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« December 2008 | Main | February 2009 »
Panel Pushes For More TARP Regulation (audio)January 30, 2009 @ 01:27 PM | By Melanie Rodier
In this Marketplace interview, the chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Trouble Assets Relief Program (TARP) talks about the new regulations it is urging the government to implement to stop another financial crisis of this magnitude from ever happening again.
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Davos Diary, Day 2: Another Day, More Bad News from the Banking Industry
January 30, 2009 @ 10:52 AM | By Greg MacSweeney
Guest Blog Entry: by Ashok Vemuri, InfoSys
The mood continues to be very muted here at the WEF in Switzerland, with faces just as long as the coats that block out the bitter cold. While the parameters for the discussion were set yesterday, there is still no one who has set out an agenda or call to action that everyone can rally around to try and find a way out of the current economic quagmire. There are some themes starting to emerge, but everyone is still focused on the problems rather than the solutions.
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TGIF: Bernard Madoff Apologizes, Explains Where the $50 Million Went
January 30, 2009 @ 07:44 AM | By Penny Crosman
At last, an “explanation” of how the whole scheme played out.
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President Obama Asks Wall Street to Show Restraint On Bonuses
January 29, 2009 @ 09:47 PM | By Penny Crosman
President Obama told Wall Street today that executives should not be collecting huge bonuses while receiving taxpayer's bailout money.
"One point I want to make is that all of us are going to have responsibilities to get this economy moving again," he said. "And when I saw an article today indicating that Wall Street bankers had given themselves $20 billion worth of bonuses -- the same amount of bonuses as they gave themselves in 2004 -- at a time when most of these institutions were teetering on collapse and they are asking for taxpayers to help sustain them, and when taxpayers find themselves in the difficult position that if they don't provide help that the entire system could come down on top of our heads -- that is the height of irresponsibility. It is shameful.
"And part of what we're going to need is for folks on Wall Street who are asking for help to show some restraint and show some discipline and show some sense of responsibility. The American people understand that we've got a big hole that we've got to dig ourselves out of -- but they don't like the idea that people are digging a bigger hole even as they're being asked to fill it up."
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Compliance (and E-discovery) a Hot Topic Right Now
January 29, 2009 @ 03:27 PM | By Melanie Rodier
Compliance is one of the beats I cover for WS&T, and in spite of the market conditions, or perhaps precisely because of them, compliance seems to be one area that is positively thriving right now.
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Davos Diary, Day 2: This Market Needs an Intervention -- and a 12-Step Plan
January 29, 2009 @ 11:00 AM | By Greg MacSweeney
Guest Blog Entry: by Richard Muirhead, Tideway
Wednesday morning, the message at the in Davos was a sobering one right out of the gate: Get on with it; let the TARP be the TARP, etc. Yes, we need to come up with a way to value toxic assets. If recapitalization or foreclosure mitigation is necessary, then design a mechanism to deal with it and pass it into law. We were told we are headed for 2.5% growth average over the next three years thanks to a global recession this year and anemic growth next. Other more dire predictions from World Economic Forum? We may be in “Proto-Depression” and/or could “drift along like this for 10 years.”
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Davos Diary, Day 1: First impressions at Davos: Collaboration is the Name of the Game
January 29, 2009 @ 10:55 AM | By Greg MacSweeney
Guest Blog Entry: by Ashok Vemuri, InfoSys
This is my third time in Davos for the World Economic Forum and my overwhelming impression is that the atmosphere is ‘muted’. If you walk through the Congress Hall or global village, it’s as if someone has thrown cold water over the delegates, plunging the temperature to match the weather outside. There is just not the same energy and ebullience that usually defines Davos.
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JPMorgan Cut Potential Losses to Madoff Funds Last Fall
January 29, 2009 @ 10:54 AM | By Melanie Rodier
JP Morgan Chase says it cut its exposure related to Bernard Madoff last fall, months before the disgraced financier was arrested; but angry investors want to know why they weren’t told about it.
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Davos Diary, Day 1: What This World Needs Most … Will We Find it at Davos?
January 29, 2009 @ 10:41 AM | By Greg MacSweeney
Guest Blog Entry: by Richard Muirhead, Tideway
I remember January 1997. I was 25 living in an apartment in Russia opposite the Kremlin. Guns were routinely checked at the door in my local restaurant. This was before the stock market crash of 1998, before Putin, before $150 oil prices. I would stay up nights, moonlighting on my first software company and the Internet infrastructure and email client I used in Moscow was already better than what my employer provided. And I was itching to get out there and catch this wave!
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Geithner's New TARP rules: How Clear Are They? (audio)
January 28, 2009 @ 04:26 PM | By Melanie Rodier
New Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is trying to rein in TARP with rules that limit the power of lobbyists and ensure more oversight for the billions of dollars being handed out. This MarketPlace report discusses how clear the new rules actually are.
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Senators Grill SEC Staff on Madoff Lapse
January 28, 2009 @ 09:47 AM | By Penny Crosman
At a hearing yesterday, senators posed sharp questions to SEC staff about the agency's failure to detect Bernard Madoff's $50 billion Ponzi scheme. Several senators expressed incredulity at the dozens of warnings the SEC received about Madoff's firm and the fact that the SEC's investigations of the firm yielded nothing. New York Democratic senator Charles Schumer said, "It’s as if there was a giant elephant standing next to the SEC in a rather small room for 25 years and the SEC never noticed the elephant or smelled the peanuts on his breath.”
Director of enforcement Linda Thomsen responded that the SEC receives hundreds of thousands of tips every year and that she hates it when they miss fraud. "Not finding something that's there is every investigator's worst nightmare," she said. She said she couldn't comment on the Madoff case because of the ongoing criminal investigation and that the SEC is working to improve its processes.
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Thain Defends Record, Promises to Repay $1.2 Million Spent on Office Decor
January 26, 2009 @ 12:01 PM | By Penny Crosman
In a memo sent to Merrill Lynch employees today, John Thain gave his side of the story about Merrill Lynch's fourth quarter losses and his reported $1.2 million office redesign.
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Financial Workers Regularly Forget USB Sticks at Dry Cleaners
January 26, 2009 @ 11:16 AM | By Melanie Rodier
As data loss reaches an all time high, a new survey shows financial workers in the UK are regularly forgetting USB sticks at the dry cleaners.
According to a survey by Texas-based data security firm Credant Technologies, 9,000 USB sticks were forgotten in people’s pockets in the UK last year as they took their clothes to the local dry cleaners.
Financial workers in the City of London are particularly forgetful: one dry cleaner in the heart of the financial district said he is getting an average of 1 USB stick every two weeks, while another said he had found at least 80 in the last year.
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When You’ve Lost the Will to Spend, There’s Fiscalis
January 23, 2009 @ 06:55 AM | By Penny Crosman
A new drug helps consumers maintain their spending habits.
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Thain Departs Merrill As Details on His $1.2 Million Office Redesign Emerge
January 22, 2009 @ 12:59 PM | By Penny Crosman
It's been a rough day for John Thain, former CEO of Merrill Lynch. Not only was he ousted by Merrill's acquiror, Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis, who was unhappy over Merrill's $15.45 billion fourth-quarter loss, but New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced his office is investigating bonuses Merrill Lynch paid to its executives just before the sale to Bank of America and CNBC reportedly has unearthed documents that detail his $1.2 million office renovation last year. According to CNBC, his office decor purchases included an $87,784 area rug, a $68,179 credenza, four pairs of curtains for $28,091 and a "commode on legs" for $35,115. Such expenses have probably been the norm for Wall Street chiefs in the past, and pale in comparison to the dozens of billions in CDO-related losses the bulge-bracket firms have racked up last year.
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Edward Jones, Goldman Make Fortune’s List of Top Companies to Work For
January 22, 2009 @ 10:20 AM | By Penny Crosman
In spite of the financial industry's ongoing troubles, a smattering of Wall Street firms made Fortune’s latest list of the 100 best companies to work for in 2009. Better yet, some of these firms are hiring.
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Obama Faces Bleeding Banks
January 22, 2009 @ 09:00 AM | By Greg MacSweeney
Despite billions of dollars of government bailout funds, many banks are still reporting huge losses. As CBS News’ Anthony Mason reports, newly-elected President Obama and his cabinet face huge fiscal challenges.
Comment on this blog entryWall Street helps pay for Obama inauguration bash
January 21, 2009 @ 04:39 PM | By Melanie Rodier
The economy and the markets may be reeling, but the Champagne flowed at Obama's inauguration balls thanks largely to donations from Wall Street movers and shakers, according to a New York Times blog .
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Why Didn’t the Government Help BofA Save Lehman?
January 16, 2009 @ 01:45 PM | By Penny Crosman
An article on TheStreet.com today, BofA Bailout a Sign of Federal Inconsistency, articulates my own reaction to the news yesterday that the government was going to give BofA $20 billion to help it buy Merrill Lynch: why didn’t BofA get this kind of help to save Lehman?
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TGIF: Handling Investor Concerns
January 16, 2009 @ 07:10 AM | By Penny Crosman
One way to address customers' investment questions.
Comment on this blog entryFINRA Says, “Don’t Look At Us”
January 15, 2009 @ 10:28 AM | By Penny Crosman
As Obama’s nominee for SEC chairman -- Mary Schapiro, chief executive of FINRA – gets grilled by the Senate Banking Committee today, a curious point of view from FINRA has emerged. According to Reuters, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which supervises U.S. brokerages, is disavowing any responsibility with regard to the fraud that took place for decades at Madoff Securities.
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Madoff Once Again Free on Bail
January 14, 2009 @ 04:23 PM | By Penny Crosman
In a new hearing today, Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff re-won the right to stay at his penthouse apartment pending his trial. Although government prosecutors sought jail for the 70-year-old money manager after he mailed more than $1 million worth of jewelry and gifts out to family members, U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence McKenna this afternoon upheld a federal magistrate’s Monday decision to let Madoff stay under house arrest. According to this msnbc report, Madoff expressed the wish to make victims whole and he described the mailing out of jewelry an attempt to reconnect with family members.
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TGIF: Apple Introduces MacBook Wheel; Dangers of Smartphone Addiction
January 09, 2009 @ 06:54 AM | By Penny Crosman
The Onion reports on Apple's new keyboard-less laptop; BlackBookBerry offers a warning on SlackBerry addiction.
Apple's New MacBook Wheel
Continuing Apple's tradition of giving customers features they don't realize they want yet, the company's latest laptop replaces the customary keyboard with a wheel. One MacWorld attendee's reaction: "I'll buy anything that's shiny and made by Apple."
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Suicide is No Answer
January 07, 2009 @ 01:21 PM | By Penny Crosman
We’ve now read of five Wall Street types who’ve committed suicide for financial reasons in the past few months (German businessman Adolf Merckle, New Zealand-born but London-based private equity executive Kirk Stephenson, French investment manager Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, Brazilian trader Paulo Silva and Chicago real estate magnate Steven Good). These are tragedies that needn’t have happened.
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House Financial Services Committee Madoff Hearing (Video)
January 06, 2009 @ 08:54 AM | By Greg MacSweeney
If you missed the riveting, 3.5 hour House of Representatives Financial Services Committee hearing on the alleged Bernie Madoff affair, you missed one of CSPAN’s finest moments. View the full hearing, or a shorter version from CBS News, in the video players on the next page.
DISCLAIMER: Wall Street & Technology is not responsible for viewers’ irritation toward elected officials, Bernard Madoff, the SEC or your rapidly rising level of frustration and blood pressure while you watch this video.
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Madoff hearings put SEC under fire
January 05, 2009 @ 04:23 PM | By Melanie Rodier
An hours-long congressional hearing on the Madoff fraud yielded next to no answers as to how the former Nasdaq chairman perpetrated his Ponzi scheme, instead reiterating disbelief that it could have gone unnoticed by the SEC for so long.
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Let’s Play the Financial Acronym Game
January 05, 2009 @ 09:08 AM | By Greg MacSweeney
Here is a fun audiocast from American Public Media about the alphabet soup in financial services. CDO, CDS, FDIC, LIBOR, TARP, ARM and the list goes on. Ever notice that there are a lot of acronyms involved in finance and business? Well, there's a good reason for them.
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Markets Bid a Not-So-Fond Farewell to 2008
January 05, 2009 @ 09:04 AM | By Greg MacSweeney
It's been a horrible year for stocks overall, the worst since 1931. Wood Asset Management's Robert Stovall predicts more trouble ahead in 2009. Sam Stovall, Robert's son of Standard & Poor's, and his father review the past year with MarketWatch's Steve Gelsi. (WSJ.com video)
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