European stocks retreated for a sixth day. Asian markets, however, rosemodestly Wednesday, as exporters like Sony Corp. recovered from theprevious day's sell-off.
Asian markets rose slightly Wednesday in light trading as traders remained cautious over company earnings.
Major indices in Tokyo and Hong Kong gained three-tenths of a percent on the day.
In Europe, banks continued to be battered by bad news, dragging down other sectors.
Barclaysis feeling the cold wind of change. It plans to cut 2,100 jobsacross its investment banking and management units; about seven percentof the bank's entire workforce.
Here in London, the Britishgovernment has announced a plan to help struggling small andmedium-sized businesses that are not getting the lines of credit theyused to get from commercial banks.
Business Secretary Peter Mandelson said the $29 billion program is crucial and it is being rolled out immediately.
"Itaddresses the problem at the heart of the credit crunch - finance forviable businesses," he said. "U.K. businesses are the backbone of oureconomy, so it is vital that the government should act now. We areabsolutely determined to do everything we can to support viablecompanies through this global downturn which reflects the importance ofthe measures that are going live today alongside the other measuresthat the government will continue to take in order to get the banksback into proper working order and the rest of the economy broughtthrough this downturn as quickly and as painlessly as possible."
Mandelson says half of the money will come from the Treasury department, the other half from the major banks.
"Runby professional fund managers, it will provide equity investment tocompanies with viable business models that have exhausted traditionalforms of finance. They will be able to use the capital to restructuretheir balance sheets and invest for growth," he said.
It is similar to a program that has been pushed by the opposition Conservative party but on a smaller scale.
Itis a measure that undoubtedly will be followed closely by othercountries and it may be adopted elsewhere if it proves to be successfulin bridging the current small business loan gap.
