Home mortgage giant Freddie Mac suffered a loss of $23.9 billion for the last quarter of the year 2008. A report from the company said that it would require an addition of $30.8 billion from the US Treasury to meet out expenses for the current year. The mortgage company had a loss of $2.45 billion in the previous quarter.
A loss of $50.1 billion is reported for the entire year of 2008, which is much higher than $3.1 billion of the preceding year. The major cause of the losses, as put by Freddie Mac, is a rise in mortgage defaults as well as a decline in the value of derivatives generally used to minimize risks associated with interest rates and other securities. | 
