Britain is most at risk among the big economies to lose its top-notch credit rating, while Japan faces a review of its rating if government debt issuance rises greatly, Fitch Ratings warned on Tuesday.

The 10 largest companies bought by private equity companies are performing worse than similar stand-alone companies or smaller private equity deals, according to a new report from Moody’s, the rating agency.

Resurging expectations of yuan appreciation have made dollars more scarce in China's foreign exchange market, tripling six-month dollar funding costs and creating new complications for Beijing's stable yuan policy.

The U.S. commercial real estate market, slammed by the credit squeeze and recession, is likely to hit bottom in 2010, according to a survey of industry investors, developers, lenders and consultants.

CIT Group bankruptcy filing could push at least some small businesses it finances to look for a new lender, but finding new credit will be tough.

Commercial lender CIT Group filed for bankruptcy protection on Sunday afternoon.  The move comes after billionaire investor Carl Icahn threw his weight behind a bankruptcy filing last week.

Investors typically buy foreign bonds as protection against inflation but some strategists say they're really more of a bet against the dollar.

U.S. authorities seized nine failed banks Friday, the most in a single day since the financial crisis began and the latest sign that many banks are still crippled by bad loans. U.S. Bancorp agreed to buy the banks, which include California National.

To deter lawsuits, many estate plans include a no-contest clause, which provides that anyone who formally challenges the plan gets nothing, according to the New York Times.

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who had been trying to derail CIT Group's efforts to launch a restructuring plan, said on Friday he was now backing the lender's pre-packaged bankruptcy, making a filing as soon as this weekend more likely, analysts said.

Goldman Sachs plans to trim the rescue loan it arranged for CIT Group by $875 million to $2.125 billion, CIT said Friday.

Defaults by small and medium-sized U.S. businesses on the loans, leases and lines of credit they use to finance capital equipment investment rose in September as lenders remained reluctant to extend fresh financing, PayNet Inc reported on Friday.

Japan's government will set up a new team of ministry officials to work on a bailout for Japan Airlines, including bridging loans, Transport Minister Seiji Maehara said.

Japan Airlines said it would apply for assistance from a state-backed corporate turnaround body, setting the stage for a large injection of public funds into the troubled airline.

On a surface level it may seem like the United States' debt position, the biggest in the world, is also the worst. But when the numbers are looked at on a more relative basis, the total amount of debt owed by the US, although still quite high, seems more reasonable than that of other nations... at least for now.