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Twenty-eight people were wounded, seven seriously, in explosions on Sunday at a camp of anti-government protesters in Bangkok, the latest violence in a prolonged political crisis dividing the country and threatening the Thai economy. The explosion comes a day after the military urged both sides to settle their differences in the more than two-month long dispute, in which protesters are trying to bring down the elected government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. "There were 28 people injured from the blast at the Victory Monument," Suphan Srithamma, director general of the Bangkok Emergency Medical Centre, told reporters. "Among these 7 people were seriously injured." Witnesses said they heard two explosions. "The first blast I heard was from behind the stage," said Teerawut Utakaprechanun, who told Reuters Television he had been turning out for the protests every day. "People were looking around. I saw the security guards running after a

A bomb planted by Taliban insurgents ripped through a vehicle carrying Pakistani troops on Sunday, killing 20 soldiers and prompting Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to cancel his trip to the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos this week. At least 30 others were wounded as the convoy prepared to leave the volatile northwestern town of Bannu for nearby North Waziristan, a lawless, tribal region on the Afghan border where many al Qaeda-linked militant groups are holed up. The bold, daylight attack - the biggest on Pakistani security forces in months - dealt a major blow to the army at a time when Pakistan is already under strong U.S. pressure to do more to contain the insurgency on its western frontier. The army said the bomb had been planted in a civilian vehicle rented locally in order to transport troops to North Waziristan. The device exploded as soldiers got inside the car and prepared to leave. "With the help of God we claim responsibility for this," Pakist

Well, now we know: monetary policy certainly isn't rocket science. Asked on Thursday if he was confident before implementing quantitative easing that it would work, outgoing Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke quipped: "The problem with QE is that it works in practice, but it doesn't work in theory." Seriously, imagine a NASA official after a moon shot joking that the booster rockets had worked in practice but not in theory. Think of the looks he might get from the astronauts standing alongside him. Now, of course, Bernanke should be permitted one joke per four-year term, and he did go on to say that the Fed's use of QE was grounded in practical experience from Japan and elsewhere as well as theoretical underpinnings from academia. Still. After years of the Fed engaging massively in QE, consensus about its effects is far stronger in terms of its effect on financial markets, where it is viewed as an electronic form of Viagra, than on the actual economy.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Citigroup Inc suffered a steep drop in bond trading revenue in the fourth quarter, a stinging blow for two banks long seen as stalwarts of fixed income markets. The two banks performed worse in fixed income than rivals JPMorgan Chase & Co and Bank of America Corp, showing that even as bond market trading volume suffers from falling prices, some banks will endure more pain than others. "You have to be nimble to trade the debt markets these days. If you make a bad bet, it will show up in results, and profits will be harder to earn in 2014," said Matt McCormick, a portfolio manager and banking analyst at Bahl & Gaynor Investment Counsel, which manages about $11 billion. Goldman's profit fell 21 percent, as revenue from bond trading dropped 11 percent after adjusting for an accounting charge, it reported on Thursday. The bank's shares closed down 2 percent at $175.17. Citigroup, which also reported on Thursday, said bond trading r

Capital One Financial Corp, one of the largest U.S. credit card issuers, reported lower-than-expected quarterly results as net interest income fell in both its credit card and consumer banking businesses. _0"> The company's shares fell about 3 percent in trading after the bell. Capital One's credit card and consumer loans held for investment fell in the fourth quarter ended December 31, dragging down overall revenue by 1.4 percent to $5.54 billion. Total net revenue from the bank's credit segment fell 10 percent to $3.40 billion. However, rival American Express Co's quarterly profit more than doubled as customers spent more in the holiday season in the United States, its core market. "AmEx is really exposed to the affluent transaction-oriented customers," KBW analyst Sanjay Sakhrani said. "Capital One is focused on the lending side and what we are seeing in the world of lending is consumers continue to be conservative resulting in weaker lo

Retail investors poured money into U.S.-based stock funds for a fourth straight week, but institutional investors shied away from those assets, adding to outflows in the previous week, data from Thomson Reuters' Lipper service showed on Thursday. _0"> Stock mutual funds attracted $5.06 billion in net new cash for the week ended January 15, the largest such inflows since the end of last year. In contrast, stock exchange-traded funds saw net outflows of $1.4 billion, a sharp pickup after such funds saw a modest $2.5 million exit in the previous period. Mutual funds are often considered to represent the behavior of retail investors, with ETFs considered more representative of institutional investors. Institutional investors may have thought stocks were overbought or they wanted to avoid risks, such as no trading on the upcoming U.S. market holiday on Monday, January 20, said Tom Roseen, head of research services for Lipper, a Thomson Reuters company. "They basicall

Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Citigroup Inc suffered a steep drop in bond trading revenue in the fourth quarter, a stinging blow for two banks long seen as stalwarts of fixed income markets. The two banks performed worse in fixed income than rivals JPMorgan Chase & Co and Bank of America Corp, showing that even as bond market trading volume suffers from falling prices, some banks will endure more pain than others. "You have to be nimble to trade the debt markets these days. If you make a bad bet, it will show up in results, and profits will be harder to earn in 2014," said Matt McCormick, a portfolio manager and banking analyst at Bahl & Gaynor Investment Counsel, which manages about $11 billion. Goldman's profit fell 21 percent, as revenue from bond trading dropped 11 percent after adjusting for an accounting charge, it reported on Thursday. The bank's shares closed down 2 percent at $175.17. Citigroup, which also reported on Thursday, said bond trading r