More than a dozen financial firms, including JP Morgan and Citigroup of the US, are being investigated by regulators over Libor and Euribor.
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In theory, most vulnerable to the risk that borrowing will become a bit harder and pricier are those in the bottom category of banks, which includes RBS. But RBS can take small comfort that some very big banks - notably Bank of America Corporation and Citigroup of the US - have lower ratings than it does.
In the US, Citigroup, Texas Instruments ( TXN) and Eli Lilly ( LLY) will release their earnings today.
Many people scoffed when first Citigroup and then the US Energy Information Administration issued reports last year projecting that the US could become completely independent of imports from outside of North America by 2020.
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According to a report in the Wall Street Journal newspaper, the huge US bank Citigroup is now negotiating with key Congressional committees on a deal which would give judges unprecedented powers, something long opposed by the financial services industry.
We have to fear that the insolvency problems of sovereign debtors will wreak havoc on the European banking system, which will require a hugely expensive bail out for Deutsche Bank and the others just as took place in the US for Citigroup and the others.
Last year, Terra Firma took Citigroup to court in the US, accusing the bank of tricking it into paying an inflated price for EMI.
The Bank of England and America's Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation have issued a joint paper which is in essence an action plan for making the biggest banks - such as the UK's Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays, and Citigroup and JP Morgan in the US - safer.
Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and other US banks also have tapped shareholders rather than the actual culprits for payment of fraud fines.
JPMorgan is more than 7% higher, Citigroup and PNC are each up better than 6%, while US Bancorp and Wells Fargo have posted gains in the 3-4% range.
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For example, Citigroup dismissed 96K-plus employees between 2007 and 2011, and the US finance sector contracted by 200K jobs in 2011 alone, according to a Bloomberg article.
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But because Citigroup was dealing with the REITs as a lender, the companies "increasingly included us in transactions where maybe, historically, we weren't a top three bank for them, " he said.
The damage done to investors and the economy as a result of bad corporate governance at Citigroup, Bank of America, Lehman Brothers and other financial companies will be with us for years.
Financial services stocks like Citigroup and American Express broke out, and then a rebound in depressed oil properties like Exxon and Chevron put us over the top.
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