Under the guise of reducing government spending and “onerous” regulatory burdens, the House of Representatives has introduced appropriations bills that would gut the necessary funding to carry out the Dodd-Frank financial reform act, including regulating the toxic derivatives, such as swaps and collateral debt obligations (CDOs), that blew a hole in financial markets and drove […]
The Securities and Exchange Commission is busy handling a deluge of whistleblower tips. An average of 7 tips per day has forced the SEC to triage the tips. Whistleblowers stand to receive substantial monetary awards for tips that lead to successful SEC action (“SEC Enforcement Division Buried in Whistleblower Tips,” by Ian Thoms, Law360). In […]
Money is rapidly flowing out of high yield bond funds, which are composed of bonds rated below BBB by Standard & Poors and below Baa by Moody’s. With Europe looking shakier, investors have sought the safety of U.S. Treasuries. After a four-month buying surge beginning in January, more than $3 billion left high-yield bond funds […]
The Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly looking into the compensation paid to executives at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). The SEC is also interested in a lack of transparency regarding FINRA’s governance and operations. The SEC’s interest in these matters comes at the behest of the Government Accountability Office, which has called on […]
Is the U.S. economy in the calm before the storm? Even with unemployment around 8 percent, the U.S. economy appears to be chugging along in a slow-growth mode, and, according to some, stocks are not overpriced. According to David Wessell of the Wall Street Journal, however, “Euro Woes Will Cross the Pond,” disrupting the U.S. […]
Many so-called experts believe that the huge financial problems developing across Europe could fuel another worldwide financial crisis. The media has recently been focusing on the European bailouts and existing austerity measures are being debated by the European Union. A new buzzword “Grexit”, has entered into this conversation now that some experts believe Greece could […]
Wall Street banks could soon cut as many as 21,000 jobs in New York alone, say Wall Street consultants and recruiters. Worldwide cuts could be even larger (“Large layoffs loom on Wall Street,” Stephen Gandel, CNN Money). While the stock market is up this year, and many smaller investment banks have been hiring, and the […]
Robert Rubin, former managing partner of Goldman Sachs, former Treasury Secretary, and former Chairman of Citigroup, says there is more to worry about in today’s fiscal environment than at any other time in his life. “[I]t is absolutely prudent that we prepare for the worst,” Rubin told a New York TradeTech audience last month (See […]
State and local issuers of municipal bonds are in trouble, but most municipal bond holders are not ? at least not yet. While waves of default predicted by analyst Meredith Whitney several years ago have not yet materialized, lower revenues and unfunded liabilities are creating a slow-motion train wreck for many state and local governments. […]
A recent study has concluded that investments that have higher volatility generate lower returns for investors. For many years, it has been a basic precept of modern portfolio theory that the price of opting for lower risk is lower reward. That is bunk, according to Robert Haugen, a former professor of finance at the University […]
