This video offers advice for you on when to lock in low interest rates and pay off credit card debt. Questions: 1. Why does the bond market have so much affect on your life? 2. Why would you want to be as aggressive as you can to pay down credit card debt? 3. Why are… Read more »
Posts Tagged: Financial instruments
Who is the most Indebted Man in the World?
The answer is that man is Former Société Générale rogue trader Jérôme Kerviel, who owes the bank $6.3 billion. His case tells us a lot about financial reform. Questions: 1. According to the article, how exactly do you carry out €50 billion (or about $73 billion) of unauthorized trades? (Focus on the controls mentioned.) 2…. Read more »
The Volcker Rule
Regulators released a proposal on Oct. 11 known as the Volcker Rule, which is aimed at overhauling how the banking industry carries out its trading activity. The proposal, spanning about 300 pages, includes provisions that scrutinize how banks collect revenue, award compensation and track their compliance with the Volcker Rule. According to financial industry lawyers and lobbyists these will challenge… Read more »
Mortgage Buybacks
Mortgage Buybacks According to Standard & Poor’s, the top U.S. banks could face up to $31 billion in losses from buying back bad mortgages. Bank of America Corp and JPMorgan Chase & Co have the most exposure to such potential repurchase obligations, followed by Wells Fargo & Co, Citigroup Inc, US Bancorp and PNC Financial… Read more »
Citibank under the Microscope
The SEC has probed certain Citigroup Inc debt funds to assess whether the bank made adequate disclosure to investors about the funds’ risk levels. Three California-based brokers, who worked for the then Citigroup unit Smith Barney, concluded the bank did not adequately disclose the funds’ risks and had also mismanaged them, the newspaper said, citing… Read more »
Hiding The Truth?
Jane Buchan is a rarity on Wall Street. Not only has she built a hugely successful hedge fund investment firm but the firm is also the only one that is, on paper, owned and run by women. Unfortunately, it now appears that the firm Pacific Alternative Asset Management Company (PAAMCO) was bankrolled by some of… Read more »
Put Me First In Line
Former Denver Broncos quarterback John Elway and his business partner gave $15 million to a hedge-fund manager now accused of running a Ponzi scheme. In court papers filed by Elway and Mitch Pierce the two claim that their investment was supposed to be kept in a separate account from Mueller’s Over Under Fund. Therefore, the… Read more »
The Fabulous Fab is Back in the News
Fabrice Tourre, a controversial personality in the Goldman Sachs Group Inc transaction of 2007, asked a judge to throw out a U.S. regulator’s fraud lawsuit against him. About two and a half months ago, the bank settled its part of the case for $550 million. In his filing, Tourre asked that the U.S. Securities and… Read more »
What a Tale!
During the boom, Wachovia banker Robert Verrone made money by slicing and dicing billions of dollars in commercial real estate loans. After the crash, he made money by restructuring those loans before they blew up. As Wachovia’s No. 1 underwriter of securitized commercial real estate debt between 2002 and 2007, Verrone resigned just months before… Read more »
Bank of America: It Depends On How You Define Materiality
Bank of America incorrectly classified as much as $10.7 billion in short-term lending and repurchase deals for mortgage securities as sales. This claim surfaced in a May 13 letter to the SEC where the banking corporation alleges that the transactions were immaterial and that it would be beefing up its internal accounting controls. This letter… Read more »