Wall Street news stories on Newser

Facebook IPO Ends Flat: Right Back at $38

John Johnson — Fri, 18 May 2012 15:15:43 CDT

Facebook's big day is over, though its IPO didn't meet Wall Street's expectations. Some highlights: Rise and fall: Shares opened at $38, rose quickly to $42, then sank again to $38 before underwriters stepped in to keep the price up, reports the Wall Street Journal . Shares closed about where they...

Heads Roll at JPMorgan Over $2B Trade Loss

Neal Colgrass — Mon, 14 May 2012 08:34:40 CDT

JPMorgan's disastrous $2 billion trading loss has officially claimed its first casualty. Chief Investment Officer Ina R. Drew, a 30-year veteran of JPMorgan and one of Wall Street's most prominent women, retired today, the AP reports. Drew was responsible for overseeing the disastrous trades. Executives say she ordered them to...

Why Obama Won't Nail Wall Street 'Crooks'

Neal Colgrass — Mon, 07 May 2012 17:34:51 CDT

With President Obama's campaign officially underway , two journalists examine why his promise to end "business as usual" on Wall Street has amounted to more, well, business as usual on Wall Street. "Casting Romney as a plutocrat will be easy enough," write Peter Boyer and Peter Schweizer at the Daily Beast...

Bank of America Laying Off Elite Bankers

Kevin Spak — Tue, 01 May 2012 09:52:00 CDT

Bank of America plans to lay off 2,000 of its highest paid employees in its investment banking, commercial banking, and non-US wealth management units, sources tell the Wall Street Journal . Those operations just happen to be the ones that expanded with BofA's acquisition of Merrill Lynch, which has been...

Wall Street to Slash 21K Jobs

Kevin Spak — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 07:51:10 CDT

Wall Street's job creators aren't exactly living up to that billing. The market is soaring, and so are bank profits, but financial firms are preparing for a massive round of layoffs, analysts tell Fortune , estimating that the banks will cut nearly 21,000 jobs. That would be a bloodbath on...

Obama Just Legalized Fraud

Kevin Spak — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 09:12:46 CDT

Did you enjoy the dot-com bubble? Well, expect a replay on an even bigger scale, because last week President Obama signed a bill that, according to Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone , "will very nearly legalize fraud in the stock market." The JOBS Act is ostensibly designed to make it easier...

Bank of America Is a Crime Syndicate

Kevin Spak — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 13:55:05 CDT

Matt Taibbi gives Bank of America the " vampires squid " treatment today, savaging "the ultimate Too Big to Fail bank" as "a hypergluttonous ward of the state whose limitless criminal conspiracies we'll all be paying for until the end of time," in a lengthy Rolling Stone piece. "These guys are some...

Inside Bankers' 'Malaise' Over Slashed Bonuses

Evann Gastaldo — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 19:00:05 CST

Wall Street bankers received smaller bonuses this month, and it is really hard for them. If you're having trouble dredging up any sympathy, perhaps that's because you just don't understand what it's like to be in the 1%: "People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress," one Marks Paneth...

'Gordon Gekko' Working for FBI

Mary Papenfuss — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 01:52:26 CST

The "greed is good" money man who everyone loved to hate in the movie Wall Street has turned a new leaf. He's now working for the FBI, reports MSNBC . "Gordon Gekko," aka Michael Douglas, is doing a public service announcement for the FBI cautioning consumers to be alert, warning Wall...