NEW YORK, Dec. 20 (Xinhua) -- Bear Stearns, the major U.S. investment bank, reported on Thursday its first quarterly loss ever in its eight-decade history due to the mortgage crisis.

    Bear Stearns said it lost about 854 million U.S. dollars, or 6.90 dollars a share, for the fourth quarter, compared with a profit of 563 million dollars, or 4 dollars a share, in the period a year earlier.

    Bear Stearns also said it had written down 1.9 billion dollars of its holdings in mortgages and mortgage-based securities, up from the 1.2 billion dollars it had anticipated last month.

    "We are obviously upset with our 2007 results, particularly in light of the fact that weakness in fixed income more than offset strong and, in some areas, record-setting performance in other businesses," James E. Cayne, Bear Stearns' chairman and chief executive, said in a statement.

    As a result of its disastrous results, Bear Stearns said its management will not receive bonuses this year.

China's state forex investment company to invest $5 bln in Morgan Stanley

A sign hangs at Morgan Stanley Inc. headquarters in New York City. (Xinhua/AFP File Photo)

    BEIJING, Dec. 19 (Xinhua) -- China Investment Corp. (CIC), the nation's state-owned forex investment firm, said late Wednesday that it has agreed to invest 5 billion U.S. dollars in the No. 2 U.S. investment bank Morgan Stanley.

    The Chinese firm, which invested 3 billion U.S. dollars earlier this year in the U.S. private equity firm Blackstone Group, will purchase equity units that are mandatorily convertible into 9.9 percent of Morgan Stanley common shares.