The $17.5 million investment will give a boost to the Israeli-based company that sells technology to help financial firms handle business errors.  These errors may include data discrepancies between counter-parties on the financial terms of a trade or wrong information used to identify a client.Errors are normally handled manually, via numerous phone calls and emails between various firms, but AccessFintech's technology will help reduce the time and resources needed to resolve these issues by helping financial institutions communicate with each other.

Bloomberg is reporting that Morgan Stanley is shutting its Moscow equities and currency trading desks.The bank is planning to move some employees to London while others will be cut entirely. The report goes on to say that its presence in Moscow will be focused on corporate finance, capital markets, and mergers and acquisitions. “Morgan Stanley remains committed to Russia and will maintain our longstanding on-the-ground presence in Moscow and ensure that our clients in Russia continue to benefit from the capabilities of the firm, in particular as it relates to investment banking and global capital markets,” the bank said in a statement.

As 2018 comes to a close, investors are turning their attention to the market outlook for 2019.And Wall Street’s top strategists are offering some guidance. READ MORE...

The six year old company (SIMON) is being purchased by JP Morgan Chase, HSBC Holdings, and Credit Suisse Group AG's NEXT Investors. Goldman retains a minority interest in the service, which will operate as an independent entity.Financial terms weren’t disclosed within the announcement, but Bloomberg is reporting that that SIMON is valued at just over $75 million. The bank started the platform to help retail brokers offer structured notes, and it was meant to attract rivals to sell the securities. “We are very, very bullish on what an industry platform with those participants can do in terms of growth for the market,” said Jason Broder, who leaves his position as head of Goldman’s private investor products group to become SIMON’s chief executive officer.  

Warren Buffett poured $4 billion into JPMorgan Chase (JMP) in Q3, according to Berkshire Hathaway's (BRKB) latest 13-F filing, which also showed a bigger stake in Apple (AAPL). READ MORE...

International Petroleum Investment Co. and Abar Investments PJS filed a complaint Wednesday seeking unspecified damages. The funds allege that Goldman paid privates to a former manager of IPIC and former CEO of Abar Investments.Bloomberg is reporting that Tim Leissner, Goldman Sachs’s former chairman of Southeast Asia, admitted in a plea that he bribed officials to get bond deals and said a culture of secrecy at the investment bank led him to conceal wrongdoing from compliance staff.

Goldman is embroiled in a corruption probe that started with Malaysia's finance minister, Lim Guan Eng, saying he would seek a refund over bond deals for its sovereign wealth fund.He added that Goldman has "admitted culpability" after a former banker admitted guilt for his role in the scandal. Bloomberg reports that three senior Goldman bankers were implicated in a Department of Justice criminal enterprise that involved bribing Malaysian officials as well as laundering money.

Coins skyrocketed in value, leading to increased media coverage; more media coverage meant greater public recognition of (and interest in) crypto and blockchain than ever before.2018 has seen the climate around cryptocurrency regain some semblance of normalcy – something that Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin described in an interview with Bloomberg as a “ceiling” after the intense growth of the previous year. According to Buterin, the so-called ceiling exists because the promotional strategy of blockchain and cryptocurrency’s nascent days – using marketing as a way to drive adoption – is reaching a “dead end,” the byproduct of increased public awareness in the wake of 2017.

Gold is set to have its biggest miner. Canada's Barrick Gold is buying rival Randgold, and the merged company will be more than $18 billion in market value.According to the two companies' statement on Monday, the new entity will control five of the world's top ten gold mines and have "the largest gold ‎reserves amongst senior gold peers". John Thornton, Barrick's executive chairman who will continue to hold the position in the new company, indicated that the focus will be on boosting returns versus the number of ounces produced.

Wells Fargo & Company is set to slash jobs by about 5 percent to 10 percent within the next three years . The fourth largest bank in the U.S. said that the latest employee retrenchment plan - which could total up to 26,450 job cuts - includes displacements as well as normal team-member attrition.The job cuts are seen as part of Wells Fargo’s goal to lower costs by $4 billion by 2020. Wells Fargo will also reduce its branch count by about 800 by 2020 and sell non-core businesses.

JP Morgan Chase & Co. gifts its shareholders a 42.9% hike in quarterly dividends. The investment bank’s Board of Directors announced new quarterly dividends of 80 cents per share (up from around 56 cents) that will be paid out on Oct 31.These have been approved by the Federal Reserve. JP Morgan's latest dividend increase follows its earlier 12% hike to 56 cents per share in September 2017. 

That marks a surge of +25% from the year-ago period, with more than half of the growth attributed to the tax cuts implemented under U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.In the preceding quarter, banks made $56 billion in profit. The industry group American Bankers Association said that the “"real driver of earnings" was increased lending, while also acknowledging the role of lower taxes, deregulation and firming macroeconomic fundamentals.

For the first time, Goldman Sachs will start retail banking services outside of the U.S. Its online retail arm Marcus will offer savings accounts to U.K. customers, as announced in an internal memo to the bank’s employees on Thursday. By the end of 2017, Marcus had $17.1 billion in deposits and more than 350,000 customers. 

Buffett also has done some reshuffling in his airline holdings: they added to Delta Air Lines, Southwest Air and trimmed their holdings of United Continental. As we know, Warren Buffet is a big fan of Wells Fargo – or at least he has been for many years but ever persisting scandals apparently are starting to take tall even on the most religious believers – Berkshire trimmed their holdings of Wells Fargo and increased their holdings of iconic Goldman Sachs.Apparently, Mr. Buffet cannot forget these very profitable preferred convertibles he got from Goldman Sachs during the financial crisis.

Following corporate tax cuts in December, major U.S. banks have been reducing costs and planning hikes on shareholder payments. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, 23 banks regarded as most important by the Federal Reserve (and hence subject to the central bank’s stress tests) each saved $388 million on average in the first half of the year.The banks slashed 3,200 jobs in aggregate, while decided to boost shareholder payouts by more than $28 billion through mid-2019. JPMorgan, Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc.,Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley – raked in more than $29 billion in net earnings in each of this year’s first two quarters – in large part due to lower corporate tax rates.

Last year's tax cut -- which featured a drop in rates across the board and a massive tax cut for corporations -- was seemingly not enough, as the Trump administration is now considering bypassing Congress to change how capital gains taxes are calculated. This move is still early stages and has not even been formally proposed yet.But early reporting indicates that under the executive action, investors would be able to adjust the cost basis for their asset/stock for inflation when calculating their capital gain. For example, if you bought a stock for $10,000 in 1980, and it grew to $80,000 today, under current law if you sold it you would have to pay capital gains taxes on the $70,000 gain.

Day traders and market watchers are often left wondering whether -- and by how much -- President Trump's tweets affect the market and stocks.As the president unabashedly wages trade threats and targets companies like Amazon in his Twitter feed, traders have eyed the market closely for reactions. Now, Goldman Sachs has compiled data to pinpoint just how much tweets affect market action.

Last summer, Tickeron's A.I.discovered a Three Rising Valleys bullish pattern and accurately predicted the stock price surge from the Breakout Price of $231.54 to the Target Price of $247.18 — a nearly +7% gain.     The Three Rising Valleys pattern forms when three minor Lows (1, 3, 5 on the chart) arrange along an upward sloping trend line.

After about two years of dormancy, volatility is back in the markets with the S&P 500 crossing into correction territory (-10%) for the first time since early 2016.The question on many investor’s minds is, what happens from here? History suggests a few outcomes may be possible. According to Goldman Sachs Chief Global Equity Strategist, Peter Oppenheimer, the average bull market 'correction' is about 13% over four months, with about a four-month period needed for stocks to recoup the lost value.