Finding a brokerage is a major part of a rookie investor’s path to investing. Brokerage options may come from advertisements, online research or word-of-mouth. One of those options may turn out to be your bank, but it may not be the best place to start building your investment portfolio.
Read »
People’s United Bank, which operates in six states in the Northeast, will eliminate a staggering 15 branches this year, in an effort to trim the fat after a series of acquisitions, reports the Boston Globe. Could this be a sign of things to come for regional banks?
Read »
Barack Obama will deliver his third State of the Union address tonight, with the Republican presidential primaries steadily gaining speed in the background. Rumor has it, the President will be touting an upcoming settlement against big banks in his speech, which aims to keep American in their homes, and give the housing market the help
Read »
Earnings season started out on an interesting note Tuesday, as Wells Fargo reported record profits and Citibank reported rather anemic earnings. Perhaps Citi has something it can learn from Wells. Starting with the bad news, Citibank underperformed in the last quarter. Citi reported $1.2 billion in earnings in the fourth quarter of 2011, down from
Read »
Earnings season is upon us, the time when corporations must take stock of all that took place over the past calendar year, and when all is tallied up, decide whether it was a good year or a bad one. From these calculations, they must make plans for the next year: promises to their shareholders that
Read »
Shadow banking, beware: your days in the shadows might soon be coming to an end. The Financial Stability Board, the Switzerland-based regulatory body created by the G-20, is considering expanding its definition of ‘too-big-to-fail’ beyond just massive banks. Meanwhile, Citibank’s CEO penned an op-ed for the Financial Times suggesting a different market-based method whereby financial
Read »
President Barack Obama’s administration is in flux this week as his second chief of staff, Bill Daley, is stepping down, to be replaced by Jacob “Jack” Lew, former Office of Management and Budget director. Apparently, Lew is better liked by Congressional Democrats than Daley is, or was, making him a popular enough pick, but Lew
Read »
A new story on American Banker highlights the problems inherent to Durbin amendment enforcement: the apparent opacity with which payments networks conduct their business. According to the story, banks need more data from payments networks to even understand whether they are complying with Durbin or not. What this gets back to is the confusing world
Read »
With the New Hampshire primaries almost upon him, the Republican contender who has staked his candidacy’s future on the outcome of the contest, Jon Huntsman, penned an op-ed for Fox News outlining his position on Too Big to Fail institutions. Like most of Huntsman’s policy proposals, this is actually novel and smart, but no one
Read »
It’s never easy returning to work after New Year’s. Conventional wisdom has it that your first day back at work after the new year is the most depressing day of the year. If you think you had a rough week, think again. You probably don’t work for Bank of America’s PR division, and they had
Read »