Nasdaq may be planning to sweeten its compensation offer to entities that suffered losses due to technical problems at the exchange on the day of Facebook (META)’s initial public offering, The New York Post reports, which would fit the pattern: Nasdaq makes an offer, the market makers—Citigroup (C), UBS, Citadel and Knight—talk tough, Nasdaq ups the offer again. This week, Citi and UBS that made news by slamming Nasdaq’s most recent $62 million deal in letters to the SEC. Knight and Citadel, for what it’s worth, appear to be on board.
Mutual funds run by Morgan Stanley (MS) are showing hefty stakes in Facebook, The Wall Street Journal reports, and while many of those shares were acquired pre-IPO, allowing the funds to show paper gains despite Facebook’s fallen stock price, investors in the funds are at risk of further Facebook losses.
hsbc is talking settlement with U.S. regulators over charges the bank violated sanctions against Iran and Sudan among other nations. The bank set aside $700 million for the matter in July.
Bank of America (BAC)’s four new directors are typical bank-director types, Bloomberg reports, perhaps indicating that BofA thinks it’s on the right path, definitely indicating that the train has left the station on our dream of shaking up the North Carolina-based bank from inside the boardroom.
Citigroup’s private banking unit withdrew $410 million from John Paulson managed hedge funds, a lot of money, no doubt, but as sharper wits than ours have pointed out, so long as Mr. Paulson himself doesn’t send a redemption letter to a certain hedge fund located at 1251 Avenue of the Americas, Paulson & Co. should be okay.
SEC Chairman Mary L. Schapiro through down her arms in the effort to rein in systemic risk posed by money-market funds. The Times says the Treasury might take up more powerful weapons.
The case of Vietnamese banker Ly Xuan Hai shows once again that it’s safer to be a crooked banker in the west than the east.
A top German politician said that the Greek bailout plan can’t be renegotiated. Though history tells us there can’t be a renegotiation until in fact there is. Elsewhere, is Finland the forgotten frontier in a potential eurozone breakup?
