Jonathan Weil

One August afternoon almost six years ago I sat in the office of a small marketing company called Floorgraphics Inc., listening to two of its founders tell how a News Corp. unit had hacked into their computer system.

Ask anyone what the most immediate threats to the global financial system are, and the obvious answers would be the European sovereign-debt crisis and the off chance that the U.S. won’t raise its debt ceiling in time to avoid a default. Here’s one to add to the list: the frightening plunge in Bank of America Corp.’s stock price.

Ask anyone what the most immediate threats to the global financial system are, and the obvious answers would be the European sovereign-debt crisis and the off chance that the U.S. won’t raise its debt ceiling in time to avoid a default. Here’s one to add to the list: the frightening plunge in Bank of America Corp.’s stock price.

Better disclosure is no substitute for bad accounting. Europe’s lords of finance are going to give it a try anyway.

Mark Grant, managing director at Southwest Securities Inc., and Jonathan Weil, a columnist for Bloomberg View, talk about the European debt crisis and likelihood of a Greek default.

Structured finance helped turn Greece into a disaster zone. It seems only natural that Greece would look to structured finance once again to buy time.

Read just about any article in the financial press about a Securities and Exchange Commission settlement with some accused fraudster, and you probably will see two lines bound to get a lot of eyes rolling.

Jonathan Weil, a columnist for Bloomberg View, discusses the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's handling of fraud complaints against Goldman Sachs Group and JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Once again the Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a complaint against a too-big-to- fail bank that hinges on the meaning of one word: “selected.” Last year, the bank was Goldman Sachs, which the SEC accused of intentional fraud. This week, the defendant was JPMorgan, which got far easier treatment.

Bloomberg View columnist Jonathan Weil talks about the performance of U.S. banks and the outlook for the nation's largest financial institutions.