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A fad or the real deal? Let's not beat around the bush about Bitcoins, the digital currency that has stirred up the financial world the past year or so.     Bitcoins are a virtual currency, now accepted by some merchants and commercial enterprises as a form of payment for services or products. Because Bitcoins have a fluctuating market value, many try to exploit price volatility and treat Bitcoins as an investment--similar to investors who might purchase foreign currencies with hopes that volatile swings will result in handsome profits. However, most participants are still not sure how Bitcoins came to be, who or what oversees the marketplace, and where all this is headed.   Let's be real. Any purchase or investment in Bitcoins is a speculative investment.   Uncertainty, volatility and mysterious (or mystical?) origins offset confidence prudent investors or users for payment purposes might have in its legitimacy.   As we saw in late 2013 when the Chinese govern...

Equity markets: More of the same in 2014? If the year 2013 ended with moods, markets and sentiments on an upswing, what's on deck for 2014 ? What will happen in the upcoming year? What is the agenda for banks, investment managers, hedge funds and an assortment of institutions in financial services? Let's first sort through equity markets . Last year, we saw blockbuster returns--over 25%, depending on the index you follow. There were the usual dips, dives and concerns, but by autumn, equity markets continued to edge upward. Anybody's diversified portfolio of stocks performed well. The upbeat markets reflected perceptions by many (traders, investors, bankers, et. al.) that we had climbed out of the financial crisis, that the economy had finally reversed course, and that we could confidently move on. But market returns above 20%, for some portfolio managers and investment gurus are nothing to rave about. They become headaches, causes for concern.  Are we headed toward another ...

An informal glance of the year just past Years from now, a finance historian or a research analyst looking back at 2013 won't have a clever moniker for the notable financial events of the year.  The year was eventful, but may not even deserve a whole chapter in finance history. And perhaps that's a good thing. It wasn't like 1987, 1994, 1998, 2008, years that conjure memories of crises, crashes, volatility, and uncertainty. The year 2013 was not one of turmoil.  Markets behaved well. We saw equity upswings of the likes of the mid-2000's and mid-1990's, even while old hands suggested a bubble is near and we shouldn't get accustomed to double-digit percentage stock-market increases. The fury and hoopla over BitCoins , that arcane, macabre digital currency, didn't rise to the surface until late 2013.  That, in fact, could be the bubble that bursts in 2014, and let's hope that damage won't cause debilitating financial ripples around the world. The year 2...

Volcker's rules: Any day now Three years have elapsed since regulators proposed new regulation to restrict proprietary trading at banks (more specifically, depositary financial institutions).   Three years of discussion, debate, rule-writing and re-writing, dissension, lobbying, and procrastination.  And now the new rule, better known as the Volcker Rule and named for former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, who first proposed limits on bank trading during the crisis, has reached a point of no return.   Regulators--the SEC, FDIC, OCC, CFTC and the Federal Reserve--have promised to sign off before mid-December. Banks aren't surprised. They aren't caught off guard. They knew an old era of gun-slinging, wild, volatile, frantic, but overwhelmingly profitable proprietary trading at the major banks was coming to an end.   While regulators and their lawyers sequestered themselves for years to write hundreds and hundreds of pages of rules, banks tried to push back and ...

The $13 billion: It can handle it. A question has lingered for much of the past week, one that hasn't been asked often out loud or asked pointedly. Is $13 billion a lot of money for JPMorgan Chase?  Will it crush the bank's growth plans and business opportunities in the periods to come? Will it strangle a banking empire and cause it to retreat into a shadow of its post-crisis self? Announced in business headlines everywhere, the $13 billion is the total amount in the bank's settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, all related to the bank's mortgage-securitization business in the 2000's and the businesses it inherited from its acquisitions of Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual.  The government claims JPMorgan and affiliates improperly and unfairly structured mortgage securities, leading to billions in losses to investors who had purchased the securities. The settlement puts an end to one chapter in the bank's efforts escape the mortgage nightmare of that ...