Treasury Expedites Wind Down Of Fannie, Freddie
MarketWatch
The Treasury Department on Friday announced a set of steps to expedite the winding-down of government-controlled housing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac including a measure that would require that their massive mortgage portfolios be wound down at an annual rate of 15%.
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Spanish Banks’ Bad Loans Surge
WSj.com
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Spain’s Bankia to receive some rescue funds shortly: source
Reuters
Spain’s Bankia (BKIA.MC), a large lender taken over by the state in May, will soon receive part of a promised 19 billion euros ($23.5 billion) capital injection via a European rescue, a spokeswoman for the economy ministry said on Thursday.
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Exclusive: China tightens lending rules for trusts, corporate bill market
Reuters
China is readying twin initiatives to curb opaque financing practices that threaten the stability of the country’s $864 billion investment trust industry and booming corporate paper market, sources with direct knowledge of the plans told Reuters.
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Global stocks rise on German backing for ECB bond action
Reuters
Global shares rose and the dollar advanced on Friday as apparent support from German Chancellor Angela Merkel for European Central Bank intervention to calm the euro zone’s debt troubles helped buoy investor sentiment.
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Gender Wage Gap May Be Much Smaller Than Most Think
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
The gap between earnings of male and female workers has declined significantly over the past 30 years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 1979 median weekly earnings of full-time female workers were 63.5 percent of male workers’ earnings, implying a gap of 36.5 percent. The earnings gap dropped to 30 percent in 1989 and to 23.7 percent in 1999. In the second quarter of 2011, the gap reached a low of 16.5 percent.
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Housing Agency to Cut Costs
WSJ.com
A consulting group outlined a raft of recommendations to the New York City Housing Authority that would produce $70 million in annual cost savings and increase annual revenue by $55 million, according to a report released Thursday.
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U.S. Treasury revamps Fannie, Freddie support deal
MarketWatch
The U.S. Treasury Department will revamp the terms of its nearly four-year-old financial backing of Fannie Mae FNMA and Freddie Mac FMCC in a bid to allay investor concerns that the companies could one day exhaust their federal lifelines.
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Assets on Fed Balance Sheet fell $23B to $2.835T in week ending Aug. 15
MarketWatch
The U.S. Treasury Department will revamp the terms of its nearly four-year-old financial backing of Fannie Mae FNMA and Freddie Mac FMCC in a bid to allay investor concerns that the companies could one day exhaust their federal lifelines.
http://jlne.ws/NMT2WQ

Fed’s Kocherlakota Is OK With Fed Offering Rate Guidance
WSJ.com
A key U.S. central bank official said he is comfortable with the idea of the central bank predicting very low rates for some time to come, although he added he would prefer a shorter-term view than the one now officially held by the central bank.
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Leading Indicators Rise, Suggest Slow Growth
WSJ.com
The index of leading economic indicators rose more than expected in July but still suggests little improvement in the economy, according to data released Friday.
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No ‘Phishing’: Banks Try to Sink Scammers
By ANDREW SEIDMAN – WSJ
If banks have their way, Internet scammers soon may have a tougher time deceiving people with bogus bank websites. Financial-services companies are snatching up new, exclusive Internet addresses in an effort to crack down on cybercrime, which one analyst said cost the industry an estimated $2.5 billion last year.
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Futures Industry Leaders Discuss Insurance Fund
By JACOB BUNGE And AARON LUCCHETTI – Dow Jones
Senior officials from CME Group Inc. on Thursday met with customers and futures industry leaders to examine the potential for establishing an insurance fund to safeguard traders.
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Luxembourg to feel pinch of banking union
Alex Barker in Brussels – FT.com
When it comes to the big political sacrifices required to create a single European bank supervisor, tiny Luxembourg will be one of those countries feeling the pinch most acutely. The dilemmas facing the Grand Duchy, a home from home for the eurozone’s biggest banks, offer a window on the fraught diplomatic talks ahead for all EU member states as they lay down the first plank of a banking union.
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British banks no longer trusted by over three in five Brits
PRWeb
They may hold UK consumers’ life savings and partially own most of their homes, but banks are no longer trusted by over 3 in 5 of Brits (62%), new research from Currencies.co.uk can reveal. As many as one in three (36%) hasn’t trusted banks since the start of the recession in 2009, and only a tiny 6% still have complete trust in them, regardless of the recent crises.
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Goldman Sachs’s Brafman Said to Leave Firm After 11 Years
Bloomberg
Lester R. Brafman, a managing director in the high-yield debt sales and trading department at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. , left this week after 11 years at the firm, according to five people familiar with the matter.
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