By Patrick Clark 7/16/12 6:35am

Morning Read

DOJ Builds Criminal Cases Around Libor; Couple Sues Goldman Seeking Damages That May Top $1 Billion: Roundup

Libor-ated: The U.S. Department of Justice is building criminal cases against financial institutions and individuals involved in the manipulation of interbank lending rates, according to The New York Times. Deutsche Bank agreed to cooperate with the European Commission’s Libor investigation, reports Der Spiegel. Prosecutors in New York, Connecticut, Florida and Massachusetts are Read More

By Patrick Clark 6/19/12 7:44am

Morning Read

Greek Parties Still Negotiating Coalition, Wall Street Still Girding for European Crisis: Roundup

Whither Europe: Greece’s leading pro-bailout party—conservative New Democracy, which won Sunday’s elections, and socialist Pasok—are still negotiating to form a coalition to govern the teetering nation. Assuming a deal gets done, the first task will be to convince Europe to rewrite the Greek rescue agreement to provide more time—and financing—to meet Read More

By Patrick Clark 4:28pm

DIMON IN THE ROUGH

(Eric Piermont/AFP/Getty Images)

Jamie Dimon Has Nothing to Say to the House that He Couldn’t Tell the Senate

Or at least not much: An industrious chap at The New York Times held Jamie Dimon’s prepared remarks to the Senate Banking Committee last week next to testimony posted on the website of the House Financial Services Committee, before which Mr. Dimon will appear tomorrow, and found that the two documents were virtually the same.

Which is a bit of a drag. Mr. Dimon’s Senate testimony last week was so uneventful that the punditry took to remarking on the JPMorgan chief executive officer’s couture—and sure, we can play that game: We’d like to suggest that Mr. Dimon’s presidential cufflinks were a ploy to distract observers from the substance of his testimony, but given the snooze-fest in the Senate last week, it was more likely a test to see who was staying awake. Read More

By Patrick Clark 6/01/12 7:25am

Morning Read

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Morgan Stanley Boss Gorman Has No Sympathy for You or Anyone Else Looking for a Facebook Pop: Wall Street Roundup

Naive! Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman has no sympathy for Facebook investors who expected to profit from a first-day spike in share prices. “People who thought they were buying this stock so they could get an enormous pop were both naive and ordered under the wrong pretenses,” Mr. Gorman said yesterday in an interview with CNBC. To which he might have added: “Didn’t they read Devitt’s research?” Mr. Gorman, of course, had this to say in January to investment bankers upset over Morgan Stanley pay cuts: “You’re naive, read the newspaper.“ Read More

By Patrick Clark 5/31/12 8:01am

Morning Read

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Citi’s Country-Bred Banker Blows $31 Million-Whistle; The Pain in Spain: Wall Street Roundup

Citi’s country-bred whistle-blower: Sherry Hunt started her career in the mortgage business as a 17-year-old mom processing home loans in Alaska. By the age of 55, Ms. Hunt was supervising 65 loan officers in Citigroup’s mortgage unit. The year was 2004, and business was booming. Citi was buying loans from outside lenders that had been secured with phony documents, and Ms. Hunt’s reports highlighting defective loans were being buried. The housing bubble popped, of course, and Citi took $45 billion in Federal bailouts. That didn’t stop the bank from processing defective loans. In 2011, a supervisor told Ms. Hunt and a colleague that if the number of loans being classified as defective didn’t fall, it would be “your asses on the line.” The country girl turned banking executive didn’t back down. In the spirit of all great Americans, she went to court. Bob Ivry goes there too, profiling Ms. Hunt, who would ultimately win $31 million in a whistle-blower suit against the banking giant, in July’s Bloomberg Markets magazine. Read More

By Patrick Clark 5/29/12 6:38am

Morning Read

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JPMorgan Selling Assets Post-London Whale, Citi Kills Committee That Oversaw Toxic Debt: Wall Street Roundup

Squeeze play: JPMorgan has been selling profitable securities to prop up second-quarter results after the bank’s chief investment office and the trader known as the London Whale incurred billions in losses. The asset sales may be tax inefficient, and will deprive the lender of future gains, which is just too bad for Jamie Dimon’s firm. With its share price down 18 percent from the day before the trading losses were first reported, JPMorgan is under pressure to generate earnings. Read More