national-regional

Morning Scan: Banks Use Big Data to Uncover Bad Seeds; Homeownership vs. Renting

12/01/14

Wall Street Journal

There's no roasting marshmallows 'round the bonfire at Boost, a Bitcoin boot camp in Silicon Valley, but entrepreneurs do share bunk beds and board a bus for day-long field trips. Founded by 28-year-old Adam Draper, the son of venture capitalist and Bitcoin enthusiast Tim Draper, Boost invests between $10,000 and $20,000 in Bitcoin startups in exchange for a 6% ownership stake. ...

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Morning Scan: HSBC in Hot Water; How CEOs Tangle with Activist Investors

11/26/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

HSBC in Regulators' Crosshairs: Loose lips sink ships, as American propaganda posters during World War II once proclaimed, but it seems some bank employees are unaware of the idiom. The Wall Street Journal reports the Justice Department has launched a probe into allegations that an HSBC trader alerted a major hedge fund to confidential details about an imminent currency exchange deal in 2010. The probe "suggests that the U.S. is eyeing a...

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Morning Scan: Fed Oversight Under Fire; BofA Investors Protest CEO's Dual Role

11/24/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Fed on the Hot Seat: The Federal Reserve's public image took a few hits last week as the Senate held hearings questioning whether the regulator is too lenient on the banks it oversees. The New York Times' Gretchen Morgenson writes these inquiries are "absolutely justified" and suggests policymakers seize the moment to push for more transparency around bank examinations. A Yale professor tells Morgenson that if the Fed made public the mathematical...

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Morning Scan: Fed Wonders if It's 'Captured'; Commodity Holdings Questioned

11/21/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Too Cozy?: The Fed established a team in Washington to review whether it's too cozy with the banks it regulates. The New York Times described the review as a "surprise announcement." The Fed's inspector general will simultaneously conduct a similar review, looking specifically at whether "top officials were hearing all the opinions of Fed bank examiners." The moves were announced Thursday, ahead of Fed Governor Daniel Tarullo's and New York Fed President...

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Morning Scan: Fed-Goldman Sachs Revolving Door?; Commodities Update

11/20/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ... Revolving Door?: More evidence has emerged of conflicts of interest involving the New York Fed and Goldman Sachs. This time it's an indication of a revolving door between the two institutions, in which an employee leaves one and quickly joins the other, bringing sensitive market information along for the ride. Goldman fired two workers after the bank learned that one had shared confidential information with his colleagues about the New York Fed'sÂ...

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Morning Scan: More Fallout from Sanctions Violations

11/19/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

French Twist: Thought the story about BNP Paribas violating U.S. sanctions against Sudan, Iran and China was over? Not so much. Five months after the French bank agreed to plead guilty and fork over almost $9 billion, home-country prosecutors are investigating whether senior officials at the bank violated insider trading laws by selling stock while the U.S. sanctions probe was under way. The story was broken Tuesday by a French news outlet,...

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Morning Scan: FHA Returns to the Black; Civil Case Against Mozilo?

11/18/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Housing Rebound?: The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post both have articles noting the significance of the Federal Housing Authority returning to the black for the first time since 2011. The FHA served as a backstop for the housing market during the financial crisis, when other lending sources dried up. But that resulted in a sharp increase in the FHA's default rate. Now the agency has recovered, at least in one sense....

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Morning Scan: Supercharged Spending on Cybersecurity; Robo-Signers Return

11/17/14

Wall Street Journal

Banks and other financial-services companies will increase spending on cybersecurity by $2 billion over the next two years, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers study. Citigroup, for example, now spends about $300 million yearly on cybersecurity, an anonymous source told the Journal. Wells Fargo spends about $250 million per year. JPMorgan Chase now spends about $250 million, but that could double over the next years, CEO Jamie Dimon has said. JPMorgan has about 1,000 workers...

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Morning Scan: Ocwen, Wells Fargo Scrap Deal; De-Risking as 'Fig Leaf' for Banks

11/14/14

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

The Rate Hike Waiting Game: The Federal Reserve may push its timeline for raising interest rates back from mid-2015 if wage growth fails to improve, according to articles in both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. The fact that more people are quitting their jobs suggests the labor market may be tightening, according to the Journal, but there are other signs that strong pay increases may be a ways...

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