A few weeks ago, I did a blog post questioning whether the mega-profitable, much-hated investment bank Goldman Sachs really methodically set about putting together mortgage-backed securities that would fail. I pointed to a Michael Lewis endorsed college thesis that seemed to suggest Goldman’s mortgage CDOs had actually done better than …
–It’s Springtime for financials. Bank of America continues the good news for banks. Profits bloomed to a tune of $3.2 billion in the first quarter. That handily beat analysts expectations. Goldman and the rest report next week.
–The so-called Volcker Rule has been gaining some traction recently. It’s in the Senate bill and has gained …
Today is Tax Day, so cue the inevitable griping. One story making the rounds is that nearly half of all America’s don’t pay taxes. This is silly stuff. The magazine I used to work for MONEY examined the suppossed free-tax rider issue nearly two years ago and found this: Yes, there are 50 million people who pay nearly no income taxes each …
–Stuart Schweitzer, a JP Morgan strategist, was in earlier in the week making the case that the recovery could be better than expected because of the recent quick dip in new jobless claims, effectively dubbing this the jobless-less recovery. Well that argument seems a little compelling this morning. The government is out with new data …
Jason Zweig, my former office neighbor at MONEY and one of the best journalists I have ever worked with, uncovered a great tidbit about one of the major players in Washington’s financial reform debate: Republican Congressman Spencer Bachus is actually the E-Trade Baby, or at the very least a close relative.
Bachus?
E-Trade Baby?
–There has been a lot of talk about how banks can’t repeat last year’s trading infused earnings gains. JP Morgan proves them wrong this morning, reporting that it earned $3.3 billion in the first quarter, up an amazing 55% from a year ago. Bank earnings season continues on Friday with Bank of America.
Wall Street, it appears, likes tragedy. The worst U.S. coal accident since 1984, in which 25 workers were killed in a mine explosion, not to mention 150 miners that were trapped in China, turned out to be not such a bad week for the shares of companies that explore for black gold. In general most of the stocks of miners were up slightly …
Early on, it seemed that Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, was willing at least in part to take the heat for the financial crisis. He didn’t regulate banks more because he assumed bankers would act in their and their firm’s best long-term interest and not just do what would provide them the best shot at an eight …
The Wall Street Journal has a story today pointing out another long-term problem of high unemployment: it affects not just the finances of the unemployed, but potentially can reduce the future earnings power of their children as well. If Mom and Dad don’t have a job, then they can’t save for college. If they can’t save for college, …
Back in December, the New York Times ran a story about Goldman and some collateralized debt obligations they underwrote. Turns out the CDOs, which were constructed by pooling together other bonds, performed badly. Really, really badly. The thrust of the Times piece was that Goldman routinely created CDOs with the worst mortgage bonds it …
The head of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, Phil Angelides, stopped by the office this morning. I think the idea of this commission is a very good thing. I continue to feel that something wrong happened in the run up to the financial crisis that was not just the result of a group miss-think but actual bad actors, and without a …
Senator Chris Dodd, the head of the Senate Banking Committee, is out this afternoon with his proposal for an overhaul of financial regulation. The big headline is that the bill gives more power to the Federal Reserve–a lot more. There was a time in the months following the financial crisis where there seemed to be a strong movement from …
