Small Initiatives

It's not paranoia if they're really after you. And so it goes on Wall Street. Financial institutions have announced some 65,000 layoffs since summer, and people are understandably nervous. The New...

Breakingviews notes another reason to think that the worst of the credit crisis may have passed. Credit default swaps on collateralized debt obligations and leveraged loans have staged impressive...

Goldman Sachs analyst William Tanona has reduced his second-quarter earnings estimates at Bear Stearns, Lehman Read more...

Meredith Whitney, of Oppenheimer, is telling clients that broker-dealers' second-quarter earnings are under pressure, reports MarketWatch. One new twist comes from the credit defaults swap market....

So is the worst really over? We've been hearing as much from lots of executives as of late. But not everyone is buying it. Case in point: Former Fed official Vincent Reinhart says banks face an Read...

We've spoken ad nauseum about the risks of subprime debts that have filtered through the financial system in many surprising ways. But a lot of prime borrowers have been silently struggling through...

We've noted that sovereign wealth funds, despite the political controversy, represent a vast source of new business of Wall Street firms. IDD fleshes out the idea a bit. Read more...

We've become accustomed to reading about Larry Fink, the CEO of asset manager BlackRock, of late. When CEO jobs at Merrill Lynch and Citigroup opened up, he was thought to be a candidate. When the...

Ever so quietly, the investment-grade market has heated up. Financial News Online reports that the volume of domestic corporate investment-grade bond issuance in April was the second-highest monthly...

Erin Callan, the CFO at Lehman Brothers and perhaps the most powerful woman on Wall Street, has bought a place at 15 Central Park West, Read more...

We've noted that the likes of Lehman Brothers are bent on establishing a toehold in the Mideast. And why not? There's business to be had. Read more...

The most powerful business people on the planet. You might think that the financial world would be well represented. Perhaps two years ago, they would have been more plentiful on the list. But only...

Financial services firms have raised $54.7 billion this year, compared with $25.3 billion at the comparable point last year (Dealogic). Bank Read more...

Among suburbs preferred by hedge funds and more than a few top Wall Street executives, Greenwich ranks high. So how is it faring as Wall Street reels? Well, not even Greenwich is immune to the real...

In London, things are serious when expense accounts get slashed. The Daily Mail says bank offices there face a crackdown on expenses, forcing many to say goodbye to expensive meals, business-class...

Remember the thrift crisis? Few people predicted the decimation of the S&L industry in the late 1980s and 1990s. Many went under due to imprudent real estate lending and, in some big-name cases,...

For all their controversy, the top investment banks sense that sovereign wealth funds represent a huge opportunity. We're talking trillions of dollars that must be deployed. Several top banks are...

Now this is eye popping: Royal Bank of Scotland has announced a $24 billion sale of stock, the biggest offering in British corporate history, according to the AP. The new capital is sorely needed to...

Not too long ago, top Western banks were falling all over themselves to invest in big banks in China and elsewhere in Asia. The middle market was one of those "rare opportunities" not to...

Not too long ago, we were bemoaning that state of independent research. Well, it looks like few firms, notably Goldman Sachs, Read more...