national-regional

Morning Scan: Obama Plans to Fight for Dodd-Frank; Walmart's Latest Move

01/21/15

Breaking News This Morning ...

Earnings: Fifth Third, U.S. Bancorp Receiving Wide Coverage ...

SOTU from POTUS: Banking and finance played a lead role in President Obama's State of the Union address on Tuesday night. For one, Obama vowed to keep Dodd-Frank intact, saying the law's rules and the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are protecting American consumers. However, Obama avoided direct bashing of banks, declining to take up the same rhetoric as Sen. Elizabeth Warren,...

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Morning Scan: U.S., Europe Diverge on Interest Rate Plans; Robot Bank Teller

01/20/15

Breaking News This Morning ...

Earnings: Regions Wall Street Journal

The Journal notes the divergent paths down which the U.S. and European central banks appear to be heading. The Federal Reserve, on the one hand, still appears ready to raise short-term rates, sometime, perhaps, around the middle of this year. The European Central Bank, on the other hand, looks set to engage in a round of quantitative easing, in which it will purchase hundreds of billions of euros...

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Morning Scan: Big Banks' Feeble Earnings Season; The Real Dread Pirate Roberts

01/16/15

Editor's note: Morning Scan will not publish on Monday, Jan. 19 in observance of the Dr. Martin Luther King Day holiday. We'll be back on Tuesday, Jan. 20. Breaking News This Morning ...

Earnings: SunTrust, Comerica, PNC Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Earnings Postmortem: Bank of America and Citigroup each produced disappointing fourth-quarter results as trading revenue went south and low interest rates curbed potential profits. Taken together with JPMorgan's less-than-stellar earnings, these results suggest the fate of the biggest...

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Morning Scan: JPM's Dimon Says Bigger Is Better; Embattled Dodd-Frank

01/15/15

Breaking News This Morning ...

Earnings: Citigroup, Bank of America Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Dimon Says Bigger Is Better: With so much chatter about a JPMorgan Chase breakup these days, one wonders if the megabank could eventually be forced to downsize out of pure conversational momentum. JPMorgan head Jamie Dimon spent fourth-quarter earnings calls Wednesday defending his bank's behemoth status. "The synergies are huge, both expense and revenue," Dimon said. "The unscrambling would be extraordinarily complex." Dimon also...

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Morning Scan: Ocwen Tangles with California Regulators; MetLife's Got Chutzpah

01/14/15

Breaking News This Morning ...

Earnings: JPMorgan, Wells Fargo Receiving Wide Coverage ...

See You in Court: Is MetLife brave or foolish for going to battle over its designation as a systemically important financial institution? Opinions are split on the matter. In the pro camp, an unsigned op-ed in the Wall Street Journal calls MetLife's decision to sue the U.S. government "the best news taxpayers have had since the financial crisis." The article argues the Financial Stability Oversight...

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Morning Scan: MetLife Sues Over Too Big to Fail Label; Chalk One Up for Warren

01/13/15

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Game On: MetLife is suing the U.S. government for designating it as a systemically important financial institution. The life insurer plans to file a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia Tuesday. MetLife is the first firm to try to shake off the systemically important label by going to court, the New York Times reports. An article in the Wall Street Journal sheds light on why company...

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Morning Scan: End of Energy Lending Boom; Small-Dollar Loans Get Spiritual

01/12/15

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Low Energy: The fizzling energy market will get a lot of attention this earnings season as nervous shareholders question banks about their exposure, according to the New York Times. The paper suggests banks gird themselves for defaults in the wake of falling oil prices. On the upside, Wells Fargo chief John Stumpf says lower oil prices are a boon for consumer lending: people who spend less at the gas pump will have...

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Morning Scan: Breaking Up Banks the Sneaky Way; Startups Sleep with the Enemy

01/08/15

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Quitting Time: Standard Chartered is getting out of the institutional equities business, and analysts seem to agree the U.K.-based bank is making the right call. Its equity sales and research units was "unprofitable," according to the papers, and shutting them down will save the bank $100 million. Investors have been calling on Standard Chartered to restructure in order to boost earnings; the Financial Times' Lex team suggests that paring down the bank's...

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Morning Scan: Fed's Community Banker Nomination; Bitcoin Exchange Problems

01/07/15

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Fed Personnel: Bankers applauded President Obama's nomination of former Bank of Hawaii CEO Allan Landon to the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors. Former American Bankers Association CEO Edward Yingling said Landon's nomination has an "excellent" chance to be confirmed by the Senate, because a large number of lawmakers support having a community banker on the Fed board. Republicans, although they now control the Senate and would normally be hostile to an Obama...

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Morning Scan: Morgan Stanley Adviser Fired for Data Leak; Community Banker on Fed Board?

01/06/15

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Morgan Stanley Client Data: Morgan Stanley fired Galen Marsh, a 30-year-old wealth-management adviser, after he stole data from about 350,000 accounts and tried to sell the data online, anonymous sources told the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Financial Times. Marsh's attorney said his client did obtain the account information but he didn't post it online and didn't try to sell it. Morgan Stanley has referred the matter to law enforcement....

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