Just ignore it and it might go away...

US: A very strong US Dollar and tumbling Oil prices and gave Wall Street a boost last week.

The market appeared to shrug off an announcement from mortgage finance giant Fannie Mae that it had sustained a quarterly loss of 2.3 billion dollars. Fannie Mae reported a loss per share of 2.54 dollars, compared with projections of 0.69 dollars, which it mainly attributed to provisions for losses related to the US housing downturn.

The credit crunch continues to plague major banks as UBS said it had struck a deal with US regulators under which it has agreed to buy back 19.4 billion dollars' worth of tainted securities.

There will be extended focus on the banking sector in the coming week following Citigroup's deal on Thursday with regulators to buy back billions of dollars in securities in a similar deal.

Analysts predict that other large banks and brokerages will soon strike similar settlement deals with the SEC and other regulators in relation to their marketing of such securities.

The reaction to all of this seems rather subdued...