Mortgages
    Defaults push Fannie Mae to $2.2 billion loss in Q1
   
    Fannie Mae, a key source of mortgage funding, Tuesday reported that falling home prices and rising defaults contributed to further losses for the government-sponsored company during the first quarter.
    The company said it lost $2.2 billion ($2.57 per share) in the three months that ended March 31, compared with a gain of $961 million (85 cents) in the comparable period a year earlier. Measured in relation to Fannie Mae's total mortgage guarantees, credit losses rose by 55.6 percent during the first quarter compared with the last quarter of 2007.
    Fannie Mae plans to announce a series of initiatives to help troubled borrowers and reduce the fallout from the market crisis, including allowing borrowers whose homes are worth less than their mortgage to refinance up to 120 percent of the property value. That option would be offered to homeowners whose loans are owned by Fannie Mae and who remain up to date on payments.
   
   
   Credit crunch
    Fed ponies up $75B in short-term loans to banks
   
    Battling to relieve stressed credit markets, the Federal Reserve said Tuesday it has provided a total of $435 billion in short-term loans to squeezed banks since December to
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help them overcome credit problems.
    The central bank announced the results of its most recent auction - $75 billion in short-term loans - the 11th such auction since the program started in December.
    It's part of an ongoing effort by the Fed to help ease the credit crunch.
    The housing, credit and financial crises have weakened the economy and threaten to push it into recession.
    In the latest auction, commercial banks paid an interest rate of 2.220 percent for the loans.
    There were 71 bidders for the slice of the $75 billion in 28-day loans. The Fed received bids for $96.62 billion worth of the loans. The auction was conducted on Monday with the results released Tuesday.
   
   
    Online awards
    Comedy Central host among Webby winners
   
    Stephen Colbert's use of the Internet to connect with fans earned the Comedy Central host special recognition as recipients of the annual Webby awards for Web sites and online achievements were announced Tuesday.
    A special achievement award also went to will.i.am, the Black Eyed Peas frontman behind the popular ''Yes We Can'' video supporting presidential candidate Barack Obama. And movie director Michel Gondry won a special mention for encouraging filmmakers around the world to recreate their favorite movies - the concept behind his film ''Be Kind Rewind'' - and share them online.
    The New York Times' online unit won eight regular Webby Awards in such categories as news, mobile listings and animation. The Onion satire site won seven, while Web sites for Apple Inc. and National Geographic magazine along with a user-confession site, PostSecret, won four awards each.
   
   
    Investments
    Investors stuck with 0% rates on college-loan bonds
   
    A quirk of the municipal bond market that left some borrowers paying exorbitant interest rates has now reversed and pushed interest rates to zero on billions of dollars in debt.
    Investors stuck with those bonds are now realizing they are not the short-term investment they might have expected.
    And student-loan agencies that are having trouble borrowing more money to underwrite loans are realizing that, if buyers continue to stay away from the $300 billion ''auction-rate securities'' bond market, their finances could get squeezed hard.
    Buyers fled the auction-rate market, sending the periodic auctions that set the interest rates on those bonds into technical failure.
    Rates then shot up and provisions attached to bonds backed by student loans kicked in. The provisions ensure that the agencies pay an average rate pegged to a 12-month average of Treasury yields, but the formula causes interest rates to fluctuate wildly.
   
   
    Online market
    Yahoo, Microsoft no-go disappoints advertisers
   
    The collapse of Microsoft Corp.'s pursuit of Yahoo Inc. is leaving advertisers pining for other ways to reach mass audiences on the Web and to counteract Google Inc.'s dominance of the online ad market.
    Advertisers can still distribute ads across smaller Web sites through networks that all major Internet companies run, but such an approach doesn't have the same appeal as reaching Yahoo's massive audience all in one place, something that would have been even more compelling once Microsoft's Web sites were thrown in, too.
    That's because advertisers can't negotiate premium placements and coordinate promotions across the network the same way they can with a single site.
    Reaching large audiences has remained an elusive goal online. Without a powerful new portal to suck up advertising dollars, online advertising power could continue to shift to the hot areas of the moment.