national-global

Morning Scan: More Fighting Over Fannie, Freddie; Yellen on Shadow Banks

05/09/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ... Fighting over Fannie and Freddie: The Washington Post reports on the coalition of small investors, civil rights and business groups opposed to housing reform legislation, their well-funded ad blitz to "save" Fannie and Freddie, and the likely outcome of the current court battle challenging the government's seizure of the enterprises in 2008. The Wall Street Journal reports Fannie and Freddie "had another blockbuster quarter," earning a combined $10.2 billion, most of itÂ...

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Morning Scan: Yellen Down on Housing; Regulators See Risks from Non-Banks

05/08/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ... Yellen Sees Risks in Housing: Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen told Congress' Joint Economic Committee on Wednesday that housing is not keeping pace with the economic recovery. The Journal notes Yellen was "expressing an uncertainty about housing she hadn't stated before." The Financial Times connects the dots further, reporting that Yellen's testimony marks her first public comments since last week's meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, when the Fed slowedÂ...

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Morning Scan: Alibaba's IPO Fees Windfall; Asian Hiring Probe Expands

05/07/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ... Bigger than Facebook: It's all Alibaba, all the time. The Chinese e-commerce company released the prospectus for its U.S. IPO and the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal all lavished heaps of coverage on the disclosure. For the banking world, the most-interesting item was the document's identification of the lucky banks that stand to make millions of dollars in fees from the offering. Credit Suisse nabbed the coveted leadÂ...

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Mornings Scan: AG Holder Says No Bank 'Too Big to Jail'

05/06/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

No Bank 'Too Big to Jail': U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder declared in his weekly video address Monday, "There is no such thing as too big to jail." The Justice Department has been facing criticism that federal prosecutors have failed to bring criminal charges against Wall Street banks out of fear of destabilizing the financial system, the Washington Post notes. Justice Department officials have said cases relating directly to the financial crisis...

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Morning Scan: Target CEO Resigns; Banks Detail Sanctions Against Russia

05/05/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Target's CEO Resigns: Target is still reeling from the data breach it suffered over the winter, in which the cardholder information of 40 million customers and personal information of 70 million people was compromised. In the latest and perhaps largest piece of fallout from the event, Gregg Steinhafel, the company's chairman and chief executive, resigned, the New York Times reports. The retailer replaced its CIO last week. Target's chief financial officer John...

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Morning Scan: European Banks Under U.S. Probes; What Caused 'Too Big to Jail'

05/01/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

European Banks Face U.S. Legal Woes: European lenders BNP Paribas and Credit Suisse are both being probed by the Justice Department, and everyone's wondering what the inquiries may bring. French lender BNP Paribas may have to shell out penalties higher than the $1.1 billion it already set aside for a Justice Department investigation into whether it processed payments for countries under U.S. sanctions, including Iran, according to the New York Times. BNP...

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Morning Scan: Nonbanks Rush in Where Banks Fear to Tread; GSE Bill Vote Delayed

04/30/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Nonbank Lenders: They're filling voids left by the more heavily regulated and lately risk-averse banking sector in commercial real estate (Wall Street Journal) and leveraged corporate lending (Financial Times). A real estate finance professor explains to the Journal: "You regulate one sector and the risk merely transfers to another." ...

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Morning Scan: Who's to Blame for B of A's Accounting Blunder?

04/29/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Bank of America's Big Blunder: The papers are abuzz with the question of who Â-- or what Â-- is to blame for the big accounting error that caused Bank of America to misreport its capital levels under the Federal Reserve's stress test. Perhaps the bank's employees need to work on their listening skills, if the Wall Street Journal's characterization of the mistake as rooted in a "communications blunder" between two internal units...

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Morning Scan: Easy Money Critics Get Misty Over Fed Governor's Departure

04/28/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ... Fed's Stein Gets Fond and Fearful Farewell: Economist Jeremy Stein is resigning from the Federal Reserve's board of governors to return to his position as a Harvard professor at the end of May, and people who worry that the central bank's historically low short-term interest rates could incite another credit bubble are missing him already. Stein "has made an intellectual mark in a critical area where leading members of the [Federal OpenÂ...

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Morning Scan: B of A Settlement Blues; Mortgage Collapse

04/25/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ... B of A is the New JPM: So, Bank of America really is the new JPMorgan Chase, at least when it comes to legal settlements. Federal prosecutors want to extract several pounds of flesh from B of A, namely several billion dollars to settle an investigation into mortgage-backed securities, Bloomberg and the New York Times report. The two reports vary wildly in terms of how much B of A would have toÂ...

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