Citigroup (C) says it gave Nasdaq a chance to make good on the botched Facebook IPO that cost market makers hundreds of millions of dollars. Now Citi has run out of patience, blasting the exchange in a 17-page letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission. “As set forth in detail below, the hundreds of millions of dollars of losses suffered by market participants in connection with the Facebook IPO resulted from a series of hasty, self-interested and high-risk business decisions by Nasdaq, which did not take full account of the negative downstream effects of those decisions,” Citi said (emphasis ours).
UBS, which says it lost $356 million due to Nasdaq’s technical difficulties, has said it will sue. Citadel, on the other hand, filed a letter with the SEC saying that Nasdaq’s proposed remedies are fair.
In the wake of Knight Capital’s $440 million loss due to a rogue trading algorithm earlier this month, two exchange industry executives are talking up a fat finger provision, allowing regulators to roll back the tape and undo trades in exceptional cases.
The Malkins want to form a REIT to take the Empire State Building public. Some crotchety old New Yorkers are holding up the deal. Bloomberg’s David M. Levitt goes long.
Angela Merkel and François Hollande are getting ready to play stern parents to Antonis Samaras as the Greek prime minister begins a trip through Berlin and Paris to ask the European powers for more time to reach austerity goals. Tough talk aside, Retuers suggests Europe may have little choice but to give Greece “a bit of air to breathe.”
Will Greece leave the euro before it can be kicked out? Does it matter?
Amid the back-and-forth over Peter Thiel’s sale of 72 percent of his Facebook holdings, Bloomberg asks around, and reports such sudden divestiture to be unusual.
Best Buy founder Richard Schulze, who is working on a bid to take the electronics retailer private, and the Best Buy board are negotiating again over whether and under what conditions to allow Mr. Schulze to conduct due diligence on Best Buy’s books.
The Fed’s Open Market Committee hinted at further easing in meeting minutes released yesterday, and markets rallied.
It doesn’t matter how loud you shout about the fiscal cliff (which, the Congressional Budget Office says could lead to a “significant recession” if lawmakers don’t act). The news always seems to get buried.
Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Mary L. Schapiro wanted to bring changes to the way money market funds are regulated, forcing the funds to hold cash against dark days, or let the funds fluctuate with the market. It’s not going to happen, at least not at the moment.
Whale-slayer Boaz Weinstein is struggling to keep his head above water, reports The New York Post. Mr. Weinstein’s Saba Capital iMaster Fund is only up 0.62 percent for the year, even after profiting in trades against the JPMorgan trader known as the London Whale.
