Financial supervision - One regulator to rule them all

From The Economist –

“The new masters of the financial universe are neither bank bosses nor hedge-fund titans. They are the regulators whose job it is to make finance safer. Daniel Tarullo, Andrew Bailey and Danièle Nouy, senior regulators in America, Britain and the euro zone respectively, may not have the salaries, egos or profiles of Wall Street superstars, but the decisions they and people like them make are shaping the industry. As John Mack, a former boss of Morgan Stanley, reportedly told his successor: “The government is your number-one client.” Even for those who deeply mistrust finance, that ought to give pause.”

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Goldman’s New Cop Is FBI Agent Who Put Away Madoff, Rajaratnam

From Bloomberg Business –

“The FBI agent who oversaw the Bernard Madoff investigation and helped pioneer the use of wiretaps that yielded dozens of insider-trading convictions is now working for Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Patrick Carroll, 50, joined the bank after almost a quarter century with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the latest in a line of former feds who’ve moved to Wall Street firms. He is a vice president in Goldman Sachs’s compliance, surveillance and strategy group, part of a division overseen by Alan Cohen, global head of compliance.

While Carroll’s FBI career spanned bank robberies and organized crime, he’s best known for being at the investigative center of securities-fraud cases ranging from Madoff and billionaire fund manager Raj Rajaratnam to a $550 million Ponzi scheme used to buy expensive teddy bears.’

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The solution to Wall Street’s 1960s paperwork crisis could also save bitcoin

From Quartz –

“In the late 1960s, Wall Street had a paper problem. Every time a stock changed hands, a physical stock certificate had to be exchanged as well.

Back then, the securities business relied on a cottage industry of old men, often retired police officers and firemen, chomping cigars in trench coats as they schlepped valises, suitcases and even steamer trunks full of stock certificates—or bearer bonds, or cash—to and fro in lower Manhattan, in New York’s financial district. If a courier was out on the street with a particularly valuable suitcase, the risk manager—he was not a spreadsheet jockey, but rather the guy who managed the metal cage holding the firm’s valuable documents and cash—would ask the other couriers to sit tight until the transaction “cleared” and the other side of the trade was safely back in the bank.”

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Money Examiners Finds High Frequency Trading Should Be Outlawed

From PRWeb

“High Frequency Trading on Wall Street should be outlawed, a new MoneyExaminers.com poll has found. The practice allows professional traders to have a big advantage trading stocks over smaller investors.

A huge majority of respondents say high frequency trading on Wall Street should be outlawed, according to a new poll just released by http://www.MoneyExaminers.com, the innovative financial news website that follows the money for consumers and analyzes financial markets and issues.

In fact, 70% of those surveyed said they feel high frequency trading should be outlawed. Algorithms written by computer scientists clearly provide major investment firms advantages trading stocks on Wall Street over and above average stock buyers. News reports and information that reach the traders equipped with high frequency trading are able to make trades faster and make more money on stocks.

High frequency trading accounts for more than 80% of all trades on a daily basis alone on the New York Stock Exchange, where fast trading has previously caused regulators to halt trading on some stocks as a result. ‘

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