The dollar has been in sharp decline in recent months — the greenback is now worth less than the Canadian dollar, and against the euro, it has lost 60 percent of its value since 2001. A doomsday scenario has the U.S.

To sum up where the real estate finance markets are today, Kieran Quinn, chairman and CEO of Column Financial, Credit Suisse's Atlanta-based mortgage lending subsidiary for commercial properties, relied on a poetic quote from an associate: "Things will be fine in 2009." Quinn was speaking at the

In Part 2 of our five-part series on the subprime market, real estate finance Professor Anthony Sanders maps the occurrence of subprime loans in the metro Phoenix market.

It's understandable that some economic forecasters, spooked by gloomy indicators, say the U.S. is heading into or already in a recession — but they may be overlooking key factors that buffer negative forces, according to Richard Kovacevich, chairman of Wells Fargo & Co.

The ubiquitous Microsoft Office suite claims an impressive 95 percent market share. Yet since 2000, a free suite of software that includes spreadsheet and word processing programs similar to Excel and Word has evolved.

Within the span of a week, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke have gone from saviors to Satans.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is moving to replace existing rules-based accounting standards with principles-based, international ones in filing requirements.

President Bush has signed into law a housing package passed by Congress last week that authorizes the Treasury Department to spend federal funds to rescue Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac if necessary.

A geographic mapping of subprime and Alt-A loans in the Phoenix metropolitan area has revealed some unexpected results: these risky mortgages are not scattered, but cluster in certain cities and neighborhoods.

A firm going public relies on the capital raised in its initial public offering to grow and thrive, but studies have found that IPOs in the United States are underpriced an average of 15 percent.