Wall Street ax: The six largest U.S. banks have cut 18,000 jobs in the last year, according to The Wall Street Journal, and the industry is showing no signs of slowing down its cost-saving efforts. Goldman Sachs said it would pare an additional $500 million in expenses in the second half of the year, in part by relying on younger, cheaper bankers; Bank of America is aiming to decrease annual spending by $3 billion by 2015; Credit Suisse told New York’s Department of Labor that it would cut 138 jobs beginning next month.
Think of the fees! Somewhere a lawyer is drooling over the possibility that Wall Street firms that don’t participate in setting Libor will start suing the firms that do. Asked about such a legal stance during Goldman Sachs’ second-quarter earnings call, Chief Financial Office David Viniar demurred. The more banks enter settlements like Barclays $451 million pact with regulators, the higher the likelihood of interbank lawsuits, Bloomberg reports.
Soon to be Libor-ated? Bloomberg has the names of three traders—Michael Zrihen at Credit Agricole, Didier Sander at HSBC and Christian Bittar at Deutsche Bank—said to be under investigation for manipulating interbank lending rates.
So you’ll have to share…“I have to apologize that there are so many people in the audience I don’t have enough subpoenas for all of you,” U.S. attorney Preet Bharara told a room full of investors yesterday at the Delivering Alpha conference. Also: “If you have open and aggressive and fair and proper and proven cases that you bring, and you show that in the kinds of cases that I’ve brought, that’s the kind of thing that over time gives people more confidence in the market.”
Rebound: How Martha Coakley, the Massachusetts attorney general who lost a 2010 Senate seat to Scott Brown, declared war on Wall Street’s role in the collapse of the housing market.
Not so golden: The foreclosure rate among Americans over 50 is rising faster than in previous years, according to the AARP.
Whither Europe: Spain is paying more to borrow on 5-year bonds than it has at any point since 1996.
CFPB strikes: Capital One will pay $210 million to settle charges that call-center contractors pressured customers into buying products such as identity-theft monitoring. The settlement included a $25 million fine paid to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, in what has been touted as the year-old agency’s first major enforcement action.
Will travel: Lloyd Blankfein would not waive his magic wand over Dodd-Frank and make it disappear, he said at the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. He also joked that he’d like to be courted for a political appointment when his career at Goldman ends. “By any president,” he said. “I didn’t mean to limit it to the United States.”
Missed: Morgan Stanley reported second-quarter earnings of 16 cents per share, well short of Wall Street’s expectations for 29 cents.
