Macaskill on Markets
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Sideways: How to trade Trump 2.0
Donald Trump is now likely to win the US presidential election after a disastrous debate performance by incumbent Joe Biden. Trump 2.0 may bring complications as well as benefits for Wall Street. -
Boomer candy could end in a derivatives sugar high
Derivatives structurers are thriving, but regulators aren’t convinced the biggest Wall Street banks have a firm grasp of their complex exposure. -
Sideways: Macron is Monsieur M&A
President Macron’s newfound zeal for cross-border financial M&A is creating a headache for France’s big banks.
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A US climate bill filled with green credits will create business for banks and provide relief from the backlash against ESG products.
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West Virginia state treasurer Riley Moore has opened another front in a campaign by Republican officials in the US against banks that promote ESG policies.
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HSBC Asset Management’s head of responsible investing has had it up to here with consultants and regulators lecturing him on climate change risk.
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Anything except a brief stay on as chairman would cast a baleful shadow over the chief executive’s successor at JPMorgan.
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Junior bankers should relax about the threat to their jobs from AI and lean into opportunities to bluff their way to Wall Street glory.
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A move back up in rates is creating a PR battle among Wall Street banks. JPMorgan was punished for a cautious outlook, Goldman Sachs promoted strong fixed income trading results and Bank of America projected a Zen approach to rate moves.
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The Fed chair has made a remarkable, virtually unconditional surrender to opponents of his plan for Basel III implementation in the US. The tactical withdrawal is embarrassing, but it makes strategic sense.
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Luring star bankers from rivals – like Citi’s appointment of JPMorgan veteran Viswas Raghavan – can bring hidden costs beyond the expense of replacing stock options for the lucky new hire.
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Wall Street bankers tempted to pick a fight with the Federal Reserve should take a lesson from the insider trading plea deal by investor Joe Lewis.
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Opposition to the proposed Basel III endgame for US banks is now so widespread that a climb down by the Federal Reserve is likely. Wall Street bankers like Jamie Dimon can stop crying wolf about increased capital requirements and think carefully about publicly threatening their regulators.
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Our resident seer hears Ted Pick say don’t worry about the $20 million Morgan Stanley loyalty bonuses.
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Banks and investors opposed to European Union derivatives clearing plans have made an astonishing charge: the EU is worse than the US in jealously guarding its own markets.
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A tactical retreat on crypto regulation might help SEC chair Gary Gensler to avoid being bogged down in a war of attrition for the rest of his term.
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Tottenham Hotspur’s Joe Lewis was indicted for insider trading just before yen volatility presented an opportunity for profitable currency dealing.
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Banks including NatWest and JPMorgan are struggling to put out reputational risk-management fires.
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An odd legal case trying to pin the blame for Credit Suisse additional tier-1 (AT1) bond losses on former chief executive Brady Dougan and other veteran managers could complicate the task of recovering losses for holders of $17 billion of bonds that were wiped out in the takeover by UBS.
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Veteran banker Tom Montag is to join the board of Goldman Sachs in a bid to bolster support for embattled chief executive David Solomon. Weak second quarter earnings could make this task harder.
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Could trading of US sovereign credit default swaps trigger a global systemic meltdown? Probably not, but default swap shenanigans aren’t helping to calm jittery markets.
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The bank has started the process of choosing a successor to CEO James Gorman just as it tries to settle an investigation into its equity block trading practices. This could pose a challenge for Ted Pick.
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JPMorgan’s AI model to interpret central bank messaging came out just as it emerged that Jerome Powell had been pranked into discussing policy with Russian provocateurs. Euromoney’s distinctly obvious heuristics model (D’Oh!) might be needed.
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Relative winners after a year of interest rate hikes include Bank of America and Citigroup. Losers are led by regional US banks, while alternative asset managers argue that higher rates present a historic opportunity.
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Michael Klein can’t be expected to ‘devote significant time and attention’ to the unlikely prospect that UBS will allow a CS First Boston spin-off without being paid. Greensill-style invoices for Klein’s theoretical future services could be the answer.
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Interest rate risk management has been complicated by the fall in yields after the US bailout of SVB’s depositors. Clients may feel that hedging chiefly benefits Wall Street dealers rather than themselves.
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Goldman Sachs likes to mix it up when it comes to choosing peer banks for market share comparisons.
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Commodity trading could deliver further hefty profits for banks, led by Goldman Sachs, but there are multiple risks as well as opportunities for dealers.
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The UK broadcaster’s chair Richard Sharp is familiar with accusations of conflicts of interest from his time at Goldman Sachs.
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Goldman Sachs might wonder if the time is coming to rebrand from being Wall Street’s Bank of Dave (Solomon).
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FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried faces the full wrath of US authorities, as rival agencies compete to make the most hyperbolic charges against the former crypto exchange head. Death by metaphor could be his provisional sentence.
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The gating of Blackstone’s $69 billion private real estate fund Breit highlights the risks in semi-liquid investment vehicles, even ones that perform strongly. Pitching US private market exposure to European and Asian retail investors may be slowed by the setback.
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Euromoney’s Mystic Maca looks into what’s in store next year and sees some big Wall Street reshuffles.
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Elon Musk is full of praise for his bankers at Morgan Stanley. It’s a shame his $44 billion Twitter deal is set to cost the bank money rather than earning a tip for good service.
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Bankers are sending mixed messages about market strains. Dire warnings about year-end pressures, pleas for regulatory help and assurances that banks can sort this out are being deployed simultaneously.
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From Spacs and securitized products to executive compensation and supply-chain planning, Credit Suisse could split its investment bank into more than three parts.
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Removing UK bonus caps and undermining the BoE could exacerbate a sterling crisis while entrenching US IB dominance.
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Wall Street’s junior human capital resources may not appreciate that there is now a bear market for their output, and that could spell tough times ahead.
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Bank shares have failed to close a valuation gap with fintech competitors despite the prospect of higher interest income from rate hikes. Will the Fed’s newly tough stance on inflation-busting finally give bank stocks some respect?
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If Rishi Sunak prevails in the race to be the UK’s prime minister, then Goldman Sachs will still have one alumnus as head of a leading European economy, even if Mario Draghi steps down from leading Italy.
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Trading divisions at banks aren’t just offsetting slumping deal fees, they are also becoming more efficient. They could drive an upgrade in equity valuations.
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The head of crypto firm Galaxy Digital should get creative about his tattoo of failed token Luna.
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The current market slump gives banks a chance to repel competitors such as crypto firms and fintech lenders.
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The US government’s case against Archegos Capital sets up a contest to guess which of the fund’s prime brokers was the most gullible at any given time. To keep the game interesting, the answer might not always be Credit Suisse.
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Elon Musk’s $44 billion Twitter deal could see his bankers shift from cordial competition for fees to a desperate battle to avoid margin losses if the value of his Tesla holdings falls sharply.
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It looks like Chelsea bid heartbreak for the structuring team at asset manager Centricus, but football financing is a funny old game and it’s never over until the final whistle blows.
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Margin hikes are raising the table stakes in markets from commodities to stock loans. Margins may be a better risk signal than curiously subdued measures like the ViX index of equity volatility.
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Russians could try to use cryptocurrencies to dodge sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine, but a move into the mainstream by crypto exchange heads hungry for fiat currency wealth will complicate evasion tactics.
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Energy price volatility driven by war in Ukraine could deliver a windfall to banks such as Goldman Sachs that retain scale in commodity trading. Profits from dealing can also be made without triggering ESG or sanctions-related pain.
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Wage inflation leads to substantial cost increases at major Wall Street banks.
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The trend continues for ever more dramatic accusations in US legal filings.
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Asset managers are following the well-trodden route of bankers in shifting from finance to politics.
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Euromoney’s Mystic Maca has looked into the future and it’s all about getting things back to the way they were.
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Is the best inflation hedge the asset you just bought? There is more at stake as prices rise than talking your own book.
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A lawyer with a specialism in helping Chinese companies to float in the US is among the cast of characters working on Donald Trump’s Spac.
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Gas price volatility is delivering profits to speculators. It is a reminder that carbon trading markets could face PR problems if energy dealers are viewed as big beneficiaries.
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A consensus that Evergrande’s failure will be more like the LTCM unwind than the Lehman bankruptcy could underplay ongoing challenges in hedging Chinese exposure.
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Bank of America struck a disjointed tone in its announcement that chief operating officer Tom Montag and vice chair Anne Finucane are to retire at the end of the year.
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Credit Suisse is stacking its board with risk management experts, but banks need to do more than fight the last war they lost.
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David Wildermuth, the new chief risk officer at Credit Suisse, may have much of the heavy lifting done by the time he arrives at his desk in Zurich.
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JPMorgan wants to have fun being a disruptor, but persistently low valuations for even the strongest banks limit its options.
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A reported $1 billion score from distressed debt trading could encourage banks to look for risky ways to boost earnings.
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As football fans enjoy an action-packed European Championship, JPMorgan is advancing its project to dominate global sport financing.
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JPMorgan’s new chief financial officer, Jeremy Barnum, is an unusual choice for a role that has become a springboard for greater things.
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US banking chiefs were reminded that their slow move towards socially aware finance brings new risks as they testified to Congress in May.
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Employees in the wealth management and investment banking businesses will be sizing up the risks to their own future financial wellbeing of staying with the firm.
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The US investment bank sidesteps an avoidable reputational own goal as a planned football European Super League collapses.
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Bitcoin’s move into the mainstream is forcing crypto financiers to develop code switching skills to communicate with Wall Street without alienating online evangelists.
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Bitcoin’s boom is dependent on ‘whales’ holding on to long positions, but trading techniques from older markets could create opportunities for whale hunters.
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Rob Karofsky will become sole president of the investment bank at UBS, ending his ‘odd couple’ partnership with co-president Piero Novelli.
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Citadel founder Ken Griffin may have felt more annoyed than threatened by his day testifying to Congress about volatility in GameStop and other stocks popular with retail investors, but scrutiny of market making and clearing is set to increase.
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Goldman’s chief executive David Solomon isn’t impressed by Spac deals from Credit Suisse and Citigroup.
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Gary Gensler could start his tenure running the Securities and Exchange Commission with a dramatic flourish by taking steps to burst the bubble in special purpose acquisition companies.
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BlueCrest Capital Management’s agreement to pay $170 million to settle charges that it used a trading algorithm to exploit investors is a warning that artificial intelligence (AI) can be a tool to dupe the unwary.
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Bitcoin’s recent surge is accelerating integration with established capital markets, as Coinbase makes IPO plans and market-maker B2C2 is sold to Japanese financial services firm SBI.
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Euromoney’s futurologist Mystic Maca gets on a Zoom call with next year, when markets return to a version of normality.
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The firm is pushing the idea that velocity management can drive sustainable growth for its global markets business. But will investors view this as an updated version of proprietary trading?
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The Vatican can build on its successful credit default swap exposure to Hertz and other corporates by going long a new ESG synthetic index.
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Manfred Knof starts early next year, after Martin Zielke is ousted by Cerberus. He joins recently arrived chairman Hans-Jörg Vetter.
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The chairman of UBS seems determined to force a wave of European banking consolidation. A merger of his firm with Credit Suisse may not be possible, but other deals are likely.
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The trend towards social debt issuance at the expense of green bonds poses a conundrum for firms looking to appoint credible leaders for a push into sustainable financing.
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Environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing is moving beyond a compliance-focused cancel culture, giving US banks an undeserved chance to win market share from European firms.
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Unprecedented oil volatility and gold at a record high may tempt banks back into commodity trading, but conflicts of interest with ESG goals could quickly emerge.
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Goldman Sachs chief executive David Solomon’s decision to back a rival to Democratic politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may come back to haunt him.
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A complex investment in Wirecard by Deutsche Bank veterans now working at SoftBank has effectively compounded the eventual embarrassment for Germany Inc from the failure of the online payments firm.
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BlackRock’s contract with the Federal Reserve to support the corporate bond market leaves the world’s biggest asset manager with no room for governance error.
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Investors looking to profit from – and hedge against – credit deterioration due to Covid-19 will need to pick their spots when fighting the Federal Reserve.
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Central bank corporate credit support is helping to cut debt costs for borrowers such as Netflix. A government put option won’t cure all the problems looming in the credit markets, however.
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Bank balance sheets are ballooning and regulators are just fine with that.
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Private lending vehicles that are structured to maximize fees are looking dangerously fragile, and mismarking of asset values could spark legal disputes.
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The Federal Reserve’s expanded bond buying commitment underscores that the safest hedge at the moment is a security that can be sold to a government.
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Recent years have been challenging for market doomsayers, with big equity markets steadily rising and volatility dampened across asset classes. The spread of the coronavirus and understandable fear of its impact has given a boost to professional controversialists.
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Freshly empowered European bank chairmen are making perplexing lurches as they search for new chief executives. A random CEO generator might help.
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The Federal Reserve’s current balance sheet expansion is handing trading profits to big banks.
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The investment banking co-head is proud of his RoE, while the securities team seems subdued about the task ahead.
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A no-growth decade won’t stop bankers from chasing fees and trading profits. Mystic Maca looks even further ahead.
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Elizabeth Warren is showing a unique ability to get under the skin of Wall Street leaders as the US presidential election season heats up.
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Wall Street leaders alarmed by the prospect of a populist anti-finance president such as Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders were given some hope when Michael Bloomberg declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination.
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Next year promises to be such an exciting year in banking that our resident soothsayer, Mystic Maca, couldn’t wait to share his predictions…
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SoftBank and its roughly $100 billion Vision Fund face growing questions about their use of leverage and the size of stakes built in technology-related companies.
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The fiasco of the failed IPO of WeWork has embroiled some of the most prominent figures in global finance, including SoftBank chairman Masayoshi Son and JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon.
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Bankers in Europe have discussed pooling resources across different institutions for some years, as the threat from bigger US rivals has become painfully obvious.
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The retirement of Goldman Sachs securities co-head Marty Chavez leaves trading veteran Ashok Varadhan looking isolated.
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Questions about Deutsche Bank's restructuring multiply with each tactical shift, increasing the premium placed on any areas of real success – such as its Autobahn platform.
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Deutsche employees who have recently been fired or face the axe will no doubt take comfort in the successes of fellow alumni such as Sajid Javid.
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The Bank of England and Federal Reserve begin to build the bulwarks against Facebook's cryptocurrency Libra.
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The field of contenders in the race to succeed Mark Carney as governor of the BoE is widening to include some unlikely names.
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Veteran investor Carl Icahn has filed a lawsuit accusing Occidental Petroleum chief executive Vicki Hollub of being played by Warren Buffett in accepting aggressive terms for a $10 billion financing from Berkshire Hathaway to complete an agreed bid of around $56 billion for Anadarko.
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As technology spending escalates, financiers now face a temptation to reframe costs as an investment in future growth, safe in the knowledge that it is extremely difficult to check their assertions.
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Citigroup president Jamie Forese and his Morgan Stanley counterpart, Colm Kelleher, are bowing out after contrasting quarters for their investment banks.
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Bank of America is reportedly excited about the potential of a tool it calls the Predictive Intelligence Analytics Machine, or Priam.
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Germany may conduct a strange experiment in state-sponsored investment banking if a merger between Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank proceeds.
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The news that Garth Ritchie, head of investment banking at Deutsche Bank, is being paid €250,000 a month for extra responsibility 'in connection with the implications of Brexit' has been condemned in Germany, where politicians and union leaders are preparing to oppose a potential merger with Commerzbank and associated job cuts.
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The rationale to accelerate cuts in its US investment bank is obvious, but an orderly withdrawal will be hard to execute.
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JPMorgan is trying to advance its master plan for global fintech domination with a discipline that is often lacking in a sector better known for wildly over-promising than actually delivering practical solutions.
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Bank shares have bounced back from recent lows in early 2019, but investors tempted to bet on a sustained rally risk yet another year of disappointment.
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President Donald Trump has pulled off the almost impossible task of making America’s banks look good, if not exactly great, again.
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The successor to Mario Draghi as president of the European Central Bank (ECB) may provide more support than expected to corporate credit markets if borrowing conditions deteriorate.
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As Mario Draghi begins his victory lap before stepping down as president of the ECB in October 2019 and his colleagues get down to the serious business of competing for the succession, they will no doubt give thanks that they do not face trial by Twitter in the same way as Federal Reserve chairman Jay Powell.
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Jon ‘Mystic Mac’ Macaskill looks ahead at possible highlights for markets in 2019.
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Saudi Arabia’s central bank governor recently gave international banks a clear signal that they will not be punished by a loss of fees for avoiding an investment conference in Riyadh due to public outrage over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
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Ken Moelis lived up to his nickname ‘Ken of Arabia’ when he showed up at the Saudi Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh in late October in his brave pursuit of future fee income despite the risk of international opprobrium.
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Wall Street is turning into a self-driving market, long before automation transforms the physical experience of transportation.
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Jon Macaskill profiles the two new co-heads of investment banking at UBS.
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As the 10th anniversary of the failure of Lehman Brothers arrives, I have been asked to share my reminiscences of when I realized a global credit crisis was looming and why so many senior financial figures ignored my warnings.
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Delusional clients are complicating the business of collecting fees for advising on mega trades for customers such as Saudi Aramco and Tesla.
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The smooth chief executive transition at Goldman Sachs will increase scrutiny on the potential succession to Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan.
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If JPMorgan CFO Marianne Lake becomes the banker most likely to succeed Jamie Dimon as chief executive before mysteriously deciding to pursue interests outside the group, she will be in good company.
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It is 10 years since Rajeev Misra left his position as head of credit and commodities at Deutsche Bank in a move that came a couple of months ahead of the failure of Lehman Brothers and a global financial crisis.
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Deutsche Bank’s failure of the recent Federal Reserve stress tests drew attention, but while the regulator was happy to kick the battered European bank while it is down, this was in stark contrast to its treatment of favoured home-town players Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
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Goldman Sachs delivered strong first-quarter trading results that were followed by a reorganization of the management of its securities division.
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The coming move towards a Volcker Rule 2.0 that relaxes monitoring of proprietary risk taking by bank dealing desks has been portrayed as a result of president Donald Trump’s administration finally placing its preferred officials in key regulatory positions.
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An unusual move by a US regulator threatens to widen a conflict over potential manipu-lation of Hovnanian default swaps by Blackstone’s credit arm GSO.
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If the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) does decide to weigh in on the issue of whether or not Blackstone’s trading in Hovnanian debt and default swaps constitutes market manipulation, it will revive questions about SEC chairman Jay Clayton’s ties to Goldman Sachs.
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A sale of NEX will generate close to a billion dollars for brokerage founder Spencer. Will it also bring him closer to the aristocratic title he craves?
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If Michael Spencer manages to sell NEX at a price that places a high value on its core FX and electronic bond dealing platform, he will have pulled off an impressive slow-motion brokerage trade.
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An investment of around $10 billion in shares of a reinsurance firm does not seem like an obvious move for a technology conglomerate like SoftBank, but its founder Masayoshi Son relishes any opportunity to surprise the markets.
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Outsiders struggling to make sense of the investing tactics of SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son can take some comfort: his own directors often seem just as puzzled.
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Blackstone-owned GSO Capital’s provision of financing for building firm Hovnanian, on condition that it defaults on debt in order to trigger a payout on default swaps, highlights the reputational risks for investors as they supplant banks in setting the agenda for the credit markets.
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The recent disclosure that rare wine worth more than $1.2 million was stolen from Goldman Sachs co-president David Solomon, allegedly by a personal assistant, raises questions about which other Wall Street titans may have suffered the indignity of losses they would rather not discuss.
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The search is on for masters of the bitcoin universe to rival the bond traders who appalled and fascinated the public in the 1980s.
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An important step to confer respectability on trading in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies was taken in mid December when analysts from Deutsche Bank highlighted the role played in the emerging market by male leveraged foreign exchange investors from Japan.
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Jon ‘Mystic Mac’ Macaskill looks ahead at possible highlights for markets in 2018.
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The conviction of former HSBC trader Mark Johnson for front-running a customer FX order could transform the way dealers hedge client trades – and how they communicate with each other.
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Barclays CEO Jes Staley has staked his future on the ability of four markets veterans to produce a fast turnaround in performance at the firm’s investment bank.
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The departure of SoFi founder Mike Cagney as CEO should serve as a warning against believing the hype about fintech firms without testing the self-interested assertions of their managers.
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It is a truism that technology is set to transform banking.
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Norway’s sovereign wealth fund has decided to steer clear of corporate bonds, which will help it to avoid the reputational traps that loom for some other large investors.
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Hurricanes, electric cars and pollution rules are bringing volatility back to the commodity markets.
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There was an air of mild incredulity in some quarters of the City of London when John Varley, the former CEO of Barclays, was charged with fraud alongside the bank he once headed and three ex-colleagues.
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The UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) charged Barclays and four former managers with fraud in June, alleging misconduct relating to two capital raising deals in 2008 and a loan to Qatar.
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A survey released by index provider Coalition on May 24 revealed the grim state of FX business lines.
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Following news that Barclays chief executive Jes Staley and Bank of England governor Mark Carney were fooled by spoof emails purporting to come from their chairmen, Euromoney’s Jon Macaskill has uncovered more misleading messages from the top.
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Goldman Sachs badly underperformed other US banks in first-quarter fixed income results, setting off a frenzy of speculation about trading positions that could have led to the disappointment.
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The news that former president Barack Obama has agreed to speak at a Cantor Fitzgerald healthcare conference for a fee of $400,000 raises two important questions.
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Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein seems to be on a comfortable glide path towards maximizing the value of the performance stock units that will provide most of his future compensation.
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Goldman's new incentive scheme for its top management has some curious quirks.
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SoftBank’s $3.3 billion purchase of Fortress Investment Group could mark a shift into shadow banking that is as important as its much-hyped plan for a $100 billion technology fund.
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A US federal appeals court ruling on February 21 effectively ended a legal attempt by a group of hedge funds to stop the government from collecting billions of dollars of profits made by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in recent years.
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The rally in bank stocks seen after Donald Trump’s election victory had stalled by the time of his inauguration as president on January 20. Fourth-quarter results from US banks were also announced in January, giving bank heads a chance to pitch their prospects relative to competitors.
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Blythe Masters had what seemed to be a Hillary Clinton-on-election-night moment when Digital Asset, the firm where Masters is CEO, failed to win a role in the most significant blockchain application yet announced.
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Jon 'Mystic Mac' Macaskill takes a look at the year ahead in banking and trading
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Bank stocks rallied after Trump’s victory in the US election on hopes that higher trading revenue will outweigh potential disruption to global trade. A second act for traders now beckons.
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Donald Trump vilified Wall Street during his presidential campaign in stump speeches and an advert that featured an image of Goldman Sachs CEO and chairman Lloyd Blankfein as a symbol of the “corrupt machine” that needed to be overthrown.
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A recent $17.5 billion bond issue by Saudi Arabia was hailed as a resounding success by capital market participants who have a strong interest in further fundraising by the kingdom, including an expected IPO of Saudi Aramco that could break records with a size around $100 billion.
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It seems $100 billion is the new benchmark fundraising target for firms looking to make an impact.
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Deutsche Bank and Wells Fargo should make clawbacks of executive compensation a priority as they try to manage crises that threaten their viability.
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It has been over a month since Eric Ben-Artzi publicly declined his half share of a whistleblower award of $16.5 million for telling regulators about Deutsche Bank’s inflation of the value of a $98 billion credit derivatives portfolio during the financial crisis.
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Goldman Sachs almost certainly made a good investment when it paid Hillary Clinton $675,000 for three speeches.
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Unlike the contrarian investors who would welcome some creative disruption to market certainties, most bankers seem to fear the turmoil that could well follow an election victory for Donald Trump.
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The case against two HSBC employees for front-running a foreign exchange order from a client could hasten the death of the principal model for FICC trading by banks. A shift to an advisory-based approach is possible, but banks will struggle to make up lost revenue.
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When HSBC’s former head of global FX cash trading Mark Johnson learned that he had a window of just over 30 minutes to move the sterling exchange rate and profit from an approaching client trade, he said: “Ohhh f***ing Christmas,” according to US prosecutors.
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Traders claiming to have profited from the Brexit vote were slow to identify themselves in the wake of the historic decision for the UK to leave the European Union.
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Brexit will deal a mighty blow to the international and diverse City of London that has thrived for 30 years – but investment banks have bigger worries than the location of their EU offices.
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SoFi is becoming increasingly reliant on former Deutsche Bank staff as it seeks to expand the use of complex financing structures to fuel growth in its loan sales.
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Cheerleaders for marketplace lending took comfort from two events in late May that seemed to signal a potential recovery in a sector that had been rocked by the near failure of Lending Club, the leading listed specialist in online lending.
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As Goldman Sachs released the worst first quarter results by a leading US dealer in April, it placed a video discussion with Game of Thrones co-creator David Benioff in prime position on its corporate website.
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Goldman Sachs had a logical, humdrum reason to acquire $16 billion of deposits from GE Capital to boost its fledgling online retail operation, GS Bank.
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A botched move to take the distressed credit out of Credit Suisse and an ‘acceleration’ of the strategic plan give the impression the bank’s new leader is making it up as he goes along.
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The European Central Bank’s announcement that it will extend its debt purchases to corporate bonds has given a boost to the region’s investment banks.
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Deutsche Bank’s co-chief executive John Cryan may find the bonus obsession of his investment bankers hard to understand. He will need to keep them motivated if he is to have any chance of pulling off a hugely challenging turnaround plan for the bank, however.
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Deutsche Bank’s co-CEO John Cryan should follow the playbook of Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters and mount a public campaign to claw back bonuses from former managers.
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The Basel Committee on Bank Supervision released long-awaited guidance on a new capital regime for market risk in January. It did not, however, solve the mystery of which bank was the outlier in a study of the potential effect of a change in trading risk evaluation.
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The film of The Big Short provides a welcome reminder of the glory days of Morgan Stanley’s fixed income franchise, when Howie Hubler managed to lose $9 billion on botched structured credit tranche trades.
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The European Central Bank meeting in December provided a reminder that it is tough to make predictions – especially about the future. Goldman Sachs’s chief currency strategist Robin Brooks was forced to admit that he had dropped his crystal ball on his foot in predicting euro parity to the dollar by year-end and revised his forecasts for 2016 before 2015 was out. Undeterred, Euromoney’s Jon Macaskill makes his own predictions for the coming year in investment banking.
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European Central Bank president Mario Draghi has been dropping further hints that he is considering unconventional measures to combat deflationary pressures in the region. This sets the stage for potential central bank buying of European corporate bonds, which in turn raises the question of whether there will be opportunities for nimble investors to game a new ‘Draghi Put’ for corporate credit.
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Jes Staley can add an entry to his ‘to-do’ list for December 1, his first day as CEO of Barclays: send all staff an email about how to send emails.
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Deutsche Bank co-CEO John Cryan took a clear-headed approach to most of his management overhaul in October. There are unresolved issues in the global markets unit that remains the bank’s revenue engine as well as the source of most of its reputational problems, however.
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Jon Macaskill imagines how the star fund manager ruminates over his legal assault on his former Pimco colleagues.
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UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti may just have ‘Done a Diamond’ with his widely reported message to bankers at the firm that they should take more risk and not be afraid to make mistakes.
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China’s struggle to communicate effectively with markets was demonstrated by its scapegoating of journalists for supposedly worsening the crash in local stock prices.
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The return of market volatility in late August put a focus on asset managers, with investment banks for once ceding the spotlight during a period of turmoil. There will surely be some bank trading mishaps, but the main threat to revenues is likely to come from diminished demand for investment products rather than dealing room blow-ups.
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The dismissal of Martin Wheatley, head of the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, by Chancellor George Osborne was widely interpreted as a step towards less intrusive regulation of the financial industry
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A scathing report by German regulator BaFin on interest rate rigging by Deutsche Bank will no doubt give any potential employer of former co-CEO Anshu Jain pause for thought.
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Deutsche Bank’s failure to acknowledge the enormity of the change it needs to return to health was demonstrated by the strange spin it gave to the departure of co-CEO Anshu Jain.
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It is now a mark of the serious individual in finance to issue a dire warning about the threat posed by a lack of market liquidity. What climate change is to the young liberal (or young person), so liquidity has become to the ageing plutocrat, secure perhaps in his own billions, but with a furrowed brow as he contemplates the potential havoc that could be wreaked by diminished liquidity.
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If the movie version of The Big Short does prove successful, it could spur the commissioning of other banking-themed films.
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There was virtual dancing on Wall Street after investment banks unveiled their first quarter results.
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A series of reports by regulators around the German bank’s $2.5 billion fine raise more questions than answers, while serving up embarrassment to remaining senior management.
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Bill Winters has some big decisions to mull while he prepares to start his new job as Standard Chartered chief executive.
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Soon after Bill Winters was appointed CEO of Standard Chartered, his highest-profile protégé from their shared days at JPMorgan also announced a new job.
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CEO Stuart Gulliver helpfully explains HSBC’s former practice of using a Swiss bank account in the name of a Panama registered corporation to take bonus payments for the Hong Kong bank.
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Before revelations about HSBC’s private bank, its chairman and CEO were seen as a winning combination. As the fallout becomes increasingly political, could their relationship be coming under threat?
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Is Deutsche Bank contemplating a secret Götterdämmerung trade that would hive off sections of its investment bank and offer senior executives an escape route?
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New COO Jonathan Moulds will bring a straightforward and sensible approach to the challenges facing Barclays. Will he end up pulling the strings more than CEO Antony Jenkins?
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When JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon delivered the welcome news to employees that he had been given the all clear after a recent bout of throat cancer, senior managers in attendance rose to applaud.
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Confusion around US insider trading laws has led to a series of recent reverses of insider trading convictions. Perhaps US authorities should look across the Atlantic for inspiration.
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The main charge against Goldman Sachs by the US Senate committee investigating commodity market practices was that the bank effectively controlled actions by its metals warehouse subsidiary, Metro International, that created a bottleneck in aluminum supply, and that Goldman could have profited from associated trades in its securities arm.
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Paul Simon sang that there are 50 ways to leave your lover, and Goldman Sachs has reminded us that there are just as many ways to sneak a trade through, even when conflicts of interest threaten to drag your reputation back into the mud.
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Blackstone and Pimco are talking a good fight when it comes to possible credit market dislocation. The widening in high-yield debt spreads that accompanied a bout of panic in global equity markets in mid October prompted displays of bravado from the investment firms.
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Jon Macaskill imagines how the star fund manager might have recorded the reasons behind his shock move from Pimco to Janus Capital. Item one: update his enemy list.
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Banking industry analysts are not to be deterred in their quest to quantify the unquantifiable. The new philosopher’s stone for the modern day alchemists of analysis is finding a way to estimate the size and impact of future fines for misconduct by banks. This may not be quite as challenging as transmuting base metal into gold, but it presents difficulties nonetheless.
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The aftermath of a £250m accounting scandal that led to a £2bn drop in the value of its shares might not seem like the best time for UK retailer Tesco to think about ramping up its activity in banking.
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It’s hard out there for a short, even with a multi-year credit and equity rally looking increasingly fatigued.
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Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman’s desperate attempt to push down the stock of nutritional supplement provider Herbalife provides the highest profile recent example of the challenges faced by short sellers.