national-regional

Morning Scan: Blackstone Capitalizes on Bank Cast-Offs; Chenault's Woes at Amex

01/22/16

Breaking News This Morning ...

Earnings: 4th quarter earnings from SunTrust Banks, Citizens Financial Group. Wall Street Journal

Digital Asset Holdings just wrapped up a $50 million capital raise from a group of 13 investors that includes JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, BNP Paribas and Accenture. The Blythe Masters-led company may announce more funding from additional banks in the coming weeks, unnamed sources told the Wall Street Journal. Read American Banker's story on the $50 million investment here. ...

[more]

Women in Banking: Davos Edition

01/21/16

Gender parity is high on the agenda in Davos, where the World Economic ForumÂ's annual gathering of the wealthiest and most powerful is overwhelmingly male. Ian Bremmer makes a case for keeping Christine Lagarde at the IMF for another term and a study suggests that as technology starts taking peopleÂ's jobs, women will suffer the bulk of the job losses.

[more]

Morning Scan: Barclays Plans Job Cuts in U.S. to Reduce Expenses; Blockchain Test Results

01/21/16

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Barclays Job Cuts: Barclays plans to cut about 1,000 jobs worldwide, according to the Wall Street Journal, or up to 1,200, the Financial Times said, as new CEO Jes Staley implements his turnaround plan. Some of the job cuts will be in the U.S., however most will come from Asia, including its businesses in cash equity research, sales and trading and convertible bond trading. Barclays will also exit Brazil, Russia, Taiwan and...

[more]

Morning Scan: B of A's Cost-Cutting May Go Deeper; Wealth Management Weakness

01/20/16

Breaking News This Morning ...

Earnings: Goldman Sachs' fourth-quarter earnings fell on a $5 billion regulatory penalty. Wall Street Journal

Bank of America took a hacksaw to its expense base during the fourth quarter, slashing expenses by 2% from a year earlier, in part by firing employees, according to American Banker's report on its earnings. B of A may want to find a sharper blade. Much of the cost-cutting at B of A has come from its mortgage-servicing...

[more]

Gender Diversity Makes Banks Better World Citizens: B of A's Cathy Bessant

01/19/16

International events like the Davos economic forum should remind business leaders of the importance of being stewards and of having workforce diversity.

[more]

Morning Scan: Developers Debate Future of Bitcoin; Merrill Broker Exodus?

01/19/16

Breaking News This Morning ...

Earnings: 4th quarter results from Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, M&T Bank, Comerica Receiving Wide Coverage ...

The Death of Bitcoin?: Bitcoin is dead. Long live bitcoin. Bitcoin developer Mike Hearn proclaims that bitcoin's litany of problems — from the domination of Chinese bitcoin miners, to bitcoin's superslow distributed network, to the open fighting amongst members of the bitcoin community — has now officially doomed the technology. Time to bury bitcoin and start...

[more]

Morning Scan: Goldman to Pay $5B Fine; Basel Committee Eases Trading Rules

01/15/16

Breaking News This Morning ...

Earnings: It's a banner day for 4Q reports from megabanks and regionals: Citigroup, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bancorp, PNC and Regions Financial. And there are two M&A deals in Chicago, from buyers Wintrust and Royal Financial.

Goldman Sachs Faces Huge Fine: Goldman Sachs will pay the largest regulatory penalty in its history as part of a settlement regarding its sale of mortgage bonds before the financial crisis. Goldman settled with the complainants, which...

[more]

Women in Banking: Millennial Edition

01/14/16

Get some Millennial insight from Luvleen Sidhu of BankMobile and learn about Goldman Sachs' new retention tool for women. Also, Sheila Bair has a complaint about Wall Street reform, more institutional investors are pushing for boardroom diversity and a New York artist paints the stock market.

[more]

Morning Scan: Earnings Meet Pessimism; MetLife a Primer for Banks?

01/14/16

Breaking News This Morning ...

Earnings: JPMorgan Chase Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Earnings Season Begins: As banks head into earnings season, an air of investor pessimism pervades. Banks' shares have fallen more than 5% recently and the KBW Nasdaq Bank index is down almost 20% from its most recent peak, according to the Wall Street Journal. Weak capital markets are likely to have hampered fixed income, currency and commodity returns. And the December rate increase courtesy of the...

[more]

Morning Scan: SIFI Designation Scares Insurers; Obama Addresses Wall Street

01/13/16

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

State of the Union Addresses Wall Street: While not the main thrust of President Barack Obama's last State of the Union address, Wall Street was discussed over the course of the evening. In a line that garnered a round of applause, Obama said certain regulations and red tape needed to be cut for the private sector's benefit. But shortly thereafter he called for greater regulation of certain companies – including banks –...

[more]