“Bank Curbs”

The world’s markets are reeling after French and British politicians have offered cautious backing to a recommendation by President Barack Obama to curb banks’ size and risk-taking.”Obama made his proposals on Thursday, saying he was ready to fight resistance from Wall Street banks he blamed for helping cause the global financial crisis. The plan would prevent banks or financial institutions that own banks from investing in, owning or sponsoring a hedge fund or private equity fund. It would set a new limit on banks’ size in relation to the overall financial sector and perhaps most dramatically, the plan could also bar institutions from proprietary trading operations, unrelated to serving customers, for their own profit. Proprietary trading involves firms making bets on financial markets with their own money rather than executing a trade for a client and has been the source of much of banks’ bumper profits before and after the global financial crisis.”