In order to stabilize the markets U.S. Federal Reserve unexpectedly cut the discount rates by half a percent sending stocks to rally in early trading.

Despite Near-Term Slowdown in Deal Making, Most Sectors Expected to Keep Consolidating as Private Equity Firms Remain Influential Players.
Report Shatters Several M&A Myths and Sheds Light on Keys to Success in Increasingly Tough Market

The Federal Reserve has issued the following press release on August 10:

The Federal Reserve, saying that inflation remains its “predominant policy concern,” left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 5.25 percent on Thursday and signaled that it would keep it at that level for some time, The New York Times reported.

The U.S.-based electronic stock exchange NASDAQ has announced plans to purchase Swedish-based stock exchange operator OMX AB. The two companies announced NASDAQ's $3.7 billion stock-and-cash offer for OMX Friday.

The finance ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as well as China, Japan and South Korea (ASEAN+3) concluded their 10th meeting on Saturday afternoon in Kyoto, vowing to further deepen financial cooperation.

Delivering the twelfth RBS Scottish Economics Society Annual Lecture in Edinburgh today, Andrew Sentance, a member of the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee, discusses the implications for growth and inflation of the changing pattern of savings. A common theme he draws out is the potential to rebalance the sources of demand growth, both at home and abroad.