Everyone expects UBS, the Royal Bank of Scotland and several others to face some sort of sanction. But we’ve been hearing about imminent charges for months now, with nothing to show for it.

I touched on this before, but this New York Times piece exposing the next bubble, the bulk purchase of foreclosed homes by private equity firms and hedge funds for rental units, is really critical. Basically the same people who were present at the creation of the original bubble are driving the boat in this second [...]

The Wall Street Journal reports that the White House will finally nominate a successor to Ed DeMarco at the Federal Housing Finance Agency for the first time since January 2011, incredibly enough. The FHFA’s current director, Edward DeMarco, took the job more than three years ago in an “acting,” or interim, capacity. He has remained [...]

It goes without saying that you should not weep for the banking industry. In the years following a Great Recession they caused, they still manage to churn out record profits. This is the 13th straight quarterly rise in profits for financial institutions. The industry’s third-quarter earnings jumped 6.6% from the same period in 2011, to [...]

On both sides of the Capitol, there was news on the committee that holds oversight responsibilities over Wall Street today. In addition to Elizabeth Warren getting her spot on the Senate Banking Committee, Maxine Waters assumed the spot of ranking member on the House Financial Services Committee. Here’s her statement: I am deeply humbled to [...]

A new study confirms that high frequency trading, which already has declined in terms of its yield if not its use, endangers investors and basically turns stock markets into automated casinos where the average Joe can do little but get hurt. The chief economist at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Andrei Kirilenko, reports in a [...]

It will be a welcome sight to see an actual cross-examiner in committee hearings, to see Wall Street executives actually grilled by at least one member rather than the love-fests we normally see. Warren has stated that she envisions the Senate as a platform to highlight her views. I can’t think of a better foundation for that platform than the Banking Committee.

It has taken many years, but we might see one Wall Street trader investigated for malfeasance. Glenn Hadden, a former partner at Goldman Sachs now on the trading desks at Morgan Stanley, faces an inquiry into his practices at Goldman. Specifically, regulators at the CME Group, which runs commodity and futures exchanges, are investigating whether [...]

Ryan Grim has some backstory on the White House’s aggressive opening bid last night. It turns out that President Obama offered this same deal to Republicans earlier this month at the White House. Republicans expected that Tim Geithner would bring a softer offer with him, part of the trend verified by recent history of the [...]

Adding to the spate of delays on finalizing rules from the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, the final Volcker rule will probably not get finished until 2013. This is at least six months past due, as the original law called for a final Volcker rule in July. Five separate government agencies – the FDIC, the Federal [...]

Mary Miller, a Treasury Department official seen as the expected pick for the next head of the SEC, dropped out of contention yesterday, leaving an unclear path forward. Elisse Walter, who was designated as the new chair, replacing the departing Mary Schapiro, is seen as a stopgap pick. But her elevation to the top slot [...]