Wall Street

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Job-Hunting Execs Find It Tight at the Top

Financial crisis leads to surplus of six-figure jobseekers

(Newser) - Laid-off execs scrambling to find new six-figure salaries are facing fierce competition, Time reports. Thousands of high-end white-collar jobs have vanished recently, and many more are expected to go. Some top-level vacancies are still appearing, as execs retire or change jobs, but companies looking to fill their most powerful positions...

Wall Street's Doom Years in the Making
 Wall Street's Doom 
 Years in the Making 
GLOSSIES

Wall Street's Doom Years in the Making

Liar's Poker writer saw this coming long ago, and so did some contrarian money men

(Newser) - When he wrote Liar’s Poker in 1989, Michael Lewis figured the end of Wall Street was near. After all, it had hired him, a 24-year-old with neither experience nor interest in finance. “Sooner rather than later,” he writes in Portfolio, “someone was going to identify me,...

Thrift Helped Get Us Into This Mess
 Thrift Helped 
 Get Us Into 
 This Mess 
OPINION

Thrift Helped Get Us Into This Mess

"Wealth effect" is playing out in reverse

(Newser) - Three factors are playing into the financial crisis, and it's time to recognize the culprit that accompanies the burst housing bubble and banking meltdown, Robert J. Samuelson writes in the Washington Post. The wealth effect—"the tendency of people to adjust their spending as their wealth changes"—...

Ailing Biotech Firms Need Shot in the Arm

Flatlining economy threatens breakthrough medical research

(Newser) - For the first time in years, the biotech industry is in desperate need of a lifeline, Bloomberg reports, as the economic crisis threatens to shove companies into bankruptcy and derail the development of potentially life-saving drugs. “I’m looking down the barrel of a gun,” admitted one CEO....

Ignore Market Until February
 Ignore Market Until February 
OPINION

Ignore Market Until February

End-of-year effects cause distorting swings

(Newser) - The stock market can be a great synthesizer of millions of individual judgment calls about economic growth, government policy, and world events, writes Andy Kessler in the Wall Street Journal. But it’s also subject to end-of-year distortions, especially in down times like these. What's an investor to do? "...

Companies Desperate to Roll Back Pension Support

A 2006 law requiring firms to replenish pension loses may be latest victim of meltdown

(Newser) - Wall Street’s meltdown has diminished the value of US pension funds by $250 billion and cash-strapped companies are asking lawmakers to give them relief from rules that require them to make up the losses, reports the New York Times. The rules, designed to strengthen the pension system in the...

Goldman Bosses Take a Pass on Bonuses

Wall Street's meltdown prompts top 7 execs to settle for $600,000 base pay

(Newser) - After an abysmal year, Goldman Sachs' top seven executives—including CEO Lloyd Blankfein—will give up their 2008 bonuses, totaling tens of million of dollars, reports the Wall Street Journal. The decision could force other execs on Wall Street to follow suit, reducing some of the pressure on investment banks...

Bailout Flip-Flop Diminishes Paulson
 Bailout Flip-Flop 
 Diminishes Paulson 
ANALYSIS

Bailout Flip-Flop Diminishes Paulson

(Newser) - Henry Paulson’s recent about-face on his plans for the $700 billion bailout do not bode well for his legacy, write Bloomberg's Rebecca Christie and Matthew Benjamin. Perhaps most damaging is not the change of mind, but what it says about his initial plans. “This is a flip-flop,”...

Fed Won't Say Where $2T in Loans Went

Money is in addition to $700B Wall St. bailout; collateral unclear, too

(Newser) - The Federal Reserve has lent more than $2 trillion to financial institutions under programs without congressional oversight—and will not disclose to whom or under what terms, Bloomberg reports. The loans are separate from the $700 billion congressionally approved bailout package. Investors and citizens are concerned that the collateral given...

Wall Street Sets Up Shop in DC
Wall Street
Sets Up
Shop in DC

Wall Street Sets Up Shop in DC

Firms descend on Washington to work on the bailout

(Newser) - With Washington the focal point of the financial crisis, consulting, real estate, and legal firms are moving from New York to DC, the Washington Post reports. Financial firms see vast opportunities to advise DC companies on the bailout bill and fight for Treasury contracts. Why relocate? “Our business is...

Wall Street's Bonus Season 'Not Going to Be Pretty'

Experts are predicting cuts of 20%-50%

(Newser) - For the second consecutive year, Wall Streeters are likely to see their wallets lightened by bonuses projected to be down 20% to 50% from a year ago, reports the Wall Street Journal. And while everyone is likely to be a little blue, the biggest loss of green may be among...

Out of Work on Wall St.? Call This Number

But feisty employment lawyer tells clients not to sue these days

(Newser) - Tens of thousands of Wall Street workers are jobless these days, which means good business for Jeffrey Liddle. The New York employment lawyer, known for winning millions in damages for out-of-work bankers and brokers, has seen an influx of clients lately. But now he's telling clients not to sue ex-bosses:...

Exxon Mobil Shatters Own Record With $14B Profit

Company earned $14.8B last quarter

(Newser) - Exxon Mobil breezed by its own record for the biggest quarterly profit for a US corporation, earning $14.83 billion in the third quarter. Bolstered by this summer's record crude prices, net income jumped nearly 58%, or $2.86 a share, for the world's largest publicly traded oil company. Exxon...

Wall St. Bonuses Are Down, but Hardly Out

Even giants taking a federal handout set aside millions for execs

(Newser) - Wall Street bonuses could top $23 billion this year despite the woes of the global economy, Forbes reports. Indeed, that figure is down some 30% from last year’s $33.2 billion, but a smaller pool of employees, competition among companies to keep top performers, and the effects of mergers...

Times Tough for I-Bankers, in 'Marie Antoinette' Kind of Way

Tough times prompt some soul searching, but titans confident they'll regain Wall St. primacy

(Newser) - With Wall Street in free fall, many of its elite I-bankers are seeing the status quo turned upside-down, Vanessa Grigoriadis writes in New York. Once at the top of the heap, working for companies that praised them as smartest people out there, some are fighting to survive on the Street,...

Wall Street's Fear Index Hits a Record High

VIX, measuring volatility in markets, hit highest level in 15-year history Friday

(Newser) - A little known “fear index” that measures volatility in stock prices over 30 days has risen to prominence—and to off-the-charts numbers—as traders try to predict the market’s big swings, reports the New York Times. When the VIX climbs, it’s a sign market action is about...

Bankers to Reap $70B Despite Crash

Economy's woes don't put stop to Wall Street bonuses

(Newser) - Wall Street’s top banks are set to pay their financial workers more than $70 billion in salary and bonuses this year—a tenth of the $700 billion in taxpayer money committed to the bailout—despite the huge drops in share price and cash shortages they are experiencing, the Guardian...

Not Quite Main Street's Fantasy Football

Fueled by hedge-fund types, Wall St. league boasts $1M purse

(Newser) - While the world suffers through financial meltdown, some of the world’s wealthiest money managers are easing the mood by competing in one of Wall Street’s most exclusive boys clubs: A $1 million fantasy-football league. Hedge-fund titans predominate among owners, who pay $100,000 annually for their teams—and...

Why Midafternoon Brings Out the Bears
 Why Midafternoon 
 Brings Out the Bears 
analysis

Why Midafternoon Brings Out the Bears

Wall Street is facing one of its worst bear markets since World War II

(Newser) - An increasingly familiar Wall Street phenomenon—a three-digit swing in the Dow, usually down, in the final hour of trading—is a direct result of population growth in one species: bears. Margin calls are forcing panicked sell-offs, it's true, but the situation is more complicated than that, experts tell...

Where Is Wall Street's Leadership in This Mess?
Where Is Wall Street's Leadership in This Mess?
OPINION

Where Is Wall Street's Leadership in This Mess?

Finance could take steps to mend the crisis of confidence

(Newser) - It’s easy to criticize Hank Paulson, writes Steven Pearlstein for the Washington Post—for not predicting the depth and breadth of the crisis as subprime mortgages went sour a year ago, for letting Lehman Brothers fail, or for taking his lead from the UK this weekend. But Paulson and...

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