Financial Reform

Where do President Barack Obama and the Republican presidential candidates stand on the U.S. economy? Here's a summary of their differing proposals.

Moody's Investors Service cut its rating on Japan's government debt by one notch to AA3 on Wednesday, blaming large budget deficits and a buildup of debt since the 2009 global recession.

In early summer, before layoffs began sweeping across Wall Street, billboard-sized photos of employees were plastered on the walls, pillars and elevator banks of Credit Suisse Group AG's offices in the United States and abroad.

More than a dozen traders have quit Goldman Sachs Group Inc's (GS.N) North American government bonds and derivatives trading desk in New York in recent months as the bank takes fewer risks and big bonuses for ambitious traders dry up.

As major institutions around the world continue to deal with the impact of the financial crisis, regulators will soon be laying down ground rules to buttress against a potential collapse of financial firms large enough to shake global markets, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Thursday.

President Barack Obama's march to $1 billion in campaign cash continues, as a combination of small donations and effort by fundraising heavyweights garnered the president $46 million in the second quarter.

Rajat Gupta, the former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. director, can proceed with a suit claiming the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission violated his rights when it filed an administrative action accusing him of passing illegal stock tips and thereby denying him a jury trial, reports say.

The Senate voted to keep a provision of last year's financial reform bill that caps fees on debit card transactions.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is proposing regulations to put a clampdown on large bonuses handed out banks, brokerages and hedge funds as part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform package.

Wall Street's financial giants continue to pose major risks to the U.S. economy, and must be broken up to avoid another meltdown, Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank President Thomas Hoenig said on Wednesday.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and other top U.S. regulators will appear before the Senate Banking Committee next week to discuss the implementation of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, the committee announced on Thursday.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) has proposed new rules that will mandate large financial institutions to delay payment of 50 percent of executive bonuses for a period of three years in order to discourage risky financial activities.

President Barack Obama will say that the challenges the U.S. faces are bigger than party and politics, according excerpts from Tuesday night's State of the Union Address.

The health of the American economy and the level of accommodation in monetary policy are the two most important factors that influence U.S. stock price movements. In 2011, it seems U.S. equities may get support both.

Sen. Jim Bunning, R-KY expressed anger Wednesday that the potential for another mortgage crisis remains, despite efforts to deal with the mortgage crisis over the past decade.

The fall in initial jobless claims in the U.S. to the lowest level since July 2008 is not a right pointer to a possible labor market recovery, according to an analyst, who says the true test for the economy is the creation of anything above 200,000 payroll jobs in a month.

Greece's international lenders have agreed to provide the debt-ridden country with the third installment of a loan – valued at 9-billion euros -- but warned that the Greeks must make an extra effort to address its deficit next year.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday announced guidelines for evaluating whether or not banks will be allowed to take actions that could result in a diminished capital base in 2011.

Too big to fail is now over and American taxpayers will never be asked to bear the costs of a financial firm's failure, said U.S. Treasury deputy secretary Neal Wolin.