BERLIN -- Germany's Commerzbank AG said Tuesday its fourth-quarter loss widened to euro1.9 billion ($2.6 billion) due to write-downs related to bond insurer investments and provisions for bad loans.

The loss for the final three months of 2009 compared with an euro809 million loss the year before.

Shares of Commerzbank were down 1.2 percent to euro5.96 in Frankfurt trading.

Commerzbank, the country's second biggest lender after Deutsche Bank AG, took part in the German government's financial-sector bailout program and is around 25 percent owned by the government.

Feb. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Dexia SA, which received billions of euros in capital and funding guarantees from France, Belgium and Luxembourg, had "very good" commercial activity last year, Chief Executive Officer Pierre Mariani said.

"The heart of the activities is profitable, it develops," Mariani, 53, told journalists in Paris today. For 2009, "it is pretty likely that earnings will be at least equal to the cumulated results of the first three quarters," he said, declining to give figures for the fourth quarter.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shares of Moody's Corp (MCO.N) fell sharply on Thursday after hedge fund manager David Einhorn, who correctly questioned the health of Lehman Brothers four months before its collapse, disclosed he was shorting the venerable ratings agency.

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--The National League of Cities is proposing the startup of a state and local government-owned municipal bond insurer that would be capitalized with a $5 billion interest-free loan from the U.S. Treasury.

The company, which would be called Issuers Mutual Bond Assurance Co., would be a mutual firm, owned by the entities it insures, and would allow them to share premium income that exceeds claims payments.