Finance Roundtable

U.S. futures and securities regulators have still not come to terms yet on the best plan to allow brokerage customers to combine futures, options and cash equities positions into a single margin account, the top futures watchdog said Thursday.

U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler ...

Amid the week’s resurgence of Citi shares — up 13% so far — the bank’s chief executive will raise the prospect of the bank earning as much as $20 billion from its core business within a few years in a presentation today, the Financial Times reported on its

Here at MarketBeat, we do our best to slog through torrents of research notes, academic papers and analyst notes so you don’t have to. Count yourselves lucky.

A truly frightening proportion of this stuff is utter dreck. In a good note, you find a modicum of insight, buried beneath the layers ...

Deals of the Day gathers all the biggest news of the morning related to mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcies, financing and private equity. Deal Journal’s homepage is http://blogs.wsj.com/deals. You can see real-time updates of our posts and our favorite deal-related articles on other Web sites through our Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/wsjdealjournal.

Still not much sign that either bulls or bears are ready to seize the initiative, with premarket U.S. stock futures suggesting a slightly lower open. U.S. dollar index at 80.42, now well below yesterday’s highs, with riskier assets not benefiting much from greenback’s decline; oil slightly above $82/bbl, gold down ...

Though volume has perked up a bit lately — thanks to the horsemen — gains are puny. It’s clear the stock market needs a catalyst to get things moving one way or another. Seems like the jobless claims this morning didn’t do the trick.

But what will ...

The Swiss franc moved sharply lower after the Swiss National Bank reaffirmed its commitment to preventing excessive currency strength Thursday, but the fleeting move suggests traders still expect the franc to climb.

The euro jumped by 0.12% to 1.4631 against the franc after the announcement, which followed the central bank’s quarterly ...

Last August, Boeing (BA) announced a management reshuffling that included the departure of Scott Carson, who had been running the company’s Commercial Airplanes unit. The release, which was dated Aug. 31 — when few people were likely paying attention, ...

ING Direct’s recent survey results about retirement are scary. I don’t know what the world is going to be like in thirty years, the time I’ll be approaching “retirement age.” I do know that if my pattern of increasing expenses doesn’t change until then, and if I’m still earning primary ...

Europe’s financial troubles apparently haven’t killed the party in the capital markets: Companies in the U.S. and Europe are raising huge sums of cash by selling bonds again after a brief bout of Greece-related jitters. One thing to look out for, however, are signs that some ...

Just how badly could the economy have deteriorated if the government allowed General Motors and Chrysler to collapse?

Former Auto czar Steven Rattner predicts that the collapse of the Detroit auto industry could have caused Michigan to declare bankruptcy.

Rattner made these observations at the Dow Jones’ Daily Bankruptcy Review Restructuring ...

The economic reports from Asia's two biggest economies on Wednesday were mixed.

Data on China's economy showed that it remained red-hot in February Bloomberg reports:

China’s exports rose more than forecast in February and property prices jumped the most in almost two years, adding pressure on policy makers to pare stimulus ...

We didn’t dwell much on the fact that Wednesday was the 10-year anniversary of the all-time peak of the Nasdaq, making it–in effect–the anniversary of the start of the great tech bust. Luckily, the terrific Jason Zweig did. For the short version of the story just look at these ...

When the Bush and Obama administrations bailed out two Detroit auto makers, pundits naturally wondered whether the taxpayers would get their money back.

Steven Rattner, the recent head of President Obama’s auto task force, is sounding more bullish on the prospect that taxpayers could see their $50 billion investment in General ...

Nymex crude for April delivery gained $0.60 per barrel, or 0.74% to $82.09.

Comex gold for March delivery fell $14.20 per troy ounce, or 1.27% to $1107.80.

Ok. We get it. Regulators are expecting banks — even the most healthy — to make sure their cash cushions are plenty plump. We already mentioned that the Feds are telling the big banks not to be so quick to dip into their Scrooge McDuck-worthy cash pools to boost ...

UPDATED

Shares of biotech firm InterMune are up more than 60% for the second time in 4 trading days, bringing the March 2000-vintage IPO to levels not seen since early 2002.

For more on why the shares are popping, read here from Thomas Gryta of Dow Jones NewsWires.

More ...

It just doesn’t add up. American International Group Inc., which has a float of $4 billion, still owes the federal government $98 billion. That means the company’s common equity may or may not have any value. It depends on whether AIG can ever pay the government back.

Obviously some investors think ...

Treasury prices pare some losses after strong demand for the 10-year note reopening. But bond prices are still lower ahead of a $13 billion 30-year bond sale Thursday.

The indirect bid - a proxy for demand from foreign buyers including central banks - for the 10-year note auction was 35%, compared ...

So, the eurozone and some stateside regulators want more regulation of the market for credit default swaps. So does George Soros. But before you regulate something, it’s best to first establish the size and scope of trading activity in these products. So as a service to our regulatory ...

Does the curse of the Verizon deal live on?

Verizon Communications divestitures haven’t worked out too well for the buyers of the phone giant’s assets. Three of them — involving Idearc, Hawaiian Telecom and FairPoint Communications — have recently been either in bankruptcy or near it. (Idearc emerged from bankrutpcy as ...

Who cares about Obamacare?

No matter how that Washington D.C. drama pans out, it is clear that pharmaceutical giants still remain desperate to fill up their drug pipelines.

Tuesday night, oncology-drug development firm Facet Biotech Corp. announced it had been sold to Abbott Laboratories for about $450 million in cash or ...

Dow Jones’ David Benoit reports:

Regional bank stocks climbed higher Wednesday and were among broader market’s top gainers as speculation spread about a potential move by U.K. banking giant Barclays PLC which has been reported to be in the search of more U.S. assets.

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Barclays ...

FTSE 100, up 38.27 points, or 0.68% to 5640.57.

Stoxx Europe 600, up 1.51 points, or 0.59% to 258.24.

As we all watch the odd trading in AIG, its worth noting that 30.3 million shares, or 22.4% of shares outstanding, are currently short.

The company is the most heavily shorted among the large financial firms resting in the arms of the U.S. government, but its shares have

Does the curse of the Verizon deal live on?

Verizon Communications divestitures haven’t worked out too well for the buyers of the phone giant’s assets. Three of them — involving Idearc, Hawaiian Telecom and FairPoint Communications — have recently been either in bankruptcy or near it. (Idearc emerged from bankrutpcy ...

Investors don’t seem at all daunted that Bank of America plans to do away with overdraft fees on debit card purchases. That’s probably because this has been the direction things have been going for a long time. The Journal reports that last year, Bank of America ...

Dow Jones’ David Benoit reports:

Shares of American International Group. continued their impressive gains this month, tacking on another double-digit gain early Wednesday amid heavy trading volumes.

The insurer was recently up 12% to $36.55 on Wednesday and has now risen as much as 50% over the course of March, despite falling ...

The European Commission is considering a ban on certain Credit Default Swaps. The U.S. says it may follow suit with its own regulations.

But there is a softer side of CDS. These derivatives can facilitate lending by allowing investors to hedge their risk and they can help control asset bubbles, like ...

It’s been a rocky couple of years for the car industry, which still employs hundreds of thousands of Americans, and now the public owns hefty chunks of General Motors and Chrysler. So we wouldn’t be surprised if more than a ...

Early signs suggest we may be in for another fitful session for U.S. stocks. Apart from last Friday’s rally, it’s been an aimless wander for about three weeks now as investors wrestle with troubles in Europe, indications of improvement in a variety of US economic data and ongoing doubts about ...

This doesn’t sound good for those bank shareholders hoping against hope that dividend raises are just around the corner. The Financial Times is reporting that regulators are telling ...

Deals of the Day gathers all the biggest news of the morning related to mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcies, financing and private equity. Deal Journal’s homepage is http://blogs.wsj.com/deals. You can see real-time updates of our posts and our favorite deal-related articles on other Web sites through our Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/wsjdealjournal.

Last year, Smithee reported that Bank of America was the first major bank to allow customers to opt out of overdraft protection and the associated fees. Those customers who opted out of overdraft protection would have their card rejected when attempting to make a purchase without the funds available.

Thanks to ...

Official intervention by the Swiss National Bank is once again suspected Wednesday after the Swiss franc dropped sharply against the euro.

The euro jumped from a one-month low of 1.4612 francs to 1.4631 francs in European trading hours, but there was no similar movement against the dollar.

In line with its usual ...

Speculation about the damaging effects of “speculative” derivatives trading has become de rigueur for European politicians lately. One thing to keep in mind is that we’ve seen regulators make this move before – when they temporarily banned negative bets against financial shares.

In the throes of the banking crisis in the ...

The pound took a hit after weaker-than-expected U.K. manufacturing and industrial output data. U.K. manufacturing output fell sharply in January as severe weather crimped activity, and in comparison with unusually strong production in December, Office for National Statistics data showed Wednesday.

Manufacturing output fell 0.9% in the first month of the ...

Royal Dutch Shell and PetroChina jointly bid 3.3 billion Australian dollars (US$3 billion) Monday for Australian coal-seam gas producer Arrow Energy, in another sign of the surging international interest in Australia’s unconventional natural gas.

According to the WSJ article, the deal would bolster Shell’s position in the sector two years after ...

Are the shorts to blame for Greece’s problems?

It certainly sounds that way if you listen to Greek’s Prime Minister George A. Papandreou speaking at the Brookings Institution today in Washington.

“An elected government, making huge changes with the consent of its people, is being undermined by concentrated powers in unregulated markets, ...

Carlyle Group is expected to name former Morgan Stanley senior executive Mitch Petrick as head of its debt-investment and capital-markets businesses, according to people familiar with the situation.

Deals of the Day gathers all the biggest news of the morning related to mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcies, financing and private equity. Deal Journal’s homepage is http://blogs.wsj.com/deals. You can see real-time updates of our posts and our favorite deal-related articles on other Web sites through our Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/wsjdealjournal.

Don’t look now, but Citigroup is up nearly 7% today to $3.81 and has hit a high for 2010. Citigroup shares have increased 12% in the past five days.

Could this be the start of Citigroup’s big break from months of under-performance, while its rivals have rallying?

Today’s increase may have been ...

What does Tom Barrack know about photography?

We suspect it probably isn’t as much as he knows about real estate. After all, the founder of Colony Capital has been buying up distressed real estate for two decades and manages $39 billion in assets around the world.

So it might ...

How angry are Americans about health care, government and the economy?

Are they mad enough to riot, asks Mean Street columnist and WSJ Money & Investing Deputy Editor Dennis Berman. Here’s a video of Newmark and Berman dissecting where the country’s discontent flows from and where it might be headed.

Barclays is on the hunt for a retail bank to help it bolster its presence in the U.S., the WSJ reports.

No deal is imminent and the U.K. bank has only just started shopping around. Here are some possible candidates, and thoughts on which might make a target more or less ...