Morning Scan
Friday, February 10, 2012
Receiving Wide Coverage ... Interpretations of the Mortgage Deal: Depending on which story you read, the $25 billion settlement between the federal government, 49 state attorneys general and the largest mortgage servicers is: A potential boon to the housing market and the economy (Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times); a shot across the bow for the banks (Washington Post); a source of limited relief for the banks (“Heard on the Street” in the Journal);…
Morning Scan
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Receiving Wide Coverage ... The Servicing Settlement: It’s apparently really, finally happening, with an announcement expected today. The holdout attorneys general, including New York’s Eric Schneiderman and California’s Kamala Harris, have been brought back into the fold, the papers report. To win over the dissident AGs, “the banks and other government negotiators preserved regulators’ and prosecutors’ ability to use facts assembled from foreclosure-related probes in their securitisation investigations,” the FT says. “While the banks would be…
Morning Scan
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Receiving Wide Coverage ... Double Duty: Fed chairman Ben Bernanke defended the central bank’s dual mandate — control inflation and unemployment — in testimony before Congress. He reassured Republican lawmakers that the Fed is balancing the two goals rather than giving employment a higher priority. New York Times, Washington Post Wall Street Journal …
Morning Scan
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Breaking News This Morning ... UBS Profits Tumble: The Swiss bank’s “wealth management unit failed to make up for a loss in investment banking” in the fourth quarter, according to the Times. Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times Wall Street Journal A big fight is looming between the SEC and money market funds. The Journal, citing anonymous sources, reports that the agency is finalizing a proposal to tighten regulation of these investments. The intent is to…
Morning Scan
Monday, February 6, 2012
Receiving Wide Coverage ... The Home Stretch? Today is the deadline (extended from Friday) for states to sign on to the nationwide robo-signing settlement, and that is one of the few things the papers seem to agree on. The Times says California attorney general Kamala Harris is back at the table. Her state’s “participation would result in having more money available for many other states, including an estimated $500 million in additional money for Florida,” the…
Morning Scan
Friday, February 3, 2012
Receiving Wide Coverage ... ‘A Lowly Clerk’: Lawmakers grilled Michael Stockman, who was chief risk officer of MF Global when the brokerage collapsed last year, in a tense hearing Thursday. (OK, that sounds a little hackneyed – are these hearings ever anything other than “tense” and “testy”?) One lawmaker called Stockman a “yes man.” Another said Stockman was apparently hired to tell Jon Corzine “what he wanted to hear,” and chided him that he should have…
Morning Scan
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Receiving Wide Coverage ... Refis, for Real? President Obama unveiled the details of the new refinancing plan for underwater borrowers he mentioned in the State of the Union address last month. (Or rather, the new new refi plan, since it’s only been three months since HARP 2.0 came out.) Close to 15 million homeowners would be eligible for the latest initiative. To qualify, one would need a credit score of at least 580 and have missed…
Morning Scan
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Receiving Wide Coverage ... Volcker Haters: Woe is Paul Volcker, the former Fed boss who came up with the eminently sensible and elegant idea of banning taxpayer-backed banks from acting like Las Vegas card sharks. Enter Washington pols and the Dodd-Frank Act's Volcker Rule has been turned into a multi-hundred page monstrosity that its recently silent namesake almost assuredly hates. So too do most of the world's leading financial policymakers. Their gripe is that as the…
Morning Scan
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Receiving Wide Coverage ... Collections Crackdown: The Federal Trade Commission announced its second-biggest settlement with a debt collection agency. Asset Acceptance agreed to pay $2.5 billion to settle allegations that it strong-armed consumers into paying debts that had expired under statutes of limitation. That’s a widespread industry practice, according to the government, and a Justice Department official tells the Journal that “more cases are on the way." Wall Street Journal, New York Times …
Morning Scan
Monday, January 30, 2012
Receiving Wide Coverage ... Ratings Rumble: This coming Friday is the deadline for public comments on a regulatory proposal that would forbid the use of credit ratings in determining capital requirements. The FT has a pair of stories in which bankers and other industry representatives complain that this plan would have adverse effects because risk weights on securitized assets, and therefore the amount of capital that must be held against them, would increase. One story emphasizes…
Morning Scan
Friday, January 27, 2012
Receiving Wide Coverage ... Davos Dispatches: Lots of interesting news is coming out of that World Economic Forum junket in Switzerland. Jamie Dimon says JPMorgan Chase considered pulling out of Europe’s troubled peripheral countries, the so-called PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain), though he diplomatically referred to them as “the euro five.” The decision to stay was “largely social and partially economic,” the CEO said, according to the FT. … Too-big-to-fail behemoths of the world,…
Morning Scan
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Receiving Wide Coverage ... Great Rates to Continue: "Great" if you're living on debt, like the U.S. government, that is. If you're a saver or retiree on a fixed income, or a bank trying to earn an interest rate spread, things don't look quite so peachy. That's the bottom line on the Federal Reserve's announcement yesterday of plans to keep short-term interest rates in the non-existent range "at least through late 2014." For the mathematically challenged, that…
Morning Scan
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Receiving Wide Coverage ... State of the Union: During the (surprisingly brief) discussion of the housing mess in his speech last night, President Obama announced yet another mortgage refinancing program. “Responsible homeowners” could take advantage of low rates and save $3,000 a year without having to jump through bureaucratic hoops or deal with “runaround from banks,” he said. And if you coughed or sneezed at the precise moment, you might have missed this: “a small fee…
Morning Scan
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Receiving Wide Coverage ...
Deal or No Deal? There was brief speculation Monday that President Obama would announce a settlement of government probes into foreclosure abuses in his State of the Union address tonight. Those hopes (or fears, for some consumer advocates) were dashed when Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, the leader of the multistate task force negotiating with the top five mortgage servicers, went out of his way to say there would be no deal…
Morning Scan
Monday, January 23, 2012
Receiving Wide Coverage ... Executive Pay: The Journal and the Times have somewhat different takes on the compensation disclosures from JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Citi that came out late last week. "Bonuses Pinched for Bank CEOs," the Journal's headline declared, though the first paragraph elaborated that some bonuses were pinched more than others. The stock bonus for JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon was flat, Morgan Stanley chief James Gorman's stock award was cut in half, and Citi's Vikram…
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