The Federal Reserve bank released the minutes from its September meeting yesterday. Among other things, we learned that the Fed Governors moved largely in lockstep on September’s rate hike, even as the crew was less unanimous about its plan for next year – NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch
The Journal checks in with an “unrepentant” Eddie Lampert, the ex-Sears CEO who “bet his career” on the now-bankrupt retailer but couldn’t ride his instincts into turning around the company in the face of “the unforgiving economics of the modern retailing business” – WSJ
A New York federal jury has delivered prosecutors a guilty verdict in their Libor-rigging conspiracy case against former Deutsche Bank traders Matthew Connolly and Gavin Black, though comments from Judge Colleen McMahon during trial criticizing the DOJ for legal missteps opens the possibility of a post-trial directed verdict for the duo – Bloomberg and Law360 and WSJ
Remember the TPP? Yeah, not worth it for the new Administration. The member states of the TPP? Well, that’s a different story altogether. The key difference is the distinctly bilateral approach that’s been a hallmark of the White House’s trade deal game – NYTimes
A handful of public funds with holdings in Facebook are joining a previously filed proposal from Trillium Asset Management to push out CEO Mark Zuckerberg as chair of Facebook’s board of directors—a largely symbolic move (given Zuck’s “lock on the bulk of Facebook’s supervoting shares”), but one that “heightens scrutiny of the company’s corporate governance” after a continuing series of “missteps and controversies” – WSJ
The US Treasury Department, despite criticizing “direct intervention” by China’s central bank, has held off from labeling the country a currency manipulator in its semi-annual forex rate report, a move that’s seen as important for not further ratcheting up the conflict with China – Bloomberg and Law360 and NYTimes
The SEC has charged Alexander Chatfield Burns, the “former insurance industry wunderkind,” with fraud, accusing him of diverting more than $300 million from insurers that he and an associate controlled and forcing the companies into insolvency in the process – WSJ
As expected, the Financial Stability Oversight Council officially pulled Prudential Financial’s SIFI label yesterday. Prudential was the final non-bank entity to lose its “too big to fail” status – Law360 and WSJ
New York’s AG Barbara Underwood has opened a Martin Act probe into Helios & Matheson Analytics, the parent company of the “embattled MoviePass subscription service,” into whether it misled investors about the state of its finances – Bloomberg
Yet another genius Taffy Brodesser-Akner celebrity profile that’s well worth your while, especially when it’s all about the wonderful Melissa McCarthy – NYTimes
