national-global

To Buy or Not to Buy Bonds? Depends on Who You Ask; An Out-of-the-Box Solution to the U.S. Debt Crisis

12/07/12

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Bonds, Bonds, Bonds: The FT and the Journal printed articles this morning that indicate the bond market is booming. According to the FT, "in order to lure conservative investors away" from the much maligned money market fund industry, fund management groups are launching (and pushing) "ultra-short" bond funds that will invest in short-term government and corporate paper. This type of investment vehicle, launched by six fund managers over the last few months...

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StanChart to Settle (Again); Wells Fargo Banker Faces Insider Trading Charges; Analyzing Citi's Big Announcement

12/06/12

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

StanChart to Settle … Again: Standard Chartered expects to pay another $330 million in order to settle claims by U.S. agencies that it violated U.S. sanctions. Negotiations with the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and the Manhattan district attorney's office are currently underway and expected to close "very shortly." You may recall that the U.K.-based bank has already paid $340 million to settle rebel regulator Benjamin...

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HSBC Sells Insurer; EU Banking Problems; Return of the Rebel Regulator

12/05/12

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

HSBC Sells Insurer: Well, we knew this was coming. HSBC has sold its entire stake in Chinese insurer Ping An to the Charoen Pokphand Group, a conglomerate backed by Thai billionaire Dhanin Chearavanont. (Interesting to note, as most papers do, the group is primarily known for its agribusiness, not financial services, empire, "particularly the production of livestock feed, chicken farming and rice trading.") The deal netted HSBC $9.4 billion, which means, over...

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SEC Suit Could Boot Chinese Companies from U.S. Stock Exchange, Consumers Trust Bankers over Politicians, Stockbrokers

12/04/12

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

SEC Sues Auditing Firms: The Securities and Exchange Commission is suing Chinese affiliates of the Big Four accounting firms Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers as well as BDO for failing to produce documents related to fraud investigations at nine China-based companies. Charges were filed against the auditors as part of a larger investigation into the Chinese companies themselves, following a string of "so-called reverse mergers" that led to billions of...

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UBS Nears Libor Settlement, B of A Forgets About Fees (for Now) While its CEO Forgets About Everything

12/03/12

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

UBS Nears Libor Deal: UBS is expected to reach a settlement with U.K. and U.S. authorities over its involvement in the London interbank offered rate-rigging scandal by the end of this year, several news outlets are reporting this morning. Even more notable is the fact that this settlement is expected to supersede the $450 million Barclays agreed to pay over similar charges. (A unnamed FT source "close to the talks" estimates the...

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More Mortgage Suits, Troubled Britannia, Shrinking Citi

11/30/12

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Mortgage Morass, Continued: Bankers can be forgiven for mistaking the mortgage cops for a pack of raving hyenas that just won't end its pursuit. In the latest twist, the Justice Department argued Wednesday that the $25 billion mortgage settlement finalized earlier this year between the federal and state governments on one side and five big banks on the other doesn't buy Wells Fargo (WFC) immunity from being sued by the feds yet...

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Fed's Tarullo to Barclays and Deutsche Bank: I See What You Did There

11/29/12

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Nice Try, Guys: The Fed will require foreign banks with major operations here to house them in entities subject to the same capital rules as U.S. banks, central bank Gov. Daniel Tarullo said. The papers interpret his speech as a thinly veiled repudiation of Deutsche Bank and Barclays, which moved their stateside investment banking shops out of Fed-supervised holding companies to avoid having to inject them with billions of dollars. The Journal's...

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Housing Market Recovery in Full Swing, Just in Time for the Student Loan Meltdown

11/28/12

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Housing: The same market that dragged the U.S. into a nasty recession "is now a key economic driver at a time when other sectors are slowing," the Journal reports this morning. While GDP growth limps along and businesses fret about the fiscal cliff, "an improving housing market is buoying consumers' spirits and giving the economy its biggest lift since the real-estate boom." Mortgages remain hard to come by, but to the extent...

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Will Mark Carney Cast a Blinding Light on London's Shadowy Financial Sector?

11/27/12

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

There's a New Bobbie, Er, Mountie in Town: The surprise announcement that Mark Carney, Canada's central banker, will cross the pond to head the Bank of England could be viewed as a shot across the bow for global banks operating in the London regulatory haven. Granted, Carney is a Goldman Sachs alumnus (or "a member of the Government Sachs Club," as a Times headline put it). But he also has a history...

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Only Charles Schwab Could Go to China; Auto Lending in Overdrive

11/26/12

Receiving Wide Coverage ... Breakthrough in MMF Debate: You might have missed this over the long holiday weekend: Charles Schwab is now backing reform of money market mutual funds. Specifically, the brokerage's CEO, Walt Bettinger, wrote in a Journal op-ed that his company would support requiring a floating net asset value for "institutional prime" money market funds. "Institutional" meaning funds whose shares are concentrated in the hands of relatively few holders, making them more prone to...

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