investments

At a VentureBeat conference on managing through the economic downturn, a panel of venture capitalists painted a gloomy picture for the economy overall.

But they're still making investments, they said. Rafe Needleman covered the event and got reactions from experienced and new entrepreneurs.

The BlackBerry Partners Fund, which was created to help startups develop smartphone applications, allocated its first three major investments.

With financial institutions and individual investors worried that a worldwide economic slowdown will pose a risk to their investments, lending remained constricted and U.S.

Treasurys rose.

Citigroup's losing streak continued Thursday as the company reported a $2.8 billion loss and took yet another series of painful writedowns on its mortgage-related investments.

Part two on the safeguards that are in place to keep your investments secure: Mutual funds and brokerages.

"Look at how well these investments performed during the 2000-02 bear market!" This is the line I've been hearing from mutual fund companies and other investment providers trying to sell me on the superiority of their products (and get me to put clients into them).

If there was one solid message to come from the opening keynotes at LinuxWorld in San Francisco, it is this: Now is the time.

The Norwegian oil and gas group StatoilHydro agrees not to make any new investments in Iran.

Germany's IKB bank, hit by the sub-prime crisis, expects to cut the value of its investments by another 500m euros.