While the dollar has edged down from the peaks reached in the fall, it is about 7 percent higher than the lows seen early last year. Overall, the softer spending data in the U.S. and the slowdown abroad, along with earlier financial volatility, are likely weighing on the modal outlook and might in turn warrant a softening in the modal path for policy.
In October 2012 our Group proposed that proprietary trading and certain risky trading activities including market-making as well as exposures to shadow banking entities such as hedge funds ought to be separated from deposit-taking and lending activities. The Commission proposal has the same objectives as the recommendations in our final report. The set of activities which the proposal would affect are also similar.