Washington Financial News

By David Morgan, Moira Warburton and Makini Brice

(Reuters) -Wall Street's top regulator on Wednesday proposed new regulations it said should level the playing field among broker-dealers operating on U.S. stock exchanges by ending pricing schemes that tend to favor bigger players.

stock exchanges, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is set to propose a proposal targeted at eliminating pricing practices that have typically benefitted larger broker-dealers. This plan, which will be voted on during a public hearing in Washington, seeks to limit the practice of stock exchanges giving lower transaction fees and incentives to brokerages with bigger trading volumes, a practice that has historically given larger businesses an unfair competitive advantage. The SEC's motivation behind this initiative is to address the intricate and unequal pricing tiers that exist among various exchanges, often resulting in substantial cost discrepancies for different brokerages. These current pricing structures, as outlined by SEC officials, have evolved into complex systems that prove challenging for market participants to decipher. One of the key purposes of this new regulation is to prevent conflicts of interest that arise when brokerages execute orders in a way that prioritizes their own interests above the interests of their clients.

By Steve Holland

Washington Examiner columnist Tiana Lowe Doescher and FOX Business' Lydia Hu join 'Making Money' host Charles Payne to discuss the impact of the housing crisis on young people.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — U.S. single-family homebuilding rebounded sharply in September, boosted by demand for new construction amid a dearth of previously owned homes, but the highest mortgage rates in nearly 23 years could slow momentum.

By Brenda Goh and Josh Ye

Biden may consider a supplemental request of about $100 billion that would include defense aid for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, multiple sources familiar with the request told Reuters on Tuesday. Biden has been widely expected to ask Congress to pass a supplemental spending bill within days, as Washington responds to the deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants while looking to continue to support Ukraine as it grapples with a Russian invasion. The news broke as Biden prepared to depart for Tel Aviv and Amman to show support for Israel and also to meet leaders of Jordan and Egypt on the Gaza humanitarian crisis U.S.

New York | Goldman Sachs posted a second straight quarter of real estate write-downs and a continued dealmaking slump, leaving the investment bank’s profitability at about half the level it’s targeting.

Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman believed that implementing U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC) could pose significant risks and tradeoffs for the country’s economic system.

By David Shepardson

A Department of Labor official said the agency’s next attempt at setting investment advice standards for retirement accounts will not just be a rehash of previous fiduciary rules.

Ukraine claims to have carried out one of the most destructive attacks on Russian air assets since the beginning of the war

The Commerce Department has updated and broadened its export controls to stop China from acquiring advanced computer chips and the equipment to manufacture them

The IRS plans to invite a select group of taxpayers across 13 states to try out the agency’s pilot electronic free file tax return system, beginning this January

By Caroline Valetkevitch

By David Shepardson and Nick Carey

By David Morgan, Makini Brice and Moira Warburton

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, and later in nan official statement from White House said that US President Joe Biden will visit Israel Wednesday in a show of "ironclad" support. The statement also noted that Washington is trying to prevent the escalating war against Hamas in Gaza from spilling into a wider West Asia conflict.

Oil prices edged higher on Tuesday ahead of a trip by U.S. President Joe Biden to the Middle East that is likely to involve balancing support for Israel with trying to prevent any regional escalation of its war with Hamas. Following a drop of more than a dollar on Monday, Brent futures rose $0.74 to $90.39 a barrel at 10:40 a.m (1440 GMT).

WASHINGTON—With Israel on the brink of a ground invasion of Gaza, President Biden will visit the beleaguered nation with the aim of reinforcing American commitment to its security and addressing the spiraling humanitarian crisis in Gaza brought on by the war with Hamas. His decision to travel to Israel in the middle of its war with Hamas is fraught with diplomatic, political and security risks. As concerns intensify that the conflict could spread through the region, the U.S.