Receiving Wide Coverage ...
Yellen on the Hill, Again: Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen appeared before the Senate Banking Committee Thursday. Here's what we learned from her second trip to the Hill as the central bank's leader: She watches the weather "I think it's clear the unseasonably cold weather has played some role in that," she told lawmakers when asked about a recent run of bad economic data and she's waiting to see what happens when it gets warmer before pulling the plug on the Fed's reductions in monthly bond purchases. She doesn't think the Fed has the power to regulate Bitcoin. She's not sure the "too big to fail" problem is solved ("I'm not positive that we can declare with confidence that 'too big to fail' has ended until it's tested in some way," she told Sen. Elizabeth Warren.) And she expects the Fed's Board of Governors will vote on enforcement actions soon. The S&P 500 closed at a record on Thursday, following Yellen's Congressional weather report.
Filed: Seriously beleaguered Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox has gone ahead and filed for bankruptcy. It also admitted, following wide speculation, it has lost about 800,000 bitcoins. "At market prices charted by the CoinDesk Bitcoin index, that would represent a loss of $473 million," the Journal reports.
Libor Update: The U.K.'s Financial Conduct Authority has notified a third unnamed trader that it may take action regarding allegations that he or she colluded with another trader to rig the London interbank offered rate. The FCA sent out two other warning notices earlier this month. Scan readers will recall that FCA policy precludes it from including names with the allegations. Financial Times, New York Times
Wall Street Journal
Capital One and one of its subsidiaries have received subpoenas from regulators as part of a probe into alleged mortgage-bond fraud.
The Export-Import Bank, a federal agency that provides financing to firms that want to buy U.S. exports, is rushing to prove its worth to lawmakers as Republicans are divided about reauthorizing its charter.
Financial Times
Bank of America is fighting back against the government's request to more than double the fine in a case "where it was found liable for civil fraud over mortgages sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac." The bank claims: "Countrywide did not 'gain' $2.1 billion by any stretch of the term; it simply recovered amounts that it had previously paid out." Judge Jed Rakoff will decide the final size of the penalty in March.
New York Times
The paper takes a closer look at the corporate structure of mortgage servicer Ocwen Financial, which has come under regulatory scrutiny of late.
Andrew O'Brien, co-head of JPMorgan Chase's debt capital markets, will "take on a broader new role overseeing lending activity across the investment bank."
Washington Post
Columnist Lydia DePillis on the House passage of a bill that would replace the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's director with a five-person committee: "The continued onslaught is evidence that it hasn't made as many friends as it might've hoped
The bureau's leaders tried really, really hard to win over the community banks and credit unions, but their trade associations still spoke out in favor of the legislation that would render it essentially powerless, protesting that the CFPB's new requirements are still too onerous for smaller institutions to deal with."
