Jitters over a possible U.S.-led military strike against the Syrian government knocked Asian equities to a seven-week low on Wednesday and pushed oil prices and safe-haven gold to multi-month highs. An acute ‘risk-off’ mode also boosted the appeal of the Japanese yen, which held near a one-week high against the dollar and euro after having posted its biggest rally in more than two months. Washington and its […]
A programming error at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. caused unintended stock-option orders to flood American exchanges this morning, roiling markets and shaking confidence in electronic trading infrastructure. An internal system that Goldman Sachs uses to help prepare to meet market demand for equity options inadvertently produced orders with inaccurate price limits and sent them to exchanges, said a person familiar with the situation, who asked not to […]
(Reuters) – A federal judge has endorsed a broad interpretation of a savings-and-loan era law that the Justice Department is trying to use in cases against Wall Street banks. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan said Monday that a “straightforward application of the plain words” of the Financial Institutional Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act (FIRREA) allowed the interpretation sought by the government. The law has a […]
Merrill Lynch & Co., the 99-year-old firm known for its “thundering herd” of brokers pitching stocks to Main Street, may cease to exist as a legal entity more than four years after being acquired by Bank of America Corp. While Bank of America will keep the Merrill Lynch brand for its retail brokerage and investment bank, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based company plans to dissolve the subsidiary as […]
By Asa Fitch As Dubai’s economy rebounds, the number of commercial disputes in one of its main courts appears to be waning, too. Perhaps taking a cue from rising real estate prices and an influx of tourists, lawyers say many people are trying to settle their differences and move on. The courts of the Dubai International Financial Centre, Dubai’s main financial free zone, have seen just nine […]
By Gerald Al Fil While the comeback of stock market rallies investment banking, the Shari’ah-compliant industry faces its toughest test since it entered its boom phase a decade ago. I got puzzled when I received a tweet from @Worldmuslimnews on May 11 saying “Islamic finance is out”. Are issuances of Islamic bonds (sukuk) not going through the roof as we can read day by day? Could first […]
Wells Fargo reported its 10th consecutive quarter of earnings growth as a result of a booming business originating and refinancing mortgages. The bank’s second-quarter profit was a record $4.6 billion, a 17 percent rise from the $3.9 billion profit it reported a year earlier. The San Francisco-based company earned 82 cents a share, above the 81 cents expected by the analysts polled by SNL Financial. Wells has […]
“This has shaken our company to the core,” CEO Jamie Dimon said. The bank said managers tied to the bad trade had been dismissed without severance pay and that it planned to revoke two years’ worth of pay from each of those executives. JPMorgan said it had lost $US4.4 billion because of the trade from April through June, and its chief financial officer said the bank had […]
