national-regional

Morning Scan: Mortgage Disclosure Rules Blamed for Home Sales Decline; Lending Club's Worries

12/23/15

Wall Street Journal

New rules for mortgage closings helped squash sales of previously owned homes in November, according to the National Association of Realtors. Existing-home sales fell 10.5% last month to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 4.76 million, the Realtors said. That's less than the 5.32 million predicted by economists. ...

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Morning Scan: Credit Suisse Blasts UBS for Recruiting Brokers; SEC's In-House Court Blamed for Delays

12/22/15

Wall Street Journal

Wells Fargo forged a deal with Credit Suisse to recruit the Swiss bank's U.S. brokers in its private banking business, as Credit Suisse moves to wind down that part of its wealth management group. But UBS has been unfairly raiding Credit Suisse's broker ranks, according to an arbitration claim Credit Suisse filed with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the Journal reported. ...

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Morning Scan: JPMorgan Fined for Conflicts; Banks Beef Up Cybersecurity

12/21/15

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

JPMorgan's Wrist Slapped: JPMorgan Chase will pay $307 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission probes into the bank's alleged failure to tell its wealth-management clients about conflicts of interest. One allegation is JPMorgan didn't tell clients it was putting their money in more-expensive funds that JPMorgan itself managed, the Wall Street Journal said. Also, JPMorgan put clients' money in third-party funds that paid fees to JPMorgan....

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Morning Scan: Rate Hike Fallout, Continued; GSE Revival Hopes Squashed

12/18/15

Receiving Wide Coverage…

Fed Fallout Continues: The results of the Federal Reserve's decision to raise interest rates continue to become clear. On Thursday, the initial results of the Fed's rate experiment came in – and so far, it's a success. The federal funds rate moved to 0.35% in early morning trading, well within the range of 0.25% to 0.5% that the central bank had announced. The rate demonstrated what the Wall Street Journal termed an "orderly"...

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Women in Banking: Ellen Costello Returns; FemTech Fail

12/17/15

Citi adds two more female directors, including Ellen Costello; social media allows small banks to connect with people who aren't coming into the branch, says one of our community bankers of the year (and if you're on Twitter, you probably already know who), and Mary Wisniewski asks, how can fintech hope to disrupt banking when it's no different than banking? (Hard not to notice the sexism and the dearth of women when you are one.)

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Morning Scan: Fed's Rate Hike Implications Scrutinized

12/17/15

Receiving Wide Coverage…

It Finally Happened: And in the end it was unanimous. After more than half a decade the Federal Reserve finally raised interest rates, setting the federal fund rate target range to between 0.25% and 0.50%. To raise rates, though, the Fed has come to rely on a new tool, its so-called "overnight reverse repo" program (RRP), the Financial Times notes. Through the RPP, approved counterparties offer cash loans in exchange for Treasuries under...

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Morning Scan: All Eyes on the Fed; Banks Bet on Oil Rebound

12/16/15

Receiving Wide Coverage…

All Eyes on the Fed: Today's the day. Observers expect an announcement at the close of the Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee meeting that will end the era of zero interest rates. The experiment with zero interest rates has neither been a complete disaster nor caused huge leaps in economic growth, the Wall Street Journal comments. But changing a not-entirely-successful policy has its own risks, of course. Raising interest rates isn't as...

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Morning Scan: Markets Antsy Over Rate Hike, Fed Eyes CRE Bubble

12/15/15

Receiving Wide Coverage…

The Anticipation Game: With an expected announcement from the Fed this week that it will raise interest rates, markets and observers have already begun to act in anticipation of the predicted hike.Global stocks began to rise Tuesday in a rebound from recent losses – though they were also helped along by an increase in oil prices.The price of gold also increased, despite the high probability that it will ultimately drop due to a...

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Morning Scan: Rate Hike Fallout; How to Beat the Startups

12/14/15

Rate Hike Winners and Losers: With a rate hike announcement seen as all but inevitable by week's end, attention has focused on who will win and who will lose when interest rates rise. The obvious winners in the Wall Street Journal's book? Asset managers and online brokers. As an example, the paper points to Charles Schwab. While the company makes a great deal of its money in trading commissions, for the first three quarters of...

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Morning Scan: BofA Gets Fed OK on Stress Tests; Lehman Bonus Fight Goes On

12/11/15

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

BofA's Stress Test Stress: Bank of America cleared a major hurdle Thursday, as the Federal Reserve announced it had approved the bank's resubmitted capital plan. As a result, the bank can continue its annual dividend and stock buyback. The regulatory OK was a huge relief to the company's executives, including chief Brian Moynihan, who had been working for months to remedy issues in coordination between units, according to the New York Times....

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