The Federal Reserve said it will buy $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities each month forever, or until the U.S. job market perks up. This third round of quantitative easing, or QE3, is relatively small to the $1.25 trillion-a-month bond-buying program launched in March 2009 or the Fed’s $600 billion-a-month buying spree beginning November Read More
Standard Chartered, the British bank that agreed to pay a New York State regulator $340 million to settle charges that it violated U.S. sanctions with Iran, is nearing a settlement with the U.S. Treasury and Manhattan district attorney, according to The New York Times. The anticipated deal will likely cost Standard Chartered less than its settlement with New York’s Department of Financial Services, because the federal and local authorities view the banks actions less severely than did the state regulator.
A Department of Justice probe into the collapse of MF Global is going nowhere fast, according to The Wall Street Journal, which reports that former CEO Jon Corzine met with federal investigators for the first time last week. Meanwhile, sources tell The Journal that it’s looking more unlikely criminal charges will be filed.
“Many people on Main Street distrust Wall Street right now, yet few can put their finger on why,” said Jamie Raab, publisher of Grand Central, according to The Times.Which is an overwrought explanation for giving former Goldman Sachs executive Greg Smith $1.5 million for his book, Why ILeft Goldman Sachs. A simpler reason: People want the dirt. Read More
JPMorgan’s board of directors is weighing lower bonuses for CEO Jamie Dimon and other top executives in light of the $5.8 billion trading loss the firm suffered this year, according to The Wall Street Journal; Citigroup is also looking at executive pay in an attempt to appease shareholders.
Kweku Adoboli, the former UBS trader Read More
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi won wide support from his board for a plan to buy the sovereign debt of euro zone countries. Rates on Spanish 10-year bonds promptly fell to levels last seen in May, and the corresponding Italian bond fell to its lowest since April.
LightSquared, the wireless broadband company backed by Harbinger Capital founder Phil Falcone, is battling with creditors over control of the firm’s bankruptcy, according to Bloomberg. LightSquared has asked a judge to extend a deadline to file a Chapter 11 plan; the creditors say, “Having nothing to lose, Mr. Falcone wants to pursue a high-risk, high-return strategy.” Read More
Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, is leading an inquiry into JPMorgan losses on credit derivatives bets associated with the trader known as the London Whale. Bloomberg, citing unnamed sources, says that the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on investigations, which Senator Levin chairs, is seeking testimony from employees in the bank’s chief investment office. Read More
Mark Zuckerberg won’t sell any more Facebook shares for at least a year, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing yesterday, and board members Marc Andreessen and Donald Graham said they have no present plans to unload stock. Board member and early investor Peter Thiel sold about $446 million in Facebook shares Read More
New Barclays boss Antony Jenkins is the only CEO of a global universal bank without a background in investment banking, and according to Bloomberg, the low-profile retail banker is everything that former CEO Bob Diamond wasn’t. Mr. Jenkins, the first in his family to attend university, started his career at Barclays in 1983 and, after a stint at Citi, returned in 2006. Barclays chairman Marcus Agius, expected to step down in the wake of the Libor scandal now that the task of replacing Mr. Diamond is complete, said that Mr. Jenkins stood out in a competitive field of candidates, according to The New York Times. Former U.K. financial services chief Paul Myners told Bloomberg that there were “probably less than four credible candidates, two of whom I know were approached and turned it down almost without any serious consideration.” Read More
And Bruno Iksil, a.k.a. the London Whale, a.k.a. Voldemort, is lawyering up, and in comprehensive fashion: According to Reuters, Mr. Iksil has hired attorneys in France, New York and Washington D.C. Ina Drew, Achilles Macris, Javier Martin-Artajo, Peter Weiland or Irvin Goldman—all former employees of JPMorgan’s chief investment office—have also retained legal representation. Well, if Read More
Daily Libor: Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive officer Stephen Hester told The Guardian that ”RBS is one of the banks tied up in Libor. We’ll have our day in that particular spotlight as well.” At least two banks have joined Deutsche Bank in cooperating with European investigations into the rigging of Read More
Geithner visits Congress: Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner will testify before the House Financial Services Committee today about the rate-rigging scandal, where it figures he’ll be asked why the New York Fed failed to alert other regulators when a Barclays employee told the Fed that the bank was rigging Libor in April 2008. (Mr. Read More
