Bloomberg.com – Goldman’s ‘Secret’ Team Shows Volcker’s Folly An enterprising piece of investigative reporting by Bloomberg News’s Max Abelson, about a “secret” team inside Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) charged with investing $1 billion of the firm’s money, raised eyebrows on Wall Street…Despite the public pronouncements of Lloyd Blankfein, the chairman and chief executive officer,… Continue reading Goldman’s Secret Trading Team
Bloomberg.com – JPMorgan Said to Weigh Releasing Whale Report Faulting Dimon JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)’s board will consider releasing an internal report next week that faults Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon’s oversight of a division that lost more than $6.2 billion on botched trades, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.… Continue reading Jamie Dimon In Hot Water
The Daily Show with Jon StewartGet More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook The Daily Show with Jon Stewart – Bank Wankers – HSBC HSBC proves too big to prosecute when it comes to laundering money for terrorists and Mexican drug cartels. The Daily Show with Jon StewartGet More:… Continue reading Disgraced Financial Institution Update
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The Economist – Time for the great rotation? THE story so far this year has been an initial rebound in equity markets, accompanied by a rise in government bond yields, followed by a pause for breath. The prompt was clearly the deal over the fiscal cliff, unsatisfactory though it might have been, but investors clearly… Continue reading What’s Next For The Bond Market?
Business Insider – Investors Are Staging One Of The Biggest Moves Into Equities Of All Time It’s been a dazzling week for mutual funds and ETFs. $22.2 billion flowed into equity funds this week, marking the second-largest weekly inflow in history. Inflows into emerging market equity funds this week were the largest – at $7.4… Continue reading What Did Stock Mutual Fund Flows Do This Week?
Bloomberg Businessweek – Fed’s Bullard Sees Difficulty Tying QE to Economic Levels Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said it may be difficult to tie the central bank’s $85 billion monthly bond purchases to numerical levels of unemployment and inflation. After settling a debate over how long to hold interest rates near… Continue reading Bullard And George Are Worried About Inflation
Reuters.com – Fed easing may not be aggressive enough: Kocherlakota The Federal Reserve’s policy of zero interest rates and asset purchases is appropriate, perhaps even insufficient, given forecasts for weak economic growth and low inflation for years to come, a top central bank official said on Thursday. The U.S. economy will continue to expand too… Continue reading Kocherlakota Says The Federal Reserve Isn’t Easing Enough!
<Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Fed Gravy Train Picks Up Speed The Federal Reserve is breaking all kinds of records these days. Its balance sheet has swelled to more than $2.9 trillion and will reach new highs in 2013 as the Fed purchases $85 billion a month in Treasury… Continue reading The Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet
The Wall Street Journal – Wads of Cash Squeeze Bank Margins U.S. banks are struggling with a problem most people would love to have: too much cash. But the flood of deposits into U.S. financial firms, at a time when many lenders are having difficulty making new loans, spells trouble for the industry as banks… Continue reading Banks Have Too Much Cash
The New York Times – EDWARD D. KLEINBARD: The Debt Ceiling’s Escape Hatch THE fiscal cliff may have been avoided, but an even higher-stakes political standoff — this time, over the federal debt ceiling — is just around the bend. Congressional Republicans have said they will demand immense cuts to popular government programs in exchange… Continue reading The Debt Ceiling
Bloomberg.com – Mortgage Overhaul Begins With Borrower Scrutiny Measure The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is set to follow yesterday’s rule on mortgage underwriting with a second mortgage-related rule, this one on servicing, at a hearing in Atlanta on Jan. 17. The rule is “a key first step of housing finance reform” by this and other… Continue reading Mortgage Overhaul