Your papers, please: Texas Republican Randy Neugebauer of the House Financial Services committee asked the New York Fed for all of its communications pertaining to Libor with the 16 banks under investigation for manipulating interbank lending rates dated between August 2007 and July of this year.
Hey, big boy: Several groups of traders are under investigation for colluding to rig interbank lending rates, The Wall Street Journal reports, and most of them are unconnected to the Barclays traders whose cheerful emails surfaced as part of that bank’s $451 million settlement with U.S. and U.K. regulators.
Libor numbers suck…Says Alphaville Lisa Pollack. She means the estimates of what banks may pay to end inquiries into interbank rate-rigging, as well as attempts to quantify the size of the derivatives market that moves with Libor.
More London Whale: JPMorgan’s chief investment office made large trades in corporate credit derivatives at the end of January and February that may have temporarily boosted the value of the CIOs holdings ahead of internal audits, Bloomberg reports. The lender said earlier this month that the CIO had lost $5.8 billion in the position associated with the trader known as the London Whale, and that an internal investigation had revealed some employees may have exaggerated the value of certain positions to conceal the extent of losses.
Buffett leads on ResCap? Warren Buffett is positioning himself to acquire all of Ally Financial’s bankrupt mortgage lender ResidentialCapital, or ResCap, The New York Post reports. Mr. Buffett had already been named the lead bidder for a portfolio of mortgage loans, but it now seen to be overtaking Fortress Investment Group to acquire the firm’s mortgage platform as well.
Scott Thompson resumes…his career, joining e-commerce start-up ShopRunner as chief executive officer, some two months after Mr. Thompson was ousted from the top job at Yahoo after activist investor Dan Loeb uncovered inaccuracies on the executive’s resume.
Whither Europe: European inspectors are in Athens to decide whether to continue making bailout loans to the troubled country. Spain placed a three-month ban on short-selling stocks, and Italy put a one-week stop on short-selling a list of 29 financial companies. Moody’s placed a negative outlook on Germany, citing increased chances of a Greek eurozone exit and continuing struggles in Spain and Italy.
Worst days past? Real estate website Zillow called a bottom on the housing market: “We expect home values to remain relatively flat as the market works through a backlog of foreclosures and high rates of negative equity,” chief economist Stan Humphries said in a release.
Smaller mac: McDonald's (MCD) said second-quarter profit fell 4 percent.