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| Citigroup to seek permission to buy back shares: WSJ Friday, Jan 04, 2013 08:56 PM PST  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Citigroup Inc is planning to ask regulators for permission to buy back a "minimal" number of shares, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The bank is not planning to ask to increase its quarterly dividend, which is currently a penny a share, the newspaper reported, citing people familiar with the company's plans. Citigroup Chairman Michael O'Neill and newly installed CEO Michael Corbat have told company executives that the capital plan the company submits to the Federal Reserve must be so conservative that it will not be rejected, the Journal said. ... Full Story | Top |
| Law firm recruits federal judge who presided over Ebbers case Friday, Jan 04, 2013 05:52 PM PST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Barbara Jones, the federal judge who presided over the criminal trial of former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers, will join the law firm of Zuckerman Spaeder later this month, according to a partner at the firm. Jones, 65, will begin work on January 15 at the New York office of the Washington-based firm, where she will focus on advising clients on internal investigations, corporate compliance and monitorships, said Zuckerman partner Paul Shechtman, who helped recruit her. She will join the firm as a partner, he said. ... Full Story | Top |
| Fed's policy "thresholds" plan surprised dealers: poll Friday, Jan 04, 2013 05:47 PM PST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Very few Wall Street economists expected the U.S. Federal Reserve to adopt policy thresholds at its last meeting, results from a New York Fed poll of primary dealers showed on Friday, highlighting how surprising was the decision. The 20 dealers, who have access to the central bank's discount window, were polled before the Fed's December 11-12 policy meeting. At the meeting the Fed ultimately decided to tie low interest rates to specific unemployment and inflation levels, or "thresholds. ... Full Story | Top |
| Fed's Bullard: Central banks have let independence slip Friday, Jan 04, 2013 05:47 PM PST SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - The world's top central banks have sacrificed some of their cherished independence as a result of fiscal-like policies undertaken to repair the damage of the global financial crisis, a senior Federal Reserve official said on Friday, calling the ECB one of the worst offenders. James Bullard, president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, described the European Central Bank's bond-buying program as a "fiscalization" of monetary policy, and said it had weakened the ECB's response to the European recession. ... Full Story | Top |
| Jobless drop to put Fed in position to end QE3 in 2013: Bullard Friday, Jan 04, 2013 05:47 PM PST SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard on Friday said the U.S. central bank may be able to end its current asset purchase program before the end of this year if the U.S. jobless rate falls as he expects. U.S. unemployment will probably fall to the "low sevens" by year's end, from 7.8 percent in at the end of 2012, Bullard told reporters after participating on a panel at the American Economics Association's annual meeting here. "If we get even moderately good growth this year I would expect unemployment to continue to tick down," Bullard said. ... Full Story | Top |
| Fed's Plosser sees lasting blow to potential growth rate Friday, Jan 04, 2013 05:47 PM PST SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - The United States economy likely suffered a lasting decline in its trend potential growth rate as a result of the severe 2007-2009 U.S. recession, a top official of the Federal Reserve said on Friday. "Any of you who have looked at the data of the most recent ... recession, it certainly looks like we've had a permanent shock," Charles Plosser, president of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank, told a panel at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association. "The problem is we won't know the answer to that for many years to come. ... Full Story | Top |
| Wall Street economists see Fed's Treasury buying ending in 2013: Reuters poll Friday, Jan 04, 2013 05:47 PM PST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Most economists at Wall Street's top financial institutions expect the Federal Reserve in 2013 to end the program with which it bought Treasury debt in an effort to stimulate the economy, according to a Reuters poll on Friday. Economists at nine of 16 primary dealers -- the large financial institutions that do business directly with the Fed -- said they expect the current Fed program of buying $45 billion per month of Treasuries to end in 2013. Of the nine, eight said the central bank would quit the program in the fourth quarter or the end of the year. ... Full Story | Top |
| Fed officials suggest possible end to asset purchases in 2013 Friday, Jan 04, 2013 05:47 PM PST  SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve could halt its asset purchases this year, two top Fed officials suggested on Friday, a view also gaining traction among economists at Wall Street's top financial institutions. St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, a voting member of the Fed's monetary policy panel in 2013, said a drop in the unemployment rate to 7.1 percent would probably constitute the "substantial improvement" in the labor market that the central bank seeks. That's the bar for the Fed's policy-setting committee to halt the current round of asset purchases that it began in September. ... Full Story | Top |
| Tough U.S. crackdown on tax evaders forces Swiss bank to shut down Friday, Jan 04, 2013 04:48 PM PST (Reuters) - The U.S. government has raised the stakes in its crackdown on Swiss banks through a hard-charging prosecution that has forced the closing of a 272-year-old Swiss firm for offering tax-evasion services to wealthy Americans. Tax lawyers and former prosecutors said on Friday the closing of Wegelin & Co, Switzerland's oldest private bank, served as a stark warning for some Swiss banks under investigation, especially smaller firms such as Wegelin. ... Full Story | Top |
| U.S. regulator sues JPMorgan over WaMu mortgage securities Friday, Jan 04, 2013 04:34 PM PST  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. credit union regulator sued JPMorgan and Washington Mutual late Friday over $2.2 billion in mortgage securities sold to credit unions that collapsed because of losses from the securities. The suit is the third the regulator, the National Credit Union Administration, has filed against JPMorgan involving mortgage losses, and the second in the past month. In December, it sued the bank over $3.6 billion in securities sold by Bear Stearns, which JPMorgan acquired during the financial crisis. In June 2011, the NCUA sued over some $1. ... Full Story | Top |
| U.S. senators seek probe into royalties on coal exports Friday, Jan 04, 2013 04:05 PM PST  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two influential U.S. senators have asked the Interior Department to examine whether coal companies are dodging hundreds of millions of dollars in royalty payments on lucrative sales to Asia, citing a Reuters investigation into the matter. The lawmakers who lead the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee want officials to find out whether miners are short-changing taxpayers when they tap the coal-rich Powder River Basin in eastern Montana and Wyoming. The basin is mainly federal land and so taxpayers are due a share of those sales. ... Full Story | Top |
| American Airlines entering key period in restructuring Friday, Jan 04, 2013 04:05 PM PST  (Reuters) - As American Airlines' board meets next week, expectations are high that it will give more concrete shape to the airline's plans to either merge with US Airways or stay independent. The directors of parent AMR Corp plan to review a tie-up with its smaller rival against an alternative plan to exit bankruptcy as a standalone company, several people familiar with the matter said. ... Full Story | Top |
| U.S. to continue helicopter purchase with only 1 bidder Friday, Jan 04, 2013 03:51 PM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force on Friday declined to confirm that it had received only one bid for a $6.8 billion helicopter competition, but said it had procedures in place that would allow the acquisition to continue regardless of the number of bidders. All but one of the contractors expected to bid to build a new combat search and rescue helicopter for the Air Force announced last month that they would not compete, raising the prospect that the Air Force would have to adopt a different approach to the acquisition program. ... Full Story | Top |
| Central banks still hold all the cards Friday, Jan 04, 2013 03:46 PM PST  LONDON (Reuters) - If the opening salvos of 2013 tell investors anything, it's to keep their eyes fixed on the world's central banks rather than its more volatile politicians or even spluttering economies. Given the U.S. Federal Reserve's latest musings on Thursday about how long it can safely sustain its current super-easy monetary policy, that's not as unambiguously positive as it proved over the past 18 months. ... Full Story | Top |
| US Airways pilots board backs deal with American Airline pilots Friday, Jan 04, 2013 03:29 PM PST NEW YORK (Reuters) - The board of the union representing US Airways pilots on Friday unanimously backed a key labor proposal made by American Airline pilots, a move that helps advance a potential merger of the two carriers. The US Airline Pilots Association said its board voted to recommend that its 5,000 members back the measure, which governs how the two unions would be integrated if the airlines were to combine. US Airways formally proposed a merger in November and American Airlines parent AMR Corp is expected to consider it at a board meeting next week. (Reporting by Alwyn Scott) Full Story | Top |
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