Politico got its hands on a copy of Greg Smith’s Why I Left Goldman Sachs (GS), and published some excerpts yesterday. There’s an allegation that the bank advised clients to buy and sell stock options on European banks amid the region’s ongoing debt crisis, so that the firm could profit by taking the other side of the trade, but there’s not much in the Politico excerpt to support or dismiss the claim. Our favorite part: Before The New York Times published Mr. Smith’s op-ed in March, it sent Observer alum Landon Thomas Jr. to make sure the disgruntled banker was who he said he way.
Greg Coffey, the co-chief investment officer of Moore Capital Management’s European business, is stepping away from the trading floor, according to Bloomberg. Mr. Coffey lost money for clients in the last two years amid tumultuous European markets. He joins Brevan Howard co-founder Chris Rokos and energy trader John Arnold among big players to walk away from hedge funds in the last year.
New Citigroup (C) CEO Michael Corbat’s experience running the bad bank which disposed of toxic assets in the wake of the financial crisis, will likely come in handy. According to The Wall Street Journal: Citi Holdings accounts for 24 percent of the bank’s assets under new capital rules.
Worst-case scenario projections for the Spanish economy used in a stress test of the nation’s banks looks increasingly likely, according to some banking analysts.
A lawyer for Rajat Gupta, the former McKinsey & Co. chief executive officer convicted earlier this year of insider trading, said his client should be sent to Rwanda, not prison. Gary P. Naftalis suggested that Mr. Gupta should be sentenced to probation and allowed to spend the time conducting humanitarian work in the African nation, according to The Times. Prosecutors recommended a sentence of eight to 10 years.
Also from The Times article on Gupta: imagine the indignation when Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney whose office prosecuted Mr. Gupta, arrived to speak to one of his daughter’s Harvard Business School classes.
Morgan Stanley (MS) beat analysts’ estimates, posting profit of 28 cents a share excluding accounting adjustments, according to a press release today.
Bank of America (BAC) eked out a small profit in the third quarter, the firm said yesterday.
When states attorneys general agreed to a $25 billion settlement with the nation’s largest mortgage servicers, the deal included direct payments totaling $2.5 billion to states themselves. The expectation was that state governments would use the funds for mortgage initiatives, according to The Wall Street Journal, but much of the money is being used to plug budget holes.
The FBI arrested a Bangladeshi man and charged him attempting to detonate a 1,000-pound bomb on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
