Wall Street Folly

• Goldman chief hits at ‘useless’ bankers
• Goldman’s Blankfein Calls for Pay Rules to Stem Anger, Risk
• NY’s Cuomo may charge BofA execs over Merrill
• Cuomo: BofA is ducking questions
• Bank Firing of Counsel Is Examined
• Taxpayers will lose on auto bailouts
• NYSE Will Bring In Options Partners
• Fairfield Agrees to Settle Madoff-Linked Charges
• Hedge Funds Performing In 2009 Like It’s 1999
• Record Drop Hits Borrowing Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Andrew Cuomo, Autos, Bank of America, Bernie Madoff, Fairfield Greenwich, Foreclosures, Goldman Sachs, Hedge funds, Lloyd Blankfein, NYSE

• Cerberus to Raise New Funds After Investors Pull $4.77 Billion
• Lehman’s Europe Administrator May Claim $100 Billion
• Frank Said to Back Broader Fed Audits
• Kennedy Death Cuts Broad Health Bill Odds, Hatch Says
• Raft of Deals for Failed Banks Puts U.S. on Hook for Billions
• Fed makes $14bn profit on loans provided during financial turmoil
• The Flash-Trading Thorn in NYSE’s Side Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Apple, Barney Frank, Cerberus, Fed, Fees, Health Care, Hedge fund redemptions, Lehman Brothers, NYSE, Politics

• Problem bank list tops 400
• Bernanke Falls Victim to Identify Theft
• Bank of America Told to Stop Hiding Behind Lawyers: Ann Woolner
• Fed Raises Mortgage-Bond Purchases as Lacker Suggests Slowdown
• A.I.G. Rises, and Many Ask Why
• Stanford Remains Hospitalized After Pulse Hits 300 Before Court
• Plea deal signals more charges in Stanford case-lawyer
• Banks ‘Too Big to Fail’ Have Grown Even Bigger
• No SEC Penalties in Amaranth’s Failure Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: AIG, Allen Stanford, Amaranth, Apple, Autos, Bank of America, Banks, Ben Bernanke, Casinos, Chrysler, Donald Trump, Fed, Identity Theft, NYSE

• CNBC Viewership Down 28%
• Big jump in NYSE delistings this year
• Bank Credit Swaps Head for Best Month Since April ’08
• Unpaid property taxes hit localities Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: CDS, CNBC, NYSE, Taxes

• Fed’s Bear Stearns, AIG Assets Rise, Paring Losses
• Tarp banks award billions in bonuses
• It May Be Outrageous, but Wall Street Pay Didn’t Cause This Crisis
• U.S. Limits on Bank Pay, Bonuses Face Senate, Obama Skepticism
• After Rescue, New Weakness Seen at A.I.G
• Citigroup set to offload Japanese fund management business
• HSBC May Post Loss on $15 Billion Bad Loan Provisions
• NYSE ‘not a fan’ of flash orders Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: AIG, Autos, Bear Stearns, Bonuses, Citigroup, Compensation, Delphi, Fed, HSBC, Microsoft, NYSE, Politics, TARP, Taxes, Yahoo

Tags: Dick Grasso, Eliot Spitzer, Hookers, Ken Langone, Lawsuit, NYSE

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Tags: Avenue Investments, Hedge funds, Highland Capital, Nomura, NYSE

Attorney General  Andrew Cuomo won’t be appealing the case, paving the way for Grasso to keep his  $190 million NYSE payout. Grasso said he had "no malice" against his disgraced nemesis Eliot Spitzer for bringing the case.  At least that’s what he said publicly.  But oh, to be a fly on the wall of the celebration he must have had to hear what he really must be saying; he’d only be human if he had some less kind things to say…..

Tags: Dick Grasso, Eliot Spitzer, Legal, NYSE

Former NYSE chairman Dick Grasso got more good news today.  The remaining charges in that pesky compensation lawsuit brought by the former Attorney General/Governor/"Client 9" Eliot Spitzer have been dismissed.  All that stands between Grasso and complete vindication is a possible appeal, which seems like a pretty remote possibility at this point.

“Unless it’s reversed on appeal, Grasso
has won this particular lawsuit, because there’s nothing left,” said Richard
Schulman, a lawyer with Bryan Cave in New York who isn’t involved in the case.

“We’re reviewing the decision,” Alex
Detrick, a spokesman for [Attorney General] Cuomo, said when asked about an
appeal.

We suspect that Cuomo won’t be going there.  Congratulations Mr. Grasso!
Grasso Wins Dismissal of Suit Over $190 Million Pay – Bloomberg

Tags: Andrew Cuomo, Dick Grasso, Eliot Spitzer, Lawsuit, Legal, NYSE

The New York Stock Exchange has agreed to buy the American Stock Exchange for $260 million in stock.  They’ll get more shares of NYSE common stock from the net proceeds of the expected sale of the Amex downtown headquarters.  The long rumored wedding was met with mixed reviews.  The Amex members we know are taking a ‘wait and see’ attitude, but we expect them to agitate for a higher price…..

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: M&A, NYSE

• ‘Margin Debt’ Hits Record $353 Billion on NYSE
• Frank Says Hedge Funds Pose Potential Risks to System
• LBO Credit Quality Falls to Lowest in Nine Months
• London seeks more alternative funds

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Tags: Distressed, Hedge funds, LBO / MBO, LSE, NYSE, Private equity

On May 17, 1792, 24 traders convened under a buttonwood tree at 68 Wall Street to negotiate how the exchange would work.  It resulted in the famous "Buttonwood Agreement", a two sentence contract:

We the Subscribers, Brokers for the Purchase and Sale of Public Stock, do hereby solemnly promise and pledge ourselves to each other, that we will not buy or sell from this day for any person whatsoever, any kind of Public Stock, at a less rate than one quarter per cent Commission on the Specie value and that we will give a preference to each other in our Negotiations. In Testimony whereof we have set our hands this 17th day of May at New York. 1792.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Birthdays, NYSE

More signs that New York Stock Exchange specialists are going the way of the dodo bird — Bear Stearns is slashing the value of their specialist unit:

Bear Stearns Cos. slashed the value of its
New York Stock Exchange specialist unit and will take a $225 million charge as
the shift to automated trading eliminates the need for brokers on the floor of
the Big Board.

Bear Stearns also bought the 40 percent of the Bear Wagner unit it didn’t
already own from Hunter Partners LLC to “give us more flexibility in managing
the business in this changing environment,” Chief Executive Officer James Cayne
said in a statement today. Terms of the transaction weren’t disclosed.

The NYSE’s new automated trading system has eliminated work for floor traders
who now handle about 18 percent of the 1.6 billion shares traded daily on the
Big Board, down from 86 percent at the start of 2006, according to the
exchange’s Web site. Shares of LaBranche & Co., the biggest specialist firm,
have declined 38 percent in the last year as increased electronic trading
reduced demand for its services.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Bear Stearns, NYSE

A New York appeals court dismissed four of six claims against Richard
Grasso, the former New York Stock Exchange chairman, making it more difficult for the state to win its lawsuit over his $190 million pay package.

Grasso challenged the claims, noting the state attorney general lacks statutory authority to sue on behalf of the NYSE on the four claims. The court agreed with him on the four claims, in a 3-2 decision that sets the stage for a further appeal or an out-of-court settlement.

“I would think that with a new attorney general with very different priorities, there would be an incentive to settle,” said James Fishman, a law professor at Pace Law School in White Plains, New York.
“Grasso has been vindicated now, and he can move on with his life, and the attorney general may be happy about that as well.”

The state can take the case to the state’s highest court, the New York
Court of Appeals. If today’s ruling stands, the state can still go to
trial using the other two claims, for which the attorney general has
the power to sue under state law.

Grasso Wins Appeal of Lawsuit Over Stock Exchange Pay – Bloomberg

Tags: Dick Grasso, Eliot Spitzer, Lawsuit, NYSE

The community of floor traders on the NYSE continues to shrink as Goldman Sachs and Lehman made further cuts.  According to the New York Post:

Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs both laid off six and nine people, respectively, as Wall Street firms continue to move toward less costly electronic trading, a shift that is happening rapidly enough to shock even hardened financial pros.

The situation was worse for the marketers who peddle both firms’ floor trading screens and execution services to money managers.

Lehman laid off its entire floor-based Direct Market Access staff, while Goldman said it was planning to shut its Direct Access unit by March.

Blood On The Street – Floor Traders Axed – New York Post

Tags: NYSE

A NYSE pilot program planned for later this year could bring free NYSE quotes to the internet:

The NYSE Group Inc. unit was expected to file a proposal with the Securities and Exchange Commission today. If the proposal is approved by the federal regulator, NYSE will sell to Web sites for $100,000 a month the ability to publish trade prices on the NYSE with virtually no delay.

Web site operators including Google Inc. and General Electric Co.’s CNBC, have both agreed to provide their data to users without charge, if the plan is approved, and NYSE has also held discussions with several other Internet providers such as Yahoo Inc., said people familiar with the matter.

NYSE Test May Give Investors Real-Time Quotes via the Web – Wall Street Journal

Tags: NYSE

As expected, former NYSE chairman Dick Grasso has asked an appeals court to overturn a lower court ruling that requires him to return part of his $187.5 million compensation package:

At a hearing before the appellate division of the New York State Supreme Court, Gerson Zweifach, Mr. Grasso’s lawyer, said New York State Supreme Court Justice Charles E. Ramos erred in October when he granted a summary judgment request by the state attorney general’s office.

Mr. Zweifach said there are too many issues that remain in dispute about whether Mr. Grasso fulfilled his fiduciary duties to the Big Board and what the NYSE’s directors knew about his compensation package for the case to be decided without a trial. He said the case should be decided by a jury.

"It was error for the trial court to even attempt on summary judgment to decide what people knew and what Mr. Grasso should have known," he said.

Grasso Wants Trial by Jury – Wall Street Journal

Tags: Dick Grasso, Legal, NYSE

Did former NYSE head Dick Grasso kinda sorta forget to file NY City income tax returns in 2002 and 2003?  That’s what court papers allege according to the New York Post.  Grasso says ‘not so’ — he moved out of the city in 1974 and wasn’t a resident.:

New York State’s Department of Taxation is seeking to assess $1.8 million in penalties alone because it says Grasso’s main residence was a 3,000-square-foot, 10-room co-op in TriBeCa, rather than his massive, gated Locust Valley mansion on Long Island.

In October, The Post reported that Grasso has five separate homes, scattered from TriBeCa to Long Island to Florida and the Hamptons, in addition to 14 cars.

His primary legal tack, at least for the 2003 allegations, is to prove he didn’t spend 183 days in the city – the legal definition of a resident. [He says he spent 170 days in the city.]

Taxing Grasso – New York Post

Tags: Dick Grasso, NYSE

It moved from Nasdaq to the NYSE in 2001, but now it’s moving back:  E*Trade will be relisting on Nasdaq dealing the NYSE a major slap in the face:

E*Trade Financial Corp. is leaving the New York Stock Exchange to relist its shares with Nasdaq Stock Market Inc., dealing a blow to the Big Board and reversing a high-profile defection that once embarrassed Nasdaq.

On Dec. 27, E*Trade will move its shares back to Nasdaq, where they will trade under the symbol ETFC, E*Trade President R. Jarrett Lilien said.

E*Trade’s decision to leave the New York Stock Exchange, a unit of NYSE Group Inc., is an about-face for the investment-services company, which left Nasdaq for the NYSE in 2001. Back then, losing E*Trade stung Nasdaq officials because much of E*Trade’s growth had been fueled by small investors trading Nasdaq-listed stocks.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Nasdaq, NYSE

The NYSE is cutting another 520 employees to reduce costs.  400 employees and 120 consultants will get the boot.  150 of the fired employees will be moving to the American Stock Exchange.

At least this round of cuts isn’t coming in mid-December like one of last year’s grinchy firing rounds where they said Merry Christmas to 60 clerical workers with pink slips.

NYSE says cutting 520 jobs to reduce costs – Reuters

Tags: NYSE

A sign of the times: With floor trading on the decline in favor of electronic trading, the NYSE plans cut costs by shrinking floor space by around 20% in the next 18 months.

The 214-year-old exchange, of course, is still committed to running part of its business on the floor. The exchange will have four remaining trading rooms — the Main Room, the Garage, the Blue Room and the Extended Blue Room — with about 36,000 square feet. The floor the NYSE plans to close, called the New Room and a few doors away from its landmark building in Lower Manhattan, has about 10,000 square feet.

"It’s just the beginning of the floor closings," said Richard Repetto, an analyst with brokerage firm Sandler O’Neill & Partners LP.

Tags: NYSE

A state supreme court judge says that former NYSE head Dick Grasso’s gonna have to repay part of the compensation package that Eliot Spitzer had attacked as excessive:

The lower court judge, who issued a partial summary judgment against Grasso, will decide separately how much he should repay from the $187.5 million compensation package and dismissed his claim for another $48 million from the exchange, said Spitzer spokesman Darren Dopp.

Spitzer has been trying to recover some of the $187.5 million pay package Grasso received in 2003. An internal NYSE review known as the Webb report claimed up to $156.7 million of the pay package was excessive compared to most U.S. corporations.

Grasso has argued the exchange’s officers were aware of the package when
it was approved.

Judges Orders Grasso to Pay Back Funds – AP via MSNMoney

Tags: Dick Grasso, Eliot Spitzer, NYSE

Are some companies listed on the NYSE gonna bail on account of the Sarbanes-Oxley red tape?  That’s what "The Independent" suggests.  The article doesn’t name names, but at least one law firm has been contacted by companies possibly looking to flee from the NYSE to the LSE’s AIM (Alternative Investment Market for smaller stocks).

"Because of the lighter touch of regulation, there are at least a dozen companies that are looking to leave the US and want to come to London," said one source close to the process. "Despite the heavy cost of a delisting, it is far more cost-effective in the long run."…..

Delphine Currie, a corporate finance partner at the UK law firm SJ Berwin, said she had been in talks with several US-listed stocks that wanted to move to the LSE. "These companies are in the preliminary stages of preparing to shift their listing to AIM," she added.

Sarbanes refugees heading for AIM - The Independent

Tags: LSE, NYSE

Herb Greenberg looks at the differences between the Nasdaq and the NYSE when it comes to delisting companies:

Riddle me this: Why is it that Apple Computer and other Nasdaq companies are getting delisting notices after missing a single quarter’s earnings, yet the likes of Krispy Kreme and American Italian Pasta remain listed after not filing for multiple quarters?

Answer: The New York Stock Exchange is far more lenient.

Herb Greenberg: A duel over delisting – MarketWatch

Tags: Herb Greenberg, Nasdaq, NYSE

Charlie Gasparino in Squawkblog: One of the consequences of the judge in the Elliot Spitzer vs Dick Grasso legal fight moving the trial date forward to September 5 from October 30 is that Grasso can’t use his pitbull attorney Brendan Sullivan.  The expected six week trial coincides with another case that Sullivan is involved in: the third retrial of former Cendant chairman Walter Forbes by the US Attorney’s office in New Jersey.

Grasso loses Brendan Sullivan – Squawkblog

Tags: Dick Grasso, Eliot Spitzer, Ken Langone, Lawsuit, NYSE