JP Morgan Chase set a deal to buy stricken rival Bear Stearns for a rock-bottom price, while the United States Federal Reserve expanded lending to securities firms for the first time since the Great Depression to prop up the financial system. The shock news, the biggest sign yet of how devastating the credit crisis is for Wall Street, slammed the US dollar to a record low against the euro,
The global credit crunch claimed its biggest victim yet on Friday when the United States Federal Reserve orchestrated an emergency bail-out for Bear Stearns after a cash crisis prompted a run on the US’s fifth-biggest investment bank. President George Bush sought to calm fears of a deep recession in the world’s biggest economy.