Banks, Wall Street | featured news

Steady earnings growth on Wall Street could embolden the lawmakers and regulators who want to overhaul the banking system.

Ex-Goldman Sachs Group Inc trader Matthew Marshall Taylor has turned himself in to federal authorities in connection with charges that he defrauded the Wall Street bank out of $118 million in 2007, two sources familiar with the matter said.

Small banks still owe $11 billion of taxpayer money under TARP, and the government is threatening to unload its stakes in them at big discounts to new investors. Nearly four years after Washington bailed out Wall Street, small banks have yet to repay $11 billion of taxpayer money.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc reported higher-than-expected quarterly earnings thanks to aggressive cost-cutting and strong investment banking and trading revenues, and the Wall Street bank raised its dividend.

The Wall Street firm run by former Goldman Sachs Chairman and New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine filed for bankruptcy Monday morning, making it the first big American casualty of the European debt crisis.

Demonstrators are preparing to march on New York's financial district, with rallies also planned in several other US cities. Occupy Wall Street organisers hope to attract thousands of people to the rally in lower Manhattan, having won the backing of powerful unions. The demonstrations are now in their third week and show no sign of fading.

Morgan Stanley’s chairman John Mack will step down as chairman and leave the board of directors at the end of 2011. The widely expected move brings an end to a storied Wall Street career for Mack. The North Carolina native was CEO of Morgan Stanley from 2005 to 2009. Current CEO James Gorman will take over the chairman’s role.

Regulators have opened a new line of inquiry in their mortgage foreclosure probe and are asking big Wall Street banks about the beginning stages of mortgage securitization, two sources familiar with the probe said.

Pay on Wall Street is on pace to break a record high for a second consecutive year, according to a study conducted by The Wall Street Journal.

About three dozen of the top publicly held securities and investment-services firms—which include banks, investment banks, hedge funds, money-management firms and securities exchanges—are set to pay $144 billion in compensation and benefits this year, a 4 percent increase from the $139 billion paid out in 2009, according to the survey. Compensation was expected to rise at 26 of the 35 firms.

Citigroup posted second-quarter earnings of $2.7 billion Friday, marking its second consecutive profit and beating Wall Street expectations, thanks to improving credit ...