– Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS), the two last major investment banks left standing after the carnage Wall Street, have ended the era of investment banking by changing their status to bank holding companies. The change means the two firms can now create commercial banks that will be able to take deposits.

– The move marks a sea change on Wall Street 75 years since the Glass-Steagall Act that separated them from deposit-taking banks. The Federal Reserve will now take over from the Securities Exchange Commission as regulator of the two banks.

– “The decision marks the end of Wall Street as we have known it,” said William Isaac, a former chairman of the FDIC. “It’s too bad.”

– Concern is growing that Hank Paulson’s vast rescue plan for Wall Street may “crush” the dollar. According to Bloomberg: “The combination of spending $700 billion on soured mortgage-related assets and providing $400 …

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has requested sweeping new powers for the Treasury Department as he seeks $700 billion in government funds to purchase troubled financial assets from firms facing a lack of liquidity or investor confidence. Over the weekend Paulson submitted legislation to Congress that he hopes will see the U.S. economy through the crippling credit crisis. In addition to the requested $700 billion, Paulson has asked that there be no judicial oversight to the plan and that the Treasury Department have sole discretion over which assets should be purchased. “This is not a position where I like to see the taxpayer, but it is far better than the alternative,” Paulson said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” It is the government’s position that without this costly and unprecedented intervention, the economy could face a collapse akin to the ...

Connecticut Hedge FundsConnecticut Hedge Fund GuideHere is a short collection of articles on the hedge fund industry in Connecticut. I am always looking for more valuable online tools and resources to add to these geographical hedge fund guides to the hedge fund industry. If you have a white paper or PowerPoint that I can include here please send me an email and I will post it for everyone's benefit.Look at a map and it would seem that companies and businesses looking to move out of New York City and into nearby suburbs would naturally choose Westchester County the city's immediate northern suburb. But when hedge fund managers began moving out of Manhattan a few decades ago, they ...