Stocks closed with huge gains as drop in oil prices boosted sectors previously battered by energy costs. Financials also moved sharply higher.

Stocks pushed higher as oil plunged for the second day in a row and financials staged an across-the-board rally that stemmed investor pessimism about the effects of inflation on the economy.

Former Samsung Group chief Lee Kun-hee, one of South Korea's most powerful businessmen, was handed a suspended 3-year jail sentence on Wednesday for tax evasion but was cleared of other charges.

U.S. securities regulators are boosting efforts to stop the spread of false rumors that threaten financial institutions, after a week that saw steep slides in the shares of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Lehman Brothers.

Wachovia Corp, the fourth-largest U.S. bank, named Treasury Undersecretary Robert Steel chief executive on Wednesday, and said mortgage and legal problems will result in a $2.6 billion to $2.8 billion second- quarter loss, much larger than many analysts expected.

A South Korean high court on Tuesday cleared U.S. private equity house Lone Star of manipulating the stock price of a former credit card unit of Korea Exchange Bank, rejecting an earlier ruling.

Two former Bear Stearns managers have surrendered to face criminal charges linked to the collapse of a hedge fund that bet heavily into subprime mortgages before the market collapsed, federal authorities said.

The indictment of two Bear Stearns hedge fund managers for securities fraud is expected to be announced later on Thursday in connection with a fund tied to the subprime lending market, CNBC has learned.

Shareholders of American International Group are demanding changes to the management and board of the world's largest insurer, which has been struggling with the fallout of the subprime mortgage mess.

Under pressure from the authorities, UBS is considering whether to divulge the names of up to 20,000 of its well-heeled American clients, the NYT reports.

Richard A.  Grasso may be able to keep the staggering $185 million award that once made him a symbol of Wall Street greed — a package awarded to him by the A-list board members at the exchange who eventually fired him, the NYT reports.

Washington Mutual, the giant bank and home lender slammed by the mortgage slump, said on Monday it would strip Chief Executive Kerry Killinger of his title of chairman starting next month.

A former Credit Suisse investment banker convicted of leaking inside information about pending mergers was sentenced to 10 years in prison by a federal judge Friday.

John F. Marshall spent decades teaching at business schools and watching his students parlay his lessons into fortunes on Wall Street. But when he and another professor reached for some of those riches themselves, events took a startling turn, the authorities say.

Credit rating agencies will be banned from helping to design products they also grade as part of a tougher industry code of conduct to tackle issues raised by the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis such as conflicts of interest.