San Francisco - Financial advisor Paula Gomez usually works half days at this time of year. Her stable of well-heeled clients have all filed their taxes, and their diversified portfolios have been built for long-term growth. But over the past few days her phone has been ringing off the hook as panicked clients seek advice and reassurance.

"Frankly, I don't know what to tell them," she admits. "Everywhere you look there's a catastrophe and who knows who's going to fail next. So the best advice I can give them is keep a diversified portfolio. But just in case, get some money out the bank in case the whole shebang goes belly-up."

New York- US stocks posted significant gains early Thursday as
President George W Bush sought to reassure investors and investment
bank Morgan Stanley reportedly began takeover talks.

The markets also appeared to be buoyed by the Federal Reserve's
move - in conjunction with five of the world's top central banks - to
inject nearly 250 billion dollars of extra liquidity into the financial
system.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average had been up as much as 180 points,
about 1.5 per cent, as Wall Street opened for business, and remained up
0.6 per cent towards the end of morning trading. The broader Standard

Washington  - A key gauge of US economic performance dropped 0.5 per cent in August, a larger fall than forecast, in another sign of a slowing US economy just weeks before the financial crisis that has struck Wall Street.

The New York-based Conference Board's index fell for the third time in the last four months amid an economic downturn in the world's largest economy. The index, which examines economic performance over the coming three to six months, fell 0.7 per cent in July, its sharpest drop in nearly a year.

New York - Massive US insurance firm AIG is beginning to consider the sell-off of its assets following the Federal Reserve's 85-billion-dollar rescue loan, the New York Times reported on Thursday.

The Federal Reserve moved dramatically on Wednesday to rescue American International Group, taking on 80 per cent of the firm's shares in return for the loan. AIG is the world's largest insurance group.

The firm has received the loan in order to buy time for an orderly sale of assets, rather than dump them at fire sale prices, the newspaper said.

Tokyo - The Bank of Japan (BOJ) injected 1.5 trillion yen (14.3 billion dollars) into the money market Thursday to stabilize the markets affected by the fallout from the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers earlier this week.

Japan's central bank moved on its emergency operation for the third day.

BOJ pumped 5.5 trillion yen into the markets over the last two days, while banks said potential losses from the collapse were relatively small as they had limited their exposure.

Taipei - Taiwan's government and economists were in agreement Wednesday that the US financial chaos would negatively hit local financial institutions, stock and property markets but only in the short term.

The island's Central Bank decided to cut its bank reserve ratios starting Thursday to free up 200 billion Taiwan dollars (6.25 billion US dollars) in a bid to ease fund flows and boost the local markets.