despite obama's bashing, despite the volcker rule, despite the scorn, volcker and jpmorgan are going to live long and prosper if we have a pattern that pans out. to infinity to where no stock has gone before, no, but a lot higher than they are right now. we've seen with health care and the credit card companies. when day after dale obama tax add industry, what do we have? a buying opportunity. not a time to sell because congress won't or can't let obama have his way. when it comes to goldman sachs, when it comes to jpmorgan, it is time at last tonight to take the other side of obama's trade. ha seen in pennsylvania, ha seen? >> caller: jim, buia from philadelphia. i'm a student at drex the university. >> yes, i'll give you a philadelphia college's rock buia right back at you. what's on your mind there partner? >> caller: my question to you is about your poin on toronto dominion bank. ticker symbol td. early october td just completed their acquisition of commerce bank. what happens was during that i recall completion of the merger they had a systems integration and the computer system

volcker rules. obama stated the union. is that still dictating market sentiment? >> sorry, i missed that, nicole. can you repeat that? >> do you think washington is still dictating market sentiment? >> yes. well, clearly, over the last couple of weeks, we've had lots of uncertainty in the equity market on the back of the volcker rule. bajs came off sharply. and i think what's happened maybe a number of times now is that washington has come out from announcements and hasn't necessarily put too much flesh in the bones in terms of details. and the markets like to fret over what this might mean, how severe it might be, over what time frame it will take hold, and that uncertainty isn't great for equity markets, especially when it affects big sectors like financials or health care. on top of that, we have got questions about the budgets, we've got questions about defense budget. so yes, i think washington is definitely a cap on equity market enthusiasm right now. the microreports are trying to support things on the other side, but we have got that push and pull of polic

. >> susie: another big push for the obama administration: limiting the risks big banks can take. the man leading the charge: paul volcker, the former chairman of the federal reserve. today he told lawmakers those "too big to fail" banks shouldn't own or run hedge funds. he's urging them to pass what's being called the "volcker rule," a bank ban on speculative trading. volcker says limiting that kind of risky behavior will help prevent a repeat of the bailouts of 2008. here are the stories in tonight's "nightly business report" newswheel. an uptick in homes under contract led to an uptick on wall street today. the dow saw a second day of triple-digit gains, up 111 points. the nasdaq gained more than 18. the s&p 500 is back over 1,100, up 14 points on the day. the national association of realtors' pending home sales index rose 1% last month to a reading of 96.6. that marks its ninth advance in the past ten months. in tonight's market focus, a mortgage analyst tells us the biggest threat to those gains. that housing report also pushed oil prices to a two-week high. light sweet crude for march delivery jumped $2.80, or almo

is there something in this obama administration and among the regulators concerning the volcker rule and restricting size and if so, what process -- what was expressed there? >> thank you, senator shelby. that's obviously a very important question. the proposals that the president articulated with respect to size and scope two weeks ago were ones that were based on a consensus recommendation of all of his economic team. so -- and i think you've heard secretary geithner and director summers speak to that quite directly. i think with respect to the regulators they are, of course, independent and i feel slightly less comfortable expressing their views. but i do think that in the main they are also supportive of this and we will work with them and obviously with this committee to try to move these ideas forward as an important part we think of making sure that firms are not overly risky. and that the system itself is not overly risky. >> mr. chairman are you being generous. i want to make one statement quick. i don't believe myself that being big is necessary bad. but i do believe that b

conversations] [inaudible conversations]ve chairman paul volcker testified at new financial industry regulations. the plan announced by president obamarevent commercial banks from the hitting like hedge funds and other private financial firms. mr. volcker is the chairman o the president's economic recovery of eis record. he stranded in deputy treasury secretary. the senate banking committee hearing is two and a half hours. >> the committee will come to order and let me welcome our distinguished witnesses this afternoon and the audiences here and my colleagues and i'm sure there will be more coming in. this is a little out of the ordinary. normally hearings like this we conduct in the morning but i know that chairman volcker had a conflict in schedules and we are grateful to you, mr. chairman for accommodating us this afternoon and meeting with us here and we welcome you back to laws trey good job of the treasury and we are honored to have you here. we are going to have a hearing on thursday to follow-up and hear from industry and other people talking about these ideas that have been proposed by the administration particularly by chai

obama has proposed that large commercial banks should be banned from engaging in certain kinds of private investment and trading activity that could benefit the banks themselves. former federal reserve chairman paul volckers credited with pushing that plan. today, he testified before the senate banking committee. here's a bit of the case he made. >> commercial banking is a risky business. now the question is whether you want to, in effect, provide a subsidy or provide protection when they're lending to small business. when they're lending to medium- sized business, when they're lending to homeowners, when they're transferring money around the country. those are important continuing functions of the commercial bank in my view. i do think that these are getting public support. i do not think speculative activity falls in that range. they're not lending to your constituents. they're out making money for themselves and making money with big bonuses. why are we... why do we want to protect that activity? >> lehrer: now we >> lehrer: now, we get another perspective on the big banks, as seen by one of the leading c.e.o.s from that industry. newshour economics correspondent paul solman has the latest in his seri

chief, paul volcker, he is here and talks about the direct it to me to congress to have a proposed ban on banks. a member of the senate banking committee announced opposition to the barack obaman. there was plenty of criticisms that the lack of details were in the announcement. guest: the big issue now is that banks are not lending to small businesses. the president is right about that. we need to un-freeze that gridlock. banks need to loans of vacant lot and expand their businesses. i am in favor of taking steps to expand the banking sector. the of the problem is that many businesses do not want to expand right now. what we are facing now is the national health care bill which kills small businesses with new taxes. you also have the democrats passing the cap and trade energy tax. that would have a major negative effect on our manufacturing. the small businesses that i talked to say that they cannot get loans but they are also saying that right now they don't want to expend. they see a tsunami of terrible ideas coming out of congress that will make it impossible to make a profit the want to stop treating small businesses like atm machines. i think that will help. host: our de

we can begin with the other concept put forward by the obama volcker proposal. wall street banks were able to fly too high on wings by leveraging their capital base well over 30 times. that's 3-0 times. allowing a firm like lehman brothers to finance a trillion dollar balance street through short-term debt. i repeat, mr. president, we can't depend upon regulators and the discretionary judgments to esure that this does not happen again. instead, we need a strict limit on the size of investment bank's liabilities. there is a limit in place for bank deposits. no individual bank can hold more than 10% of the size of total national deposits. that deposit limit can be applied to nonbank liabilities such that no investment bank can have liabilities equal to more than 10% of total deposits. with this limit we can ensure that never again with the -- will the so-called shadow banking system eclipse the real banking system. two other problems with a question quality of bank capital and risk based capital assessments. lehman brothers had more than double its required capita