting on price swings.

Her comments on the prospect of default echoed those of Trichet, who said “default was not an issue for Greece” after the ECB left rates flat at 1 percent and prolonged rules allowing Greek debt to be used as collateral for cheap central bank cash.

The next main challenge Greece faces is to borrow 11 billion euros by the end of May to roll over debt and cover spending.

Three bonds worth 18 billion euros have performed badly this year in the secondary market, and analysts and investors say a dollar bond planned for April and May will struggle to draw demand at the 7 percent yield seen attractive by the government.

Banks, which have asked to tap 17 billion euros remaining in a crisis support package, saw shares tumble more than 7 percent before retreating to close 6 percent lower.

They have been hit by deterioration of the state bonds they hold and a rise in non-performing loans, and media have reported foreign banks have stopped taking part in interbank activity, squeezing Greek lenders’ ability to roll over short-term loans.

They are down 50 percent since worries over how Greece will cut a debt pile that exceeds its annual economic output by a fifth started to rattle investors in mid-October, wiping out about 24 billion euros ($32 billion) in market capitalization.

Also causing worry were new ECB rules announced on Thursday on extending easier lending terms for holders of Greek government bonds into 2011. The rules defuse the danger of Greek debt falling off the list of what banks can swap for ECB loans next year if it faces more ratings downgrades.

(Additional reporting by Lefteris Papadimas and Harry Papachristou in Athens, Jan Strupczewski and Julien Toyer in Brussels, Sakari Suoninen and Marc Jones in Frankfurt; writing by Michael Winfrey; Editing by Stephen Nisbet and Leslie Adler)

Source: Yahoo news

Initial jobless claims increased by 18,000 to a seasonally adjusted 460,000 in the week ending April 3, the Labor Department said, revising slightly upward the prior week’s reading to 442,000.

The rise surprised most analysts who had expected new claims to fall to 435,000 and snap two weeks of declines.

The headline figure was the highest number of new claims since February 27. Since starting a downward trend in late March 2009, claims have risen in eight of the past 14 weeks this year.

“Though this reversed some of the recent improvement, it should not be cause for alarm, as claims tend to be more volatile around holidays; the latest data point coincided with the week leading up to Easter,” said Andrew Gledhill at Moody’s Economy.com.

“This week’s increase in initial claims should not be seen as a reason to doubt that the slower layoff trend is persisting.”

According to a four-week moving average, which smooths some volatility in the weekly figures, new claims rose 0.5 percent to 450,250.

However, the weekly Labor Department report also included signs of slight improvement in the jobs market, where nearly one in 10 workers is unemployed.

For the week ending March 27, the insured unemployment rate was 3.5 percent, down 0.1 percentage point from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 3.6 percent.

The number of those receiving jobless benefits, known as continuing claims, fell 2.8 percent to 4,550,000, while the four-week moving average dropped 0.8 percent to 4,648,250.

Several factors made last week’s seasonally adjusted data a bit trickier to compute, including the end of the quarter on March 31, a holiday in California, and the volatility of the Easter holiday, a Labor Department official said.

Since the fiscal year began on October 1, the average number of those on the unemployment rolls was 5.236 million.

High unemployment poses a challenge to the economy’s nascent recovery from the worst recession in decades. Jobs creation is widely expected to lag economic growth, which emerged in mid-2009 after a full year of contraction.

The initial claims report followed key March jobs data issued by the Labor Department on Friday, which showed the economy created 162,000 jobs, the biggest increase in three years, while the unemployment rate held steady at 9.7 percent.

According to the closely watched monthly report, the number of people who have not worked in more than six months rose by 414,000 in March, to 6.5 million people.

Since the recession began in December 2007, about eight million Americans have lost their jobs.

Source: news.yahoo.com

He also won a $10 million interest payment in the transaction.

The billionaire investor, who previously owned 51 percent of the mortgage issued by Dallas-based Beal Bank, agreed last week to buy the remaining 49 percent at a 7.5 percent discount, according to court documents.

Icahn and Texas billionaire banker Andy Beal are facing off against Trump Entertainment bondholders and Donald Trump for ownership of the company’s three Atlantic City casinos. Icahn wants to convert the mortgage into ownership of the casinos.

Trump bondholders have offered to buy the company for $225 million, giving Donald Trump as much as 10 percent ownership in return for letting them continue to use his name on the casinos.

A bankruptcy judge is expected to pick the winner by April 15.

Icahn told The Press of Atlantic City he had always intended to buy the entire mortgage. He said he moved up the transaction in order to pocket a $10 million interest payment that was due Wednesday.

“The bank debt was going to be purchased by me anyway, so we did it earlier,” he told the newspaper. “It’s not unexpected. We just wanted to get the interest.”

Vincent J. Intrieri, senior managing director of Icahn Partners L.P., said owning the entire mortgage would make it easier for Icahn to get a New Jersey casino license if he succeeds in buying the company out of bankruptcy.

Source: Yahoo News

London’s benchmark index was up 1.15 percent to close at 5,744.89 points.

Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) was the most traded stock, seeing 157 million units change hands, followed by Vodafone, which saw 137 million shares switch owners.

The day’s top performer was Petrofac, which added 84 pence — or 6.99 percent — to finish at 1286, followed by Xstrata, which added 51.50 pence — or 4.12 percent — to stand at 1300.

Smith and Nephew was the worst performer, dropping 4.50 pence — or 0.69 percent — to close at 652, followed by Glaxosmithkline, which shed 8.50 pence — or 0.67 percent — to finish at 1257.

Meanwhile, sterling rose against the dollar and the euro

At 17:17, the pound was trading at 1.5275 dollars, rising from 1.5184 at the same time on Wednesday, while the currency stood at 1.1260 euros, ascending from 1.1239 over the same period.