national-global

Morning Scan: Housing Market Looks Lukewarm; Rating Agencies Red-Hot

04/24/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Housing's Tepid Bloom: The housing market recovery is looking a little soft these days. New home sales hit an eight-month low in March, according to Reuters, while applications for home loans also fell last week. This after the National Association of Realtors on Tuesday announced a drop in existing home sales. The latest numbers call into question the theory that the housing market was only hibernating during a tough winter, according to...

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Morning Scan: Housing Market Looks Lukewarm; Rating Agencies Red-Hot

04/24/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Housing's Tepid Bloom: The housing market recovery is looking a little soft these days. New home sales hit an eight-month low in March, according to Reuters, while applications for home loans also fell last week. This after the National Association of Realtors on Tuesday announced a drop in existing home sales. The latest numbers call into question the theory that the housing market was only hibernating during a tough winter, according to...

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Morning Scan: Citi's Corbat's Pay Approved; Fed Looks to Lower Bond Buys

04/23/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Pay Up: Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat's pay package was blessed by shareholders at Citi's annual meeting in St. Louis; proxy advisory firms Glass Lewis and Egan-Jones had recommended rejecting Corbat's pay, the Wall Street Journal reported. Even so, pension fund giant Calpers voted in favor of the pay packages, the FT said. Shareholders approved all other proxy questions at the two-hour meeting. All this in spite of Citi's recent round of embarrassments:...

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Mornings Scan: Student Loan Groans; Tough Making Payments Pay

04/22/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

High Cost of College: Student loans and their myriad associated problems are examined by the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post. Some lawmakers want to rein in new programs that forgive student loan debt after a set period of time, as they're becoming far too popular and thus too expensive, the Journal reports.The debt-forgiveness plans have a worthy goal, the WSJ article says: no one should have to "[pay]...

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Morning Scan: More JPM Reshuffling; Is Square for Sale?

04/21/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

JPM Shuffle: Shao Zili, JPMorgan Chase's chairman and chief executive in China, will step down from those positions and take over as vice chairman of the Asia-Pacific region as soon as a replacement is found. The unofficial official word from the bank Â-- anony-mice leaked a memo Â-- is that Shao wanted "to return to a regional role." Of course, it's hard not to correlate the departure to federal authorities' ongoing investigation...

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Morning Scan: Earnings, Earnings, Earnings ... and More Earnings

04/17/14

Editor's Note: Morning Scan will not publish on Friday, April 18 in observance of the Good Friday holiday. Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Big Investment Bank Earnings: Morgan Stanley's profits rose 18% year-over-year, thanks to a strong performance by its fixed-income division. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs reported a drop in first-quarter profits, in part due to its fixed-income division. Goldman did, however, beat analyst expectations. ...

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Morning Scan: Bad Morning at B of A; Yellen Hints at More Bank Regulation

04/16/14

Breaking News This Morning ... B of A Earnings, Etc.: Bank of America reported a $276 million loss compared with a $1.48 billion profit a year earlier, largely due to legal expenses. (In case you may have missed it, Bank of America has been on a bit of settlement tear of late. And, the Journal notes this morning that the bank has settled mortgage-backed securities claims with the monoline insurer Financial Guaranty Insurance Co., which isÂ...

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Morning Scan: Not So Fast, Citi; Facebook Eyes Mobile Payments

04/15/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Second Look at Citi: Don't be fooled by Citi's earnings. General consensus among news outlets is that profits may have bested expectations, but relief Â-- more than accolades Â-- is in order. "After two preceding quarters, in which Citi failed to meet already lowered expectations, a revelation of fraud in Mexico and a rejection of Citi's capital-return request by the Federal Reserve, discovering the ball hadn't been yanked away this time was...

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Morning Scan: Citi Surprises; More Say on Executive Pay

04/14/14

Breaking News This Morning ...

Citi Earnings: Citigroup reported a 4% rise in quarterly profits year-over-year, besting analyst estimates. Similarly to Wells Fargo, however (see below), revenue at Citi fell slightly year-over-year. Wall Street Journal, New York Times Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Wells, JPM Earnings, Take Two: A few news outlets are out with second takes on Friday morning's bank earnings. (Quick recap: Wells was up; JPMorgan Chase was down.) "Wells Fargo's ascension punctuates the industry upheaval that...

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Morning Scan: JPM Misses, Wells Hits, Data Bleeds

04/11/14

Breaking News This Morning ... 1Q Earnings: JPMorgan sharply down (NYT, WSJ), Wells Fargo sharply up (NYT, WSJ). Receiving Wide Coverage ... Fake Bankers?: Bankers were told by regulators on Thursday to upgrade systems in use to protect customer information. The warning involves the Heartbleed security flaw and came from a group of regulators acting as the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, the Times reports. Members include the Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office ofÂ...

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