Eponymous Rule an Honor for Volcker, Not So Much for Corzine

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Class Is in Session: Ben Bernanke reprised his old role as college professor in the first of an unusual (for a sitting Fed chairman) series of economics lectures at George Washington University. While taking care to note he wasn’t giving a policy speech, the Journal emphasized the window the lecture offered on Bernanke’s thinking. He noted the Great Depression is often thought of as two recessions, the second one brought about by premature monetary tightening — suggesting he’s in no hurry to raise rates as the current recovery continues to gather strength. The Times depicted the lecture as part of Bernanke’s campaign to burnish the Fed’s public image, while the Post made much of his dated cultural references (“It’s a Wonderful Life,” Life magazine) that went over the heads of his undergraduate students. And in a year when the presidential campaign has raised Ron Paul’s stature, Bernanke explained the problems with the gold standard, noting it did not prevent financial panics and actually promoted booms and busts. It took us way too long to find the 50 slides from his talk — a Google search turned up a lot of clutter — so we’ll spare you the trouble by linking to them right here. Coverage in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post.

Eponymous Rules: Sometimes it’s an honor to have a law or regulation named after you, sometimes not. The futures industry and its regulators are discussing a proposal to require that a brokerage’s principals sign off on any transfers of customers’ funds above a certain threshold. Regulators would be immediately apprised of such transfers, according to the Journal. In case you have any doubt which events prompted these discussions, the plan has been dubbed the “Corzine rule.” Separately, the Journal reports that a Senate bill is forthcoming with bipartisan support to delay implementation of the Volcker rule. Under the Dodd-Frank Act, the ban on proprietary trading by federally insured depositories is set to take effect July 21 whether or not regulators put a final rule in place by then. Bernanke has said they probably won’t.

Dimon in China? JPMorgan Chase has a deal to buy a minority stake in a trust bank in China, the papers report, citing anonymous sources. Wall Street Journal, Financial Times.

Wall Street Journal

With Bank of America’s stock price near double digits again, CEO Brian Moynihan may need to take the opportunity to raise capital, loath as he is to dilute shareholders, “Heard on the Street” argues. “It was just a few months ago that the bank's viability was called into question,” the column reminds readers. “Given that, Mr. Moynihan shouldn't assume the share-price surge has completely erased investors' capital concerns.”

“Large U.S. banks have been making headway in dealing with their troubled commercial real-estate debt, selling off and reworking bad loans at a faster rate than smaller banks,” the Journal says, citing data from Trepp.

Jefferies Group’s better-than-expected fiscal first-quarter results, released yesterday, are an encouraging sign for the upcoming earnings reports from the bigger securities houses.

Financial Times

Deutsche Bank admitted for the first time that U.S. and European regulators have asked it for information as part of the worldwide probe into manipulation of LIBOR.