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Morning Scan: Target Data Breach Details Emerge; Another Goldman Tell-All on the Way

01/22/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ... Target Breach Update: The Secret Service is looking at arrests made in a Texas credit card fraud case for possible links to Target's massive data breach, reports the Journal. The paper also reports that the malware used against Target was on sale in black markets a year ago for $2,000. "That life cycle Â... shows the new nature of the threat faced by American retailers hoping to defend themselves from attacks," theÂ...

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Morning Scan: Deutsche's Loss Sparks Fears

01/21/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Deutsche's Loss: Germany's Deutsche Bank AG surprised investors with a $1.35 billion fourth-quarter loss, signaling that European financial institutions might be having trouble competing with U.S. institutions since European banks face tougher regulation. European banks face further scrutiny from regulators, who are working to tamp down the continent's banking crisis, with another round of examinations set to be finished by the end of the year. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has...

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Morning Scan: Risk Management Standards Debut; More Earnings

01/17/14

Editor's note: Morning Scan will not publish on Monday, January 20 in observance of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. We'll be back on Tuesday, January 21. Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Want Respect? Earn It: The Wall Street Journal focused on Citi, observing that poor financial results may have stolen some of CEO Michael Corbat's mojo with investors who want him to be more aggressive with cost-cutting and revenue generation. Heard on the Street states that Citi...

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Morning Scan: Earnings Season Continues

01/16/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Citigroup Earnings: Citigroup became a bit of a megabank outlier this morning when its fourth quarter earnings "failed to live up to Wall Street's expectations." The bank reported that net income more than doubled to $2.69 billion from $1.2 billion this quarter last year, but missed analyst estimates ("by about 9%," according to the Journal). The miss was attributed to a slump in mortgage banking and fixed-income trading. Wells Fargo and JPMorgan...

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Morning Scan: We've Lost All of Our Leverage Ratio

01/13/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Basel Leverage Rule Softened: Banks around the globe scored a victory Sunday when the Basel committee agreed to soften its proposed leverage ratio. Specific changes to the international proposal affect the treatment of certain derivatives exposures, some off-balance sheet activities, and the netting of repos. Reuters reports that there is still no agreement on the final level of leverage that will be allowed. The Journal notes that Sunday's change follows last year's...

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Morning Scan: The Evolving Mortgage Market; Sandy Weill's New Job; More Big Bank Fines Looming?

01/10/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

More Big Bank Fines Looming? Wall Street banks could wind up paying a total of $50 billion to put crisis-era mortgage-related allegations behind them, says Dealbook. The figure is based off of "interviews and a confidential analysis of the industry's potential legal exposure" that used JPMorgan Chase's record $13 billion mortgage settlement as a template. Following that deal, it's been widely believed other big banks (particularly Bank of America) were on the...

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Morning Scan: Fed's 2014 Agenda; StanChart Restructures; Bad News for Bitcoin?

01/09/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Fed Talks: Recently released Federal Reserve meeting minutes lend a few insights into how the central bank is feeling about its ongoing stimulus program. Readers may recall that the Fed surprised everyone back in December when it elected to slow its bond-buying program by $10 billion a month and, the slow taper is likely to continue. "Officials have suggested a similar cut is the most likely result when the Fed's policy-making committee...

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Morning Scan: Parsing JPM's Madoff Settlement; Volcker Rule Loophole?

01/08/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

JPM Madoff Settlement: It's official. JPMorgan Chase will pay roughly $2.6 billion to resolve allegations that it ignored signs about Bernie Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme. As anticipated, the bank's latest settlement includes a deferred prosecution agreement that saw JPM skirt criminal prosecution "in exchange for the payment and a promise to reform its practices." (Anony-mice provided Dealbook with a bit of a play-by-play regarding the settlement negotiations that involves a face-to-face meeting...

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Morning Scan: Senate Confirms Yellen as Fed Chair; More Co-op Bank Probes

01/07/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ... Confirmed: The Senate voted 56 to 26 to confirm to approve Janet Yellen as the first Federal Reserve chairwoman. Yellen's historical confirmation was by "the thinnest margin of Senate approval for a Fed chairman in the central bank's history," reports the Times, though it's worth noting that a few lawmakers missed the vote due to inclement weather (See: polar vortex.) Yellen will take office on February 1 and "will immediately be forcedÂ...

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JPM Set to Kick Off 2014 with Another Big Settlement; SEC Enforcer to Exit

01/06/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

JPM Madoff Settlement: New year; same story for JPMorgan Chase. Anonymice are telling their favorite news outlets the big bank is close to nearing another settlement with federal regulators. This one involves allegations that JPM ignored signs about Bernie Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme. The settlement is expected to include just over $2 billion in fines, paid out to victims of the Madoff fraud, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and...

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