Financial Regulatory Forum

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON, Dec 18 (Reuters) – The U.S. brokerage watchdog is probing how Wall Street firms, including JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup Inc, offer stock research, two people familiar with the probe said on Friday.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which supervises nearly 4,800 brokerage firms, sent letters to more than 10 firms in early November asking for information related to their unpublished research material, one of the people said.

The same person said FINRA is eyeing the firms’ policies related to their delivery of the unpublished research material. Both sources requested anonymity because the sweep has not been made public.

The news was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, which said Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are also part of FINRA’s inquiry.

FINRA is examining the firms’ meetings where unpublished research opinions were disclosed to non-research employees or clients, one source said.

WASHINGTON, Dec 11 (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday said it priced warrants in JPMorgan Chase & Co at $10.75 per warrant in a deal that will bring U.S. taxpayers net proceeds of $936.06 million.

The 88.4 million warrants to purchase common stock in JPMorgan were priced in a modified Dutch auction. The sale marks the disposal of the government’s remaining investment in the banking giant, which the Treasury received last year in exchange for $25 billion in bailout money.

The closing of the warrant sale is expected to occur on or about Dec. 16. Deutsche Bank Securities was the sole bookrunner, with Ramirez & Co., The Williams Capital Group and Utendahl Capital Group co-managing the offering.

By Mark Felsenthal and Al Yoon
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, Aug 17 (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Reserve moved on Monday to boost credit to the ailing market for commercial real estate by extending to mid-2010 an emergency lending program.

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By Steve Eder

MARTHA’S VINEYARD, MASSACHUSETTS (Reuters) – Kenneth Feinberg, the Obama administration’s pay czar, said on Sunday he has broad and “binding” authority over executive compensation, including the ability to “claw back” money already paid, and he is weighing how and whether to use that power. (more…)

By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK, Aug 3 (Reuters) – A U.S. regulator said on Monday banks may need to boost their reserves for losses on home equity loans, after housing prices fell by roughly one-third from their 2006 peak. (more…)

By Grant McCool

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Bonuses paid to executives at nine banks that received U.S. government bailout money in 2008 were greater than net income at some of the banks, the office of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said on Thursday.

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