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Wall St. ponders wave of regulation

Amy Scott May 21, 2009
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Wall St. ponders wave of regulation

Amy Scott May 21, 2009
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TEXT OF STORY

Steve Chiotakis: Whatever comes out of this financial crisis, it’s likely to include a
serious overhaul of the way Wall Street operates. Lawmakers are looking at curbing everything from derivatives to executive pay. And in the coming weeks, the White House is expected to roll out a number of proposals for new regulations. As Marketplace’s Amy Scott reports, that’s got some in the industry a bit on edge.


Amy Scott: At a conference on market structure this week, men and women of Wall Street pondered the coming wave of regulation. There’s talk of a new risk watchdog to police the whole financial system, and a new product safety commission to oversee mortgages and mutual funds.

Howard Engelhart is with Pipeline Trading:

Howard Engelhart: The fear here is that rather than taking these opportunities to streamline and really improve the regulatory framework, we’re just going to have new layers that we’ll have to contend with.

All the uncertainty makes Kevin Koplin’s job challenging these days. He’s a lawyer who advises broker-dealers.

Kevin Koplin: I counsel clients to not get in trouble, and if they’re gonna push the envelope, let them know how elastic it really is. But if I don’t know and they don’t know, then they’re paralyzed.

Despite their apprehension, some in the industry say regulation is key to restoring faith in the system. As one New York Stock Exchange official put it, sometimes that means taking medicine we don’t like.

In New York, I’m Amy Scott for Marketplace.

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