First it was the settlement of allegations it rigged electricity markets. Now, The Wall Street Journal says that JPMorgan Chase could pay $500-600 million in the case of the cover-up of huge trades gone bad carried out by the so-called “London Whale.” Meanwhile, The Financial Times is reporting that U.S. regulators are also pushing for JPMorgan to pay for allegedly misrepresenting the quality of loans it sold to government-backed mortgage companies ahead of the 2008 financial crisis. The bank is said be resistant to the settlement. Why? Perhaps because regulators are demanding JPMorgan pay a $6 billion — yes, billion — penalty.
Apple has hundreds of authorized retail stores on college campuses around the country, but a new location this fall is the first one that will be run by students. Dozens of accounting, business and marketing majors are in charge of stocking the store with iPads and MacBooks, and there’s a lot riding on their business strategy, including their final grade. Of all the places you might think Apple would authorize its first-ever student-run store, this one’s in Omaha, Nebraska.
One of the themes this August is electrons run amok in financial markets. Last week, Goldman Sachs software put a dent in the options market. Two days later, on Thursday, a three hour long shutdown brought down the Nasdaq market in what’s being called a “flash freeze.” And, earlier in the month, some kind of error — still under investigation — caused a phantom six percent spike on the Shanghai Composite. In each instance, the culprit has been, at least in part, the high-speed electronic trading systems that run markets all over the world.
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