Goldman Sachs has been fined £17.5m for regulatory control failings that led the investment bank to neglect to tell the UK financial regulator that it was under investigation by US authorities, the FT reports. The Financial Services Authority said on Thursday that Goldman’s US arm failed to share critical information with the bank’s compliance department in London about a US investigation of subprime mortgage products for more than 18 months. That omission meant Goldman failed to notify the FSA that it and trader Fabrice Tourre had been warned in September 2009 by the US Securities and Exchange Commission that they were likely to face civil fraud charges. At the time, Mr Tourre was working in London in a function that required FSA approval. Read more
Surprisingly positive US jobs data has given some support to stock buyers, but trading is still cautious as fears for the global economy and European banks linger, the FT reports. The S&P 500 on Wall Street was up as much as 1 per cent following a drop in weekly initial jobless claims by 27,000, which followed news that the US trade deficit had narrowed thanks to rising exports. But another report showed oil inventory in the US was at its highest since 1990 – a sign that business and consumers are still not in a buying mood. At the same time, many industrial metals are also lower, following regulatory jitters in China, while a more cautious mood in forex markets continues to aid “safety” plays such as the yen. Read more
Eurozone members that break the region’s rules on public finances should be excluded temporarily from Europe’s political decision-making, the president of the European Central Bank has proposed, the FT reports. The controversial suggestion by Jean-Claude Trichet, in an interview with the Financial Times, would be part of a “quantum leap” in the governance of Europe’s 11-year old monetary union, needed to prevent a future Greece-style economic crisis. Read more
Deutsche Bank is set to launch a rights issue of €8bn-€9bn, in a bid to strengthen its capital ratios ahead of an expected hike in banks’ capital requirements, reports the FT. According to people close to the plan, the bank aims to announce the offering – the biggest in Europe this year – on Monday or Tuesday. The deal comes as global regulatory chiefs prepare to meet in Basel, Switzerland, this weekend to approve a set of new capital and liquidity measures drawn up by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, the international watchdog. Read more
An ownership battle between the chief executive and imprisoned founder of Gome, one of China’s largest electronics retailers, has spilled over into an angry and sometimes nationalistic debate in the country’s media and internet, the FT reports. Executives and advisers working for Gome say they have received death threats in recent weeks from people claiming to be supporters of Huang Guangyu, the company’s founder and once China’s richest man. Read more
Japan has expressed concern about China’s recent sharp increase in purchases of Japanese government bonds in the latest of a series of sour notes in a traditionally tense bilateral relationship that both sides had worked hard to steady, the FT reports. China’s purchases of JGBs is an especially sensitive issue as it plays into anxieties in Japan about the strengthening yen and its impact on the economy. Tokyo and Beijing also clashed this week after Japanese authorities arrested the captain of a Chinese fishing boat in the disputed waters of the East China Sea. “There is something unnatural about the fact that China can buy Japanese government bonds while Japan cannot [buy Chinese bonds],” Yoshihiko Noda, the Japanese finance minister said. Read more
Vietnam’s foreign minister has dismissed International Monetary Fund concerns that a lack of clarity in the government’s macro-economic policy is damaging confidence among international investors, the FT reports. The Vietnamese government has been forced into a series of rapid shifts in macro-economic policy over the last three years as it was buffeted first by a bout of high inflation, then the global slowdown and, most recently, fears about a possible currency crisis. The central bank has devalued its currency, the dong, three times since November in a bid to stem the downward pressure on the currency, which has been driven by concerns about Vietnam’s large trade and budget deficits. In an annual review of Vietnam’s economic policy released on Thursday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) paid tribute to the government for managing to ride out a number of difficult challenges but warned that “the current macroeconomic stability does not appear robust”. Read more
It is not the hairpin bends on South Korea’s first Formula One Grand Prix track that are causing the feverish brows, sweaty palms and hearts in mouths. It is the teams of construction workers still laying kerbs and asphalt six weeks before its first scheduled race as a F1 host in October, the FT reports. Unusually for a country that prides itself on its building skills and is home to some of the world’s top construction companies, South Korea has found itself in a rather mystifying race against the clock to get its Grand Prix track finished. If it is not ready and approved at the final inspection on September 21, it could bring commercial disaster and political embarrassment. Read more
Bloomberg does its homework and finds something intriguing in an SEC court filing on Wednesday, as the agency defended its decision to settle charges with Citigroup for $75m.
Reports Bloomberg (emphasis ours): Read more
Thursday’s US trade report from the Census Bureau brought some welcome news, though it’s probably best not to get too excited just yet.
Exports resumed growing again after a slight dip in June, while imports declined by $4.2bn. Overall the deficit declined to $42.8bn from the $49.8bn reported in June. Read more
SocGen analysts have turned their attention to the dislocation in covered bond prices vis-a-vis secured lending rates and government bonds.
Just as BarCap noted before them, they observe how “rich” covered bonds are currently trading with respect to the other markets. Read more
Now here’s something you don’t see every day — calm evidence-based, consideration of the impact of short-selling (and thus, rules that prohibit short-selling, conversely) on the price and volatility of stocks.
It’s found in a new NBER paper that looks at the effects of stock lending supply across two very different periods in recent equity market history. Here’s the abstract (emphasis ours): Read more
On the eve of a vast UK government review of spending cuts this autumn, Robert Chote has been tipped for the prestigious post of abattoir inspector chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility.
And well, there are two ways to take that news. Read more
At this point, we may as well throw our hands in the air and give up trying to figure out in which direction US employment is trending.
Weekly unemployment insurance claims posted a big decline for the second time in the last three weeks on Thursday, falling 27,000 to 451,000. Read more
Stephen Lewis at Monument Securities is trying to rationalise the ultra-low state of government bond yields.
It all started on Wednesday, when he pointed out that current long-dated yields in the US and in the UK are now lower than they were during the Great Depression. Read more
Morgan Stanley economists always have such interestingly contrarian views on the inflation-deflation debate. For example – Joachim Fels’ unfashionably inflationista analysis of central bank credibility.
And now — the deflation-fighting case for Logan’s Run. Read more
Noted for the record (again) on Thursday — the Bank of England’s latest decision to make sure the song remains the same:
Read more
At last, a chance for browbeaten Japanese finance ministers and bureaucrats to recover some mojo — and blame someone else for the yen’s seemingly irrepressible rise.
After yet another dismal round of promises by Japanese officials to act to curb the currency, some handy new balance of payments figures have provided a new whipping boy for unabated yen strength. Read more
Live markets commentary from FT.com
Preet Bharara, US attorney for the southern district of New York, will unveil another weapon against Wall Street fraud on Thursday, according to the FT, with renewed emphasis on civil litigation alongside existing criminal actions. Mr Bharara will announce the appointment of Heidi Wendel, a former New York state deputy attorney-general, to head a six-strong unit focused on taking civil enforcement action against fraud. Her remit covers “every single type of fraud”, including complex financial misconduct, mortgage deals, abuse of the government’s troubled asset relief programme and healthcare scams, Mr Bharara said. Read more
A once in a life time offer. Unlikely to be repeated.
Do you day trade? Read more
Basel III may be less tougher on bank capital requirements than had been feared as recently as this week, FT Alphaville reports. Core Tier 1 capital is set to be calibrated at 4.5 per cent, with a 2.5 per cent conservation buffer on top, according to Australia’s Banking Day and BBC News. The last-minute fall in the capital ratio — around 0.5 per cent has been shaved off core Tier 1 — might be due to the influence of German banks, which have complained that tougher rules would leave them undercapitalised and at a competitive disadvantage. Read more
Ireland is still at the eye of the autumn’s European sovereign debt storm, says Bloomberg, even after the government announced measures on Wednesday to split up the bailed-out bank Anglo Irish, which observers have feared could bring down the country’s finances. Splitting Anglo Irish into good and bad banks provides some certainty – but it still doesn’t answer the question of the final cost to the government. FT Alphaville summarises the details of the plan. Read more
In a further sign that Goldman is putting all its eggs in the QE2 basket, the bank’s FX team was also out on Thursday, recommending quantitative easing-related dollar weakness positions.
As the team headed by Thomas Stolper wrote in a September note: Read more
Paulson & Co, the world’s third-largest hedge fund manager, has seen another painful month thanks to growing fears over the health of the US economy, the FT reports. The firm’s $9bn Advantage Plus fund, which aims to profit from trading corporate events, lost 4.26 per cent in August, according to an investor, wiping out gains made in July. The fund, Paulson & Co’s largest, is down 11 per cent so far this year. Last month proved worse for the $3bn Paulson & Co Recovery fund, however, which was launched in 2008 to profit from a rebound in the US housing market and economy, losing 9.13 per cent in August compared to a 6.5 per cent gain a month earlier. Read more
Goldman Sachs’ chief US economist Jan Hatzius has already called for about $1,000bn of fresh quantitative easing this week, FT Alphaville notes — and the bank has promptly moved on to how, not if, the Federal Reserve will do it. The Federal Open Markets Committee should announce the measure all at once — $1,000bn in one meeting rather than $100bn over ten, according to Goldman. But even massive quantitative easing would only have a small and statistically insignificant impact on rates, argues John Taylor at Economics One. Meanwhile, economists are cutting their US growth forecasts for the rest of this year, Reuters reports. Read more
Another day and another fine from the Financial Services Authority.
This time it’s Goldman Sachs on the receiving end. A £25m hit (reduced to £17.5m for good behaviour) for the heinous crime of not telling the FSA it was being investigated by the SEC over the Fab Fabrice/Abacus CDO case. Read more
Mark Hurd is expected to earn $11m in his new role at Oracle, putting him back among the tech industry’s highest-paid executives, the FT reports — though he may not like having a boss (Oracle’s Larry Ellison) above him for once, the WSJ says. But Hurd’s move is more than a executive suite soap opera, the FT adds – the industry as a whole is moving from an era of close alliances to deepening fractures on which chunks of the market to carve out. Oracle is shoving its way into the server and storage sector — while Hurd’s former employers HP are making a defensive bid in networking. Read more
So near, and so far, Basel.
Australia’s Banking Day had the basic numbers overnight on what looks to us like a last-minute climbdown on bank capital: Read more
Goldman Sachs has been fined £17.5m ($27m) by the UK’s financial regulator following a five-month investigation into the investment bank’s international business initiated in the wake of fraud charges against the company in the US, the FT reports. The fine, confirmed by the Financial Services Authority on Thursday, is a blow to Goldman’s efforts to put the high-profile Abacus case behind it following the bank’s settlement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission probe in July for $550m. The news will at least take a shine off moves to spin off Goldman’s Principal Strategies unit to suitors ranging from KKR to Pimco, Blackrock and Carlyle, as reported by Dow Jones. FT Alphaville’s series on the Abacus case can be found here. Read more
Older entries
1Bernanke weighs in on robot wars; brings Keynes for backup
2Secret liquidity and Scottish independence
3About China's capacity to absorb more capital
4Spain's awful unemployment
5Pump up, debase
Show more6S&P 2,100, by Goldman Sachs
7Everlasting credit, the long view
8Buyback to enrich
9Apple Operations International, facts (?) du jour
10Collateral crunch-counting gets sophisticated
Show fewer