‘Cascade’ raid

The SEC is considering regulatory changes aimed at slowing stock trading during periods of cascad ing prices, even though the agency hasn’t yet concluded what caused last week’s market plunge, sources said.

Extended bid

Goldman Sachs is re ported to be close to a deal to provide $2.2 bil lion in financing to a group led by Starwood Capital in its bid for hotel chain Extended Stay, WSJ.com said, citing sources.

Pru’s new path

Prudential, the British insurer buying AIG’s main Asian unit, may try to raise $1.5 billion in extra capital to win ap proval from UK regula tors for the purchase, a source said. The UK in surer last week delayed a $21 billion rights offering to fund the purchase after a regulator pressed it to hold more capital to withstand potential finan cial shocks.

Bond relief

The cost to hedge against rising yields as measured by the so- called payer skew in op tions on interest-rate swaps has fallen about 90 percent from a record high in October, Barclays data show, putting the measure back in line with the average before credit marketsfroze in 2007.