FINANCIAL News, Money, Banks, Economic and Financial Crisis, Feb 07, 2012

Watchdogs to drag shadow banks into the light Reuters By Douwe Miedema | LONDON (Reuters) - Beyond the reach of regulators, and about half the size of the world's banking industry, a thriving breed of "shadow banks" is emerging that could trigger the next chapter in the globalfinancial crisis. See all stories on this topic »

Debt crisis and Greek debt talks: as it happened February 6, 2012 Telegraph.co.uk Log on to our financial crisis page for more. We'll be back tomorrow. • German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have insisted that Greece will not receive any more bail-out money unless it pushes through further austerity ... See all stories on this topic » Telegraph.co.uk

Latvia Emerges Stronger As International Support Winds Down International Monetary Fund When Latvia asked for financial support from the IMF and the European Union in December 2008, it was one of the first countries to suffer the full consequences of the global economic crisis. Its decision to keep its currency pegged to the euro meant it ... See all stories on this topic »

Our banks: too big to fail, too few to be competitive ABC Online Prior to the global financial crisis, Australia had a diverse and highly competitive financial system. The four major banks went head-to-head with the likes of St. George, BankWest, BendigoBank, Aussie, Adelaide Bank, RAMS, Wizard, and Challenger. See all stories on this topic » ABC Online

Labor cannot deliver on promises: Hockey ABC Online EMMA ALBERICI: Of course, international observers say it was the right thing to do - as it was all over the world during the global financial crisis - to pour money into the economy, and therefore borrow money to do so? JOE HOCKEY: Well, what we've ... See all stories on this topic »

California not among states that OK bank settlement Los Angeles Times Kamala D. Harris wants to make sure that financial restitution for homeowners goes to those hit hardest by the crisis. (Luis Sinco, Los Angeles Times / December 6, 2011) By Alejandro Lazo and Jim Puzzanghera, Los Angeles Times More than 40 states ... See all stories on this topic » Los Angeles Times

IMF Urges Beijing to Prepare Stimulus Wall Street Journal China used a four trillion yuan, or about $635 billion, stimulus package in 2008 to help blunt the impact of the financial crisis, in large part throughbank lending. Economists now worry China's response to new economicthreats could be hobbled if a ... See all stories on this topic »

Emerging Asia next? Frontline It is also close to five years since the disclosure by the investment-banking firm Bear Stearns that two of its subprime mortgage-linked funds were worthless, which signalled the onset of the financial crisis. Yet the global economy has not emerged out ... See all stories on this topic » Frontline

Financial Crisis American Gridlock, Why The “Left” And The “Right” Are Both Wrong The Market Oracle The Four Origins of the 2008 Financial Crisis: Figure 1 offers a summary of the four principal sources of the Global Financial Crisis. The contents of theboxes should be intuitively clear, with the exception of the first box: PoorEconomic Theory. See all stories on this topic »

MONEY MARKETS-UK banks left in cold after ECB cash injection Reuters "The credit market is on fire for non-financial corporates, and banks in Europe have benefited from the (ECB money) pushing front-end yields lower," said Societe Generale rate strategist Suki Mann. "That's helping make the cost of issuance more ... See all stories on this topic »

Bernanke's testimony on economy to Senate panel Reuters But I would agree that if there is a very substantial crisis or similar problem in Europe that, because there are so many channels in which that would flow to the financial system, our banks, our whole financial system would still be significantly ... See all stories on this topic »

Japanese banking, a culture shock The Guardian (blog) I don't hide from people that I work in a bank," adding: "We don't have Occupy tents in Tokyo. When there are demonstrations they are anti-nuclear, not anti-finance, at least for now. Thefinancial crisis had affected Japanese banks in a markedly ... See all stories on this topic » The Guardian (blog)

Far From Wall Street, Banks Are Being Punished For Misdeeds Huffington Post A former bank president faces 15 years behind bars after being found criminally responsible for fraud that "contributed to the financial crisis." One of the world's most-admired banks is accused of forcing California state pension funds to cover its ... See all stories on this topic »

It's bonus time - and the knives are out New Zealand Herald "What did they do with all this money? The short answer is, they passed it around within the financial system," he says. Williams believes these bumper payouts distort the traditional role of the shareholder-owned firm, which is meant to distribute ... See all stories on this topic »

No New Year relief for borrowers as RBA keeps rates on hold NEWS.com.au The move defied expectations of a third consecutive cut, with 13 of 14 leading economists surveyed by AAP forecasting that the central bank board would lower rates. ANZ was the only major financial institution to predict the RBA would stay on the... See all stories on this topic » NEWS.com.au

Russian Subsidies Are Not Enough: Belarus Seeks a New IMF Loan Belarus Digest Finance minister Andrey Kharkovec thinks that amount of an IMF loan will depend on the Belarusian trade balance. Whereas traditionally it was the most negative parameter of the Belarusian economy, this year the NationalBank estimates the first trade ... See all stories on this topic »

Fed's QE Crisis Programs: A Visual History Wall Street Journal (blog) Nomura argue that Treasury bond yields won't rise as much as they did during the first and second rounds of Fed programs in which the centralbank creates money and uses it to buy bonds in the financial markets. We think the Fed successfully managed to ... See all stories on this topic »

UBS Posts 76% Drop in Quarterly Profit, Investment Bank Loss San Francisco Chronicle The bank said concerns about the crisis and the global economic outlook are "likely" to affect revenues this quarter as well. "They basically gave a profit warning for the first quarter," said Dirk Becker, a Frankfurt-based analyst at Kepler Capital ... See all stories on this topic »

Hating bankers a global sport The Australian IT was inevitable that life would not be very comfortable for bankers in the aftermath of the 2008-2009 financial crisis. However, what was unexpected was that the normal distrust towards the banking industry would become so unrestrained. See all stories on this topic »

Irish Urge Children to Leave as Export Gain Masks Lost Jobs San Francisco Chronicle See {EXT4 } for more on euro-area financial crisis.) Feb. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Anthony Roche is urging his unemployed son to emigrate to Australia from Ireland to escape joblessness stemming from the country's economiccollapse. "I've seen the good times ... See all stories on this topic »

Working with Washington Consensus DAWN.com The state in Pakistan is currently functioning in the sphere ofeconomics which reflects to some considerable extent an approach that was developed by policy thinkers working in several development and financial institutions based in Washington. See all stories on this topic » DAWN.com

Europe's Banks Reluctant to Lend to Companies in Need of Cash New York Times Because banks are reluctant to lend, the fear is that companies will not be able to borrow the cash they need and will be forced to take drastic action, further weighing on the economy. “There's a lack of business confidence across Europe” said ... See all stories on this topic » New York Times

Why Germany Isn't Benefiting from Euro's Woes Spiegel Online That's partly because he sees German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble as a secret beneficiary of the euro crisis. Germany, says Monti, benefits more from the euro than others. Even German experts are convinced that Germany is profiting as a result of ... See all stories on this topic » Spiegel Online

The JSE is a distorted indicator Moneyweb.co.za A related disconnect is how SA can be recognised as having the world's second most well managed banks and generally very impressive financialservices yet one of the highest and most incorrigible rates of unemployment. The explanation offered here is ... See all stories on this topic »

Wall St edges up as Greece draws up bailout terms | Reuters An improving technical picture for equities, reasonable earnings, bettereconomic data and optimism over Europe's debt crisis were all boosting stocks, said Marc Pado, US market strategist at DowBull.com in SanFrancisco. "Lots of little positives add ... See all stories on this topic »

Resolving The Crisis: Remembering What Makes Us Great Seeking Alpha It is worthwhile to dissect what's going on around the world to understand the true risks associated not only with the situation in Europe currently fixated on Greece but also the financial crisis that has been ongoing over the last several years. See all stories on this topic »

Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks set for a shake up FT Adviser Read more Financial Adviser is the premier weekly financialservices newspaper for the UK's IFA community. An insightful weekly newspaper for investment professionals, delivering the highest quality of analysis. Money Management is the professional's ... See all stories on this topic » FT Adviser

Lukashenko Orders Central Bank to Stop Printing Money RIA Novosti Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has ordered the National Bankto stop printing money in a bid to keep the country's finances stable after last year's inflation crisis, RBC Daily reported on Tuesday. “We should not in any way print money. See all stories on this topic »

World economy's uncharted territory Daily Herald "Thirty years ago, if you'd said that the United States and Europe were going to be the centers of financial crises, people would have thought you were crazy," says economist Fred Bergsten. The unforeseen is now routine. Profound changes to the global ... See all stories on this topic »

The European Stability Mechanism Is Ready but It Is not Enough Cause and Effect in European Politics and Economy The fund will start functioning from July 2012 and will be able to provide loans to its members, precautionary financialassistance, to purchase sovereign bonds and provide loans for recapitalisation of financial institutions. The recent amendments to ... See all stories on this topic » Cause and Effect in European Politics and Economy

Sarkozy Trade Helps French Bond Returns Outstrip Bunds, Gilts: Euro Credit Bloomberg They made 0.2 percent on Treasuries and lost 0.5 percent on German bunds, according to indexes compiled by Bloomberg and the European Federation of Financial Analysts Societies. The European Central Bank'sunprecedented 489 billion euros ($638 billion) ... See all stories on this topic »

IMF resources: quota, NAB and GAB Bretton Woods Update The NAB was first agreed in 1997 between the IMF and 25 high-income IMFmember countries. In 2009, in response to the financial crisis, it was expanded from the 26 countries participating at the time, who had pledged about $52 billion, ... See all stories on this topic »

World watches as China economic leaders take stage Reuters "But once they have gone through cementing their political position and once the external environment improves, I expect the new leadership will push forward much more aggressively with domestic reforms, including financialsector reforms, ... See all stories on this topic »

China Credit Cards, Danish Bad Loans Accounts, Smith & Nephews: Compliance Bloomberg Compliance Policy Danish FSA Proposes Tougher Rules for Writedowns onBank Loans Denmark's financial regulator is proposing banks follow stricter rules on how they report bad loans in their accounts. “The central part of the proposal is that loans to ... See all stories on this topic »

Popa Says Vienna II Initiative to Focus on Banking Groups Bloomberg The Vienna Initiative group of regulators and policy makers plan to hold talks in March with the banks over a new accord as they try to shield economicgrowth in eastern Europe against contagion from the euro area's deepening debt crisis, according to ... See all stories on this topic »

Tail-Risk Hedges on Volatility Lure Money Even After Stocks' January Surge Bloomberg Low Volume Investors have been looking to hedge against so-called tail-risk or black-swan events, battered by the financial crisis of 2008 and 2011's Middle East unrest, sovereign-debtcrisis and Japanese earthquake. The fund sellers say that unlike ... See all stories on this topic » Bloomberg

Editorial: Help underwater homeowners who are responsible USA TODAY The $5 billion to $10 billion cost — essentially loan reserves to cover the risk to the FHA — would come from a fee on the largest banks and financial institutions. Most of these institutions got government assistance during the financial crisis, ... See all stories on this topic » USA TODAY

UK Stocks-Factors to watch on Tues Feb 7 Reuters | LONDON Feb 7 (Reuters) - Britain's FTSE 100 index is seen opening down 2-6 points, or 0.1 percent on Tuesday, according to financial bookmakers, extending Monday's modest declines in tandem with similar weakness on Wall Street and in Asia as concerns ... See all stories on this topic »

Financial Services Legislative And Regulatory Update -- February 6, 2012 JD Supra (press release) Other Senators also expressed concerns about how the CFPB was regulating prepaid card practices, payday lenders, financial literacy and the recent remittance rule. Although there had been rumors of a Republican boycott, on the whole, the controversial ... See all stories on this topic »

Top Spanish banks book €6 billion on bad loans RTE.ie Of that sum, some €1.812 billion was for property assets in Spain, a country hammered by the twin blows of a global financial crisis and the 2008 housing bubble collapse. The extra €2.3 billion will come from 2012 profits, including €900m from the sale ... See all stories on this topic »

Feeling the sting of sanctions Philadelphia Inquirer TEHRAN, Iran - A trip to the store in Iran these days offers a crash course in life under Western economic sanctions. The prices of many imported goods - from South Korean refrigerators to Turkish crackers - can be double what they were last year. See all stories on this topic »

Long live mutual funds Financial Post Demand for investment products of virtually all stripes is rapidly expanding as Canadians increasingly take charge of their futurefinancial security in response to the decline in employer-sponsored defined-benefit pension plans. See all stories on this topic » Financial Post

JPMorgan, Smith & Nephew, Dresdner, GE Capital, Fidelity in Court News Bloomberg Mark Rodgers, a spokesman for New York-based Citigroup; Tom Goyda of San Francisco-based Wells Fargo; Tom Kelly, a spokesman at New York-based JPMorgan; and Gina Proia of Detroit-based Ally Financial declined to comment on the settlement condition. See all stories on this topic »

Wedbush Research Dominates Barron's-Zacks 2011 Top Stock Pickers Business Wire (press release) LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Wedbush Securities, one of the nation's leading financial services and equity research providers, has been ranked the top stock picking firm in three out of four categories of the semi-annual Barron's-Zacks ranking of Wall ... See all stories on this topic »

MAS head on how countries can ward off financial crises >> ASIAONE / BUSINESS / NEWS / MY MONEY / STORY ... SINGAPORE - The head of Singapore's central bank has outlined a three- pronged defence... The final buffer is in the form of multilateral support through theInternational Monetary Fund (IMF). ... would go a long way to prevent anyeconomic crisis from escalating. business.asiaone.com/.../A1Story20120201-325273.html

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