Obama to Propose New Rules on Proprietary Trading (Update1)
By Nicholas Johnston and Julianna Goldman
Jan. 20 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama tomorrow will offer proposals to limit the size and complexity of financial institutions’ proprietary trading as a way to reduce risk-taking, an administration official said.
Obama will announce the rules after he meets with former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker at the White House. The proposals will be part of an overhaul of regulations to help limit the size of financial institutions, the official said on the condition of anonymity.
Banks conduct proprietary trading for their own benefit, not for that of their clients.
“We’ve got a financial regulatory system that is completely inadequate to control the excessive risks and irresponsible behavior of financial players all around the world,” Obama said in an interview with ABC News broadcast tonight.
Obama is renewing his focus on economic issues in an effort to tap into voter anger about the struggling economy and over taxpayer bailouts and growing bank profits.
That anger helped Republican Scott Brown win the late Edward Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts this week, giving Republicans the ability to block Obama’s top legislative priority, a health-care overhaul. The Massachusetts seat had been held by Democrats for more than 50 years.
Angry and Frustrated
“People are angry and they’re frustrated,” Obama said in the ABC interview. “From their perspective, the only thing that happens is that we bail out the banks.”
The proposed rules could limit activities of banks like Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the most profitable investment bank in Wall Street history. Goldman reaped more than 90 percent of its pretax earnings last year from trading and so-called principal investments, which include market bets on securities and stakes in companies.
Goldman is scheduled to report its quarterly earnings tomorrow. Morgan Stanley reported today, and JPMorgan Chase & Co. published its results last week.
Obama in June proposed an overhaul of U.S. financial regulations to fix lapses in oversight and excessive risk-taking that helped push the economy into a prolonged recession.
Volcker, chairman of the President’s Economic Recovery Board, has criticized as “reform light” the financial industry’s efforts to weaken financial regulation proposals in Congress.
A year ago, Volcker issued a report from the Group of Thirty, a panel of former central bankers, finance ministers and academics, calling for separation between commercial banks and businesses that engage in speculative risk-taking such as hedge funds and proprietary trading.
The House of Representatives passed a package of new rules in December while the Senate continues to work on legislation that has the support of Republicans and Democrats.
To contact the reporters on this story: Nicholas Johnston in Washington at njohnston3@bloomberg.net; Julianna Goldman in Washington at jgoldman6@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: January 20, 2010 23:09 EST |
