The Fed held its last Open Markets Committee meeting under outgoing Chair Yellen, and it agreed to hold the benchmark rate in a range between 1.25% and 1.5%. Here’s the lowdown – NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg
It’s official: the close of January means the close of bitcoin’s worst month in three years, spurred by a global “regulatory clampdown” on cryptocurrencies – WSJ
Speaking of, the rise of bitcoin futures is reportedly prompting the CFTC to reconsider its until-now hands-off approach to virtual currency derivatives – WSJ
Turns out Goldman wasn’t exactly ready for them, either – Bloomberg
A new lawsuit against a group of major investment banks [BANA, Credit Suisse, Goldman, JPM, Morgan Stanley & UBS] accuses them of colluding to prevent startup company Quadriserv from competing in the stock-lending market – WSJ
The full panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit delivered a bit of good news to the future director of the CFPB yesterday. Not soon enough for Richard Cordray, mind you, but good institutional news nonetheless, overturning a 3-judge panel’s decision from last year and ruling that the consumer bureau’s structure was constitutional – NYTimes and Law360
There’s been a bit of in-my-backyard dealing this week, with Shutterfly acquiring school-picture powerhouse Lifetouch for $825 million – MarketWatch and StarTribune
The CBO is warning that the drop in revenue due to last year’s tax overhaul law (roughly $15 billion/month) means the Treasury Department will be out of cash by as early as the ides of March without additional debt ceiling work – Law360
Some sleuthing by Bloomberg Economics suggests that China exaggerated its 2015 GDP by “a couple percentage points” by using manipulated data – Bloomberg
Bit of a dustup—a few years on—about S&P Global’s sale of its J.D. Power car-rating unit in spring 2016: who, exactly, was behind the XIO Group that would be purchasing the company? The Journal explores this thorny question that helped define the boom in foreign asset purchase by Chinese companies in 2016 – WSJ
The Upshot’s not exactly optimistic about the new Amazon/JPMorgan/Berkshire health care venture – NYTimes
Hey, road warrior, getting a little too comfortable with the miracle of human flight? A review of the physics of flight might just help restore a bit of the wonder – Wired
