Financials Down As Traders Hedge On Fed Meeting -- Financials Roundup

Banks, lenders and other financial companies ticked down as traders hedged their bets on the outlook for interest rates ahead of a Federal Reserve meeting later in the week.

A session after the launch of U.S. bitcoin futures on the Web site of Chicago Board Options Exchange owner Cboe, the price of bitcoin rose above $17,000. Many mainstream Wall Street pundits view the remarkably rapid rise of bitcoin as speculative excess. "The bubble to end all bubbles continues," said Paul Donovan, a strategist at UBS Wealth Management, in a blog item entitled "A lack of data, a lack of rationality."

Banking giant HSBC Holdings is to be released from a controversial agreement that let it avoid U.S. criminal charges in 2012, after it was judged to have sufficiently improved its systems to keep out financial criminals.

--Rob Curran, rob.curran@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 11, 2017 16:38 ET (21:38 GMT)