JPMorgan Chase ready to up dividend January 11, 2011 JPMORGAN Chase is ready to pay an annual dividend of 75 cents to a dollar once the Federal Reserve completes stress-testing of the largest US banks and gives its approval, chief executive officer Jamie Dimon said yesterday. The Fed is currently gauging whether banks have enough capital to weather another economic shock – similar to [...]
FED’S PLOSSER REVEALS SPLITS OVER QE2 January 11, 2011 THE recent upturn in the American recovery is unlikley to have been helped by the Federal Reserve’s second phase of quantitative easing (QE2), a leading Fed official said yesterday. Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser said it “stretches things” to argue that QE2 has impacted “the real economy.” Yet on Monday his Fed colleague Dennis Lockhart [...]
Fed makes $81bn profit January 10, 2011 THE US Federal Reserve reported record earnings yesterday, with profits jumping by more than 50 per cent to $80.9bn (£52bn) thanks to vast interest payments on its lending programmes. The Fed will turn over more than $78.4bn to the US Treasury, its highest ever contribution, as its $2.16 trillion portfolio of securities including US government [...]
The odds on volatility shorten January 10, 2011 CFD MARKET STRATEGIST, GFT AFTER a strong start to the New Year, equities began to flag at the end of last week. Wednesday’s blow-out ADP employment numbers were largely ignored as investors held off for Friday’s non-farm payrolls. These proved to be a disappointment, despite upward revisions to the two preceding months. Apart from the [...]
Fed’s Lockhart stands by QE2 January 10, 2011 The American economy’s recovery was partly attributed to the Federal Reserve’s controversial second phase of quantitative easing (QE2) by a top Fed official yesterday. “I won’t claim that all those developments have been the direct result of the monetary policy actions, but I definitely believe policy has contributed to accumulating momentum and a better outlook,” [...]
Fed turns record profits over to US Treasury January 10, 2011 THE US Federal Reserve has reported its earnings jumped by more than 50 per cent to a record $80.9bn (£52bn) on its massive holdings of securities in 2010 and it will turn the bulk of it over to the US Treasury. The $78.4bn the Fed is remitting is also a record, and is $31bn more [...]
Fed to begin stress tests January 9, 2011 The US Federal Reserve will this week begin carrying out new stress tests on 19 big American banks, to see if they are healthy enough to hike their dividends or buy back stock. The Fed will try to determine how another financial crisis or economic shock would hurt the 19 banks, which include Goldman Sachs, [...]
The all rounder | End of series special January 6, 2011 STATS OF THE SERIES Were it still running, Alastair Cook could fill up an entire show of Record Breakers with his achievements this winter. Here are the highlights: The Essex man has batted for an astonishing 2,171 minutes – that’s over 36 hours – the most by any Englishman and the longest occupation by a batsman from [...]
Volcker set to step down as US economic adviser January 5, 2011 FORMER Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker plans to leave his role as head of a panel of experts advising President Barack Obama on the economy, sources familiar with the decision said yesterday. The departure of Volcker, 83, as head of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board is among a series of changes under review at [...]
Hoenig says the Fed’s policy on rates is wrong January 5, 2011 THE Federal Reserve’s most vocal internal critic yesterday pushed back against the US central bank’s effort to control a sometimes-dissonant message, saying it is the duty of those who disagree to vote their conviction. Thomas Hoenig, president of the Kansas City Fed and a known inflation hawk, said the US economy is recovering remarkably well [...]