Reuters – Suspected insider trading cases reached an all-time high last year, driven less by hedge funds and more by pillow talk between relatives and friends, the head of surveillance at the New York Stock Exchange said on Wednesday.

In a year when bombshell revelations rocked bank stocks, governments outlawed short-selling, and panicked investors brought on the worst market rout since the 1930s, there was much to tempt those with privileged information.

NYSE Regulation, the Big Board’s oversight body, referred 146 cases of suspected insider trading to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2008, five more than in 2007, the previous record year, and more than twice as many as in 2004.

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Yahoo News - Apple Inc chief and tech visionary Steve Jobs will take a leave of absence till end-June because of health problems "more complex" than thought, backtracking on reassurances, stunning investors and sending its shares skidding 10 percent on Wednesday.

Jobs, a pancreatic cancer survivor, dropped his bombshell in a cryptic announcement on Wednesday — only nine days after he soothed jumpy investors somewhat by saying his dramatic weight loss over the past seven months was due to an easily treatable hormone imbalance. He had promised to remain at the helm throughout his treatment.

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Forbes – Financial assets have become so cheap because of the credit crisis that now is a good time to scoop up bargains, the head of one of the world’s biggest hedge funds, Avenue Capital, said on Wednesday.

‘Now is a phenomenal time to buy, assuming you think we’re not in a depression,’ Marc Lasry, chairman and CEO of the company, said at the 2008 Clinton Global Initiative meeting in Hong Kong.

‘We’re looking at valuations we think are extremely low. Unless the unthinkable happens, you’ll be fine,’ he said, referring to the investment environment.

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