| Wall Street claws back ground after early plunges The prospect of a car industry bailout, hopes later seemingly dashed, helped lift US stocks from the fresh lows hit during a heavy sell-off earlier in the session  Fear of severe downturn grips world markets Fears of a severe recession gripped financial markets as dire unemployment figures from the US drove long-term interest rates down to record lows Hedge fund investors pull out record $40bn Hedge fund investors pulled a record $40bn out of the industry in October as poor performance prompted a flight to cash, according to data on Thursday Citi shares slump despite Alwaleed $300m investment plan Citigroup's crisis deepened on Thursday as its shares continued to slump despite a planned investment of about $300m by Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, its largest individual investor Pfizer denied permission to sell Viagra over counter European regulators have rebuffed plans by Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical group, to offer its top-selling erectile dysfunction drug Viagra without prescription through EU pharmacies Thousands of auto jobs face axe A number of leading carmakers, including Peugeot, GM and announced plans to cut thousands of jobs and reduce output as there is no end in sight for the auto sector's woes Grand Canyon breaks US IPO drought Grand Canyon, a Christian university based in Arizona, raised $126m, almost half the originally planned amount, in the first initial public offering in the US for more than three months. Crisis triggers chain reaction in US industry The US chemicals industry is likely to follow BASF's lead and cut production as the effects of the global economic slowdown feeds through the production chain, analysts said Sanofi reaches settlements on generics Sanofi-Aventis has agreed to settle patent infringement suits in the US with Barr Pharmaceuticals and Teva Pharmaceuticals over their generic copies of its allergy drugs Allegra and Nasacort Detroit's executives go cap in hand for $25bn As if to underline the fact that the financial crisis is shaping every corner of industry, the three top executives of what is still known as the Big Three companies of the US car industry appeared at the US Senate banking committee asking for a slice of the US's $700bn (£467bn) financial rescue package Ford sells Mazda stake to raise $540m Ford Motor is to raise around $540m of desperately needed cash by selling most of its stake in Mazda, its long-time Japanese affiliate and manufacturing partner Baidu's search model under fire Baidu, China's largest internet search engine, admitted that some companies had used its website to market fraudulent information, as it faced mounting criticism for auctioning top search result rankings to the highest bidders Goldman rivals urged to cede bonuses The decision by Goldman Sachs' top executives to forgo bonuses this year is putting pressure on their competitors to follow suit or risk being demonised in the court of public opinion Wall St falls on financial sector layoffs The biggest round of US job cuts for 15 years helped push Wall Street stocks lower as fears heightened over the scale of the difficulties facing financial institutions New chief shakes up Putnam Investments Putnam Investments, a former fund manager that has been mired in outflows since 2000, will see its biggest shake-up in years under moves announced by its new chief executive News Wizard |