national-global

Receiving Wide Coverage ... So, What Now? President Obama signed into law the compromise deal allowing the government to raise the federal debt ceiling, but economic fears persist. The U.S. stock market tanked for an eighth consecutive day, the longest down stretch since that scary period in '08. "Foreign investors and economic analysts see further action as crucial to restoring the United States' financial reputation," the Washington Post reports. "Critics in China and elsewhere warned that...

Breaking News This Morning ... Barclays to Cut Jobs, Too: Following yesterday's announcement by fellow Londoner HSBC that it would fire as many as 30,000 people, Barclays said it intends to shed 3,000 jobs this year above and beyond the 1,400 the British bank eliminated in the first half. Barclays' first-half profit dropped by a third as it set aside money to compensate customers who bought dodgy payment protection insurance. Investment banking revenue declined as well....

Receiving Wide Coverage ... To Downgrade or Not to Downgrade... At a hearing on Capitol Hill the president of Standard & Poor's, Deven Sharma said that some newspapers have misreported his company's position on the U.S. debt crisis as having set a $4 trillion deficit reduction target in order for the country to preserve its triple-A credit rating. He said that some of the plans being considered that would reduce the U.S deficit by less than...

Receiving Wide Coverage ... A Split Decision: Deutsche Bank said Anshu Jain, head of its investment bank, and Jürgen Fitschen, the German bank's head of regional management, will become co-CEOs of the bank next year when Josef Ackermann retires. One holdup, according to the Times, had been that Jain, a native of India who is not fluent in German, is regarded as not ready to assume the statesmanlike duties required of Deutsche Bank's chief. The Journal...

Receiving Wide Coverage ... Contemplating Disaster: Regulators are giving banks scant guidance on how to deal with a possible government default or downgrade, the Journal reports this morning. The big banks "are spending hundreds of hours on contingency planning scenarios," the article says. But without certain answers, it's hard to plan. For instance, "Fed officials haven't said if their collateral requirements would change after a default, which would affect banks' ability to borrow from the central...