From Reuters.com

The day ahead: Thursday

Investors’ attention will turn to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, as policy-makers from around the world gather to talk about how to prevent another global financial crisis. Results from Gap and Sears are also expected.

• The Kansas City Federal Reserve’s yearly conference at a mountain retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, draws central bankers and top economists together as the current crisis appears to be easing. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke speaks on Friday.
• Gap’s results will show whether its focus on boosting margins, even as a widespread slump in consumer spending has cut into sales, has been successful.
• Eddie Lampert’s efforts to break Sears into five segments and taking his scattered approach to finding a format for growth will be on display when the retailer reports quarterly financials.
• August business activity and weekly employment data should reinforce investor expectations that the economy is on the mend.

Questions (and few answers) after Freddie CFO suicide

David Kellermann, acting chief financial officer of troubled U.S. mortgage giant Freddie Mac, was found dead in his suburban Virginia home after apparently committing suicide.

Kellermann, 41, was named Freddie Mac’s acting CFO last September after the Treasury Department seized the company, and its sibling mortgage agency Fannie Mae, as the agencies faced deep losses on a crashing U.S. housing market that was rapidly engulfing other financial institutions.

The death of Freddie’s acting finance chief follows several high-profile suicides that have been linked to the global financial collapse. German billionaire businessman Adolf Merckle threw himself in front of a train in January after heavy losses on the stock market. In December, Frenchman Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, 65, co-founder of money manager Access International, was found dead in a New York office building, reportedly distraught over losing up to $1.4 billion in client money to Bernard Madoff’s fraud.

Unanswered questions In March, Freddie Mac said that it was cooperating with the Securities and Exchange Commission in an investigation and that employees have been interviewed by investigators.

A 16-year veteran of Freddie Mac, Kellermann had played a key role in helping the firm navigate accounting scandals and answer questions from regulators and investors who put the company under intense scrutiny as the U.S. housing market ended a five-year boom in 2006.

“Freddie Mac knows of no connections between this terrible personal tragedy and the ongoing regulatory inquiries discussed in our SEC filings,” said David Palombi, the executive communications officer for the mortgage finance company. Attorney General Eric Holder said he had no idea whether the apparent suicide of a senior official at Freddie Mac was related to investigations of the troubled mortgage giant.

Bonuses and private security According to the neighbors and company officials who spoke to the New York Times, Kellermann had received a bonus of about $800,000 a few weeks back, on the heels of a public outcry over executive compensation. According to neighbors, Kellermann hired a private security firm after reporters approached his house to ask about his bonus.

Reuters.com changes to better service you, our audience

The global economic crisis is the biggest story in modern times and a record audience is turning to Reuters for information you can trust. I share with you some changes we’ve brought to Reuters.com and Reuters.co.uk to help you understand the financial turmoil and benefit from the expertise of our 2,550 journalists around the globe. You’ll notice more headlines from our financial correspondents and more video interviews with business newsmakers. We’ve added a new Economy section, increased our coverage of regulation and will soon relaunch our small business and environment pages.

Our Great Debate section has added more financial commentary from our growing team of Reuters columnists, with technology expert Eric Auchard among the writers joining James Saft, John Kemp and Bernd Debusmann. We also offer more graphics for better insight into the financial markets. And we continue to add specialist blogs, with Hedge Hub providing a place for readers to discuss the hedge fund industry with journalists such as Laurence Fletcher.

Of course, we know you rely on us for news of the political and cultural trends that influence our personal and professional worlds. You’ll find full coverage of the new U.S. administration on our Barack Obama: First 100 Days page, while pages ranging from Afghanistan to Wine can be found in our Topics section. Our India edition has a page dedicated to the national elections there. Bureaus in China, Japan, Israel and the Palestinian Territories have blogs to share their insights and we offer more video from our entertainment reporters. China and Japan have added native language blogs on their local editions.

There will be many more changes throughout 2009 that will help you navigate the unrivaled breadth and depth of Thomson Reuters news and data.  We look forward to unveiling them and to hearing your ideas on what else you would like to see on Reuters.com.

Sincerely,

David Schlesinger