The move’s been in the works for some time, but it was still a big deal yesterday when then IMF officially added China’s renminbi to its designation as an approved world reserve currency. The renminbi—also known as the yuan—joins the US dollar, the euro, the British pound, and the yen as one of the “world’s elite currencies,” a title for which China gave up some of its infamously tight control to gain – NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg and Law360
7 years after it played angel and executioner to underwater Wall Street firms by granting or withholding loans, the Fed’s leadership has adopted Congress-driven rules that place restrictions on (but not prevent entirely) its “extraordinary financial powers” meant to “ensure that the Fed’s emergency loans are not used to shore up insolvent firms” – NYTimes
In case you thought that Pfizer’s recent tax-aversion-driven tax inversion deal was something novel, Andrew Ross Sorkin is here to remind you that Pfizer’s “war on taxation” is a long one – NYTimes
A prolonged slowdown on its bond and currency trading desks looks to be leading to some major workforce contraction at Morgan Stanley – WSJ
Dealbook’s White Collar Watch explores how legislation ostensibly aimed at cleaning up terminology in the US Criminal Code could ratchet up the scienter default for a host of regulatory offenses, potentially making successful prosecution of white-collar crimes even more difficult – NYTimes
An Axiom Investment-led putative class lawsuit alleges that Barclays rigged Forex markets by blocking unprofitable foreign exchange rates via its “Last Look” system – Law360
With Netflix’s “A Very Murray Christmas” less than a week from dropping, the Times Style section considers the rather peculiar apotheosis of Bill Murray (at least as far as pop culture is concerned) – NYTimes
Speaking of the holidays—the language of diplomatic gifting (for the US, at least) appears to prominently feature See’s Candies – Bloomberg