Banks' Retreat From Commodities Is Set to Derail Small Traders

European banks have grown wary of financing commodity traders, raising borrowing costs and endangering smaller firms in the market for raw materials. 


 
Spanish Deal Talks Raise Prospect of European Banking Consolidation

Spanish banks Caixabank and Bankia said they are exploring a merger to create the country's largest domestic lender, raising the often-debated prospect of consolidation in Europe's banking system. 


 
Fed's Powell Says Economy Likely Will Need More Government Spending, Low Interest Rates

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Friday's report showing 1.4 million Americans found or resumed work in August was good news, but the economy likely will require more government spending and low interest rates for years. 


 
Malaysia Drops Goldman Sachs Criminal Charges Over 1MDB

Malaysia has dropped criminal charges against units of Goldman Sachs over the bank's role in the alleged theft of billions of dollars from a government investment fund, a key step under the terms of a recent $3.9 billion settlement. 


 
Financial Services Roundup: Market Talk

The latest Market Talks covering Financial Services 


 
Monte Dei Paschi Issues EUR300M Bond

Italy's Monte dei Paschi di Siena has fulfilled one of the conditions set by the ECB to greenlight its bad-loan plan by issuing a EUR300 million tier 2 subordinated bond. 


 
Exor Swings to Heavy Loss

Exor reported a EUR1.32 billion net loss in the first half and saw the value of its assets tumble as it cautioned that it wasn't able to estimate the future effect of the coronavirus on its operations. 


 
Economy Is Limping, but Revenue Is Soaring at Wall Street's Banks

Investment-banking and trading revenues hit an eight-year high in the first half, a counterintuitive boom that shows the heavy hand of the Federal Reserve and the gulf between financial markets and the real economy. 


 
Oversupply of Easy Money Sends European Borrowing Rates to Record Low

The interest rate that European banks use to lend among themselves plumbed new depths this week in a sign of how credit markets have been distorted by central banks' aggressive measures this year. 


 
Emerging-Market Bond Funds Face Reckoning

The Covid-19 pandemic is a reminder that assets designed to produce higher returns in good times can post outsize losses when things go wrong.