Tuesday’s Headlines: U.S. Banks Get a Piece of Europe’s Trading Pie

The biggest Wall Street banks are gobbling up Europe’s trading market share in two years as the continent continues to struggle with its sovereign debt crisis, Bloomberg reports.

U.S. banks’ share of the total reported by the nine largest investment banks rose to 66 percent from 56 percent a year earlier despite the drop in revenue from trading stocks, bonds and derivatives at JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and Bank of America. Meanwhile, European banks have been shedding risk-weighted assets – a trend Goldman Sachs CFO David Viniar sees as good news for U.S. banks in the long term. Bloomberg quoted him as saying: “Some of the competitors, certainly in Europe, are getting out of certain businesses that we’re in. That leads to reduced capacity and more opportunities, better bid-offer spreads, more rational pricing. It feels like it’s -- I don’t like to use the word permanent, because everything changes over time -- but more permanent than we’ve seen in the past.”

Other News:

American companies in Japan may hire workers to advise local clients looking to acquire companies abroad. [Businessweek]

The Fed again declined to decide on Capital One’s $9 billion takeover of ING Direct USA. [NY Times]

Goldman sold all of its 3.9 percent stake in South Korea’s Hana Financial Group for $331 million. [Bloomberg]

Survey says: Wall Street’s reputation falling. [Dealbook]

The White House calls for closer scrutiny of investment advisors. [Investment News]

Australia’s Macquarie cut 10 percent of its investment banking employees in Asia. [Bloomberg]

German lender Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg is selling its real estate unit to a group that includes the property investor Patrizia Immobilien, in a deal worth $1.8 billion. [Businessweek]

Hedge funds and buyout firms are increasingly hiring consultants to look into potential investments in China. [Financial Times]

Japan's top three non-life insurers swung into the red in the April-December period on the flooding in Thailand. [WSJ]

Video: Tips for advisors on attracting clients with social media. [Investment News]