Banks, Wall Street | featured news

Lawmakers on Tuesday spared auto dealers from new scrutiny and neared agreement on trading limits for banks as they raced to complete the biggest overhaul of the financial rule book since the 1930s.

Focus hard on this shocking Wall Street reality: The top six bank holding companies earned an aggregate of $51 billion in pretax income in 2009.

Stock futures were only slightly higher after weekly jobless claims showed only the slight improvement already expected by economists. Several major Wall Street banks slipped in premarket trading.

The Senate's top Republican signaled Wednesday that a GOP filibuster of Wall Street reform legislation will end.

Wall Street did not create Europe’s debt problem, but bankers enabled Greece and others to borrow beyond their means, in deals that were perfectly legal.

The Obama administration, buoyed by a resurgent Wall Street, plans to cut the projected long-term cost of the Troubled Asset Relief Program by more than $200 billion, in a move that could smooth the way for the introduction of a new jobs program.

Stocks retreated as investors cashed in on their profits a day after Wall Street rallied on new details regarding Washington’s bank-rescue plans.

The Obama administration, after months of criticizing Wall Street, has been scrambling to woo top bankers and financiers to back its latest bailout plan.