The Lehman Brothers sign that hung above the now-defunct investment bank's European headquarters in Canary Wharf is hitting the auction block again.

On September 17th, two days after the fifth anniversary of the demise of Lehman, the sign will be auctioned off in London by Christie's.  

It's unclear who the current owner is because they wish to remain anonymous.  They did pay a lot for the sign during the first auction, though. 

Back in 2010, the metal sign sold for £42,050 (or $66,439).  It was estimated to bring in only £2,000 - £3,000 (or $3,100 to $4,500). 

Now someone else will get a chance to have a piece of Lehman memorabilia in their home or office. 

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This one comes straight from you — our gentlemen readers.

It has come to our attention that while some of you out there would love to dress fresh to death at all times, you believe that achieving that goal is beyond your means.

It's not.

Affordable men's fashion is everywhere, and with a few key pieces, you can make your wardrobe look crisp and tidy. Business Insider reached out to some of our favorite men's fashion bloggers and retailers to get their opinion on where to get a stylish wardrobe without breaking the bank.

Think about it: They love clothes, but a brother still needs money to eat.

We've organized this list by item, and with each item we've included a list of awesome retailers — including some you've probably never heard of — that carry what you need, in a reasonable price range.

Special thanks to Sabir Peele of Men's Style Pro, who sent us an especially awesome list of stores. Follow him on Instagram here.

Suits, under $650

Why you need them: For obvious reasons, you need a suit, and the truth is, it should be made to measure. Our good friend, The Fine Young Gentleman, wrote an excellent post for us about how you can get a made-to-measure suit without spending a trillion dollars. Read it. Then read it again.

Also, remember, you can't go wrong with gray, navy, and black.

Where to get them: FYG recommends brands like Indochino, Black Lapel, Knot Standard, and My Suit.

Follow FYG on Twitter here.

Dress shirts, $60-$85

Why you need them: This goes without saying: You need something to wear to the office, and you may not want to spend $200 on something from say, Thomas Pink.

Where to get them: For a perfect fit we highly recommend our friends at Hugh and Crye, based in DC. Also SuitSupply.com and Lands' End Canvas have good stuff ranging from $56-$80.

Casual shirts, $45-$85

Why you need them: Dude, you can't wear a T-shirt everywhere.

Where to get them: This item's not too hard to find, but we especially love Frank and Oak for this. Everything's under $50 and they have a great selection, but you have to sign up and be member (which is free). There's also NewLook.com (out of the U.K.), which has a huge variety of styles, fabrics, and brands at low prices. 

On September 16th and 17th hundreds of investors will get together in New York City for the Value Investing Congress (VIC). And since last year, the Congress has added a bonus to your run-of-the-mill investment presentations and cheese platters by introducing a little competition — an investment idea contest called the Value Investing Challenge.

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T. Boone Pickens certainly has a way with words and a knack for telling it like it is.  

In fact, the 85 year-old energy tycoon/author of  "The First Billion Is The Hardest" has a ton of catchy/easy to remember phrases about life and business.

They're affectionately referred to by his family and staff members as "Boone-isms." 

We've compiled some of his business Boone-isms in the slides that follow from his website boonepickens.com. 

These and other verbal gems are often posted through his Twitter account @BoonePickens. 

"A plan without action is not a plan. It's a speech."

Source: BoonePickens.com

"Chief executives who themselves own few shares of their companies have no more feeling for the shareholders than they do for baboons in Africa."

Source: BoonePickens.com

"In a deal between friends, there's no place for a wolverine."

Source: BoonePickens.com

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein is on CNBC right now talking taper and all things Federal Reserve. Thankfully, he sounds calm cool and collected.

That could be because, as he told the Squawk Box crew, Fed tapering is not as big a deal as people are making it out to be.

He's taking the line that the Fed does have to taper, but it's going to go with a 'taper light' policy — cutting their quantitative easing program by $10 billion.

If not, said Blankfein, the market will not like it.

Not that he's changed his line on his general approval of the Fed's policy.

"If I were running the economy," he told Andrew Ross Sorkin, "I would do everything I could, and this is one of the things I would do."

So now what?

"I spend 98% of my time on 2% of possibilities," said Blankfein "we're climbing the wall of worry. Very well positioned for the economy to keep improving. In other words I'm bullish."

Okay then.

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On the fifth anniversary of the fall of Lehman Brothers, hundreds of the firm's former traders and bankers met up at B.B. King's in Times Square for a reunion.

The event, which was called "LEH Rocks On," wasn't about commemorating the demise of the once-powerful Wall Street bank. Instead, it was about bringing together old colleagues and friends to listen to Lehman alumni bands and raise funds for the 9/11 Memorial Fund Foundation. 

One thing that was apparent last night is that there remains a great deal of camaraderie amongst the Lehman alums.  What's more, many of them have kept each other in their professional networks across Wall Street.   

"It was interesting because Lehman people scattered to different banks and hedge funds, so you have a friend at almost every institution. They always take your call. It's a very powerful network," a former Lehman employee told us.  

Another former employee added that when people went to Lehman back then they intended to stay there for a long time.  Ironically, when they all had to go their separate ways they left with a great business network, he explained.  

"It would not have been the way I drew it up, but I have a lot of great business contacts," he told us. 

One Lehman alum who was absent last night was the ex-CEO, Dick Fuld.  No one expected him to show up, though.  

"I doubt he makes too many public appearances," one former Lehman employee told us. 

In case you missed the show, we have included highlights in the slides that follow.  Now let's meet the Lehman alumni bands. 

Here we are outside B.B. Kings. 'LEH' was the bank's stock ticker symbol, so the average passerby probably wouldn't recognize that it was a Lehman event.

You could tell it was a finance crowd last night. Several folks were wearing the trader uniform (blue dress shirt, fleece vest and bit loafers). Gym bags with Nomura and Barclays logos were scattered on some of the tables. Those firms took on huge blocks of Lehman employees after the bank's downfall.

There were two Lehman alumni bands — Fifth of Bourbon (Ken Umezaki, Fred Gilde, Jock Jones, Matt Fink) and The Fifth Wheel (Mike Neumann, Greg Gentile, Alex Kirk, Paul Altomonte).

The aspirational bulge bracket firm that is best known for issuing and trading $200 million or thereabouts-sized HY bonds, hiring all recently terminated UBS bankers, and writing highly confident letters for Carl Icahn, also happens to be a very useful early indicator of the general state of the banking industry.

Since it is one of the very few original Investment Banks left that did not convert into a holding company, and shift its calendar to a December 31 year end (everyone remembers that stub month in 2008 when every bank took epic write downs, padded their credit reserves for the next 5 years, and... effectively deleted it by moving from a November 30 to a December 31 calendar), Jefferies also provides a glimpse into general trading dynamics (and revenues) one month early.

Unfortunately, if the Jefferies quarterly data released yesterday are any indication of what banks are set to report, then run far away.

The chart below summarizes what can only be described as an epic collapse in Jefferies' fixed-income trading revenue, which imploded by an unprecedented 88% Y/Y, and 84.5% from later quarter, to $33.1 million - the lowest since the same quarter in 2011 when the European collapse dragged everyone down, and sent Jefferies stock into the single digits over concerns about its European exposure, forcing Dick Handler to release a CUSIP by CUSIP disclosure of its European bond holdings.

Adding insult to injury, Equity trading also dropped 28% Y/Y, however at least Investment Banking revenue (in a quarter in which a blind monkey could underwrite a B2/B- Dividend recap PIK Toggle) offset these unprecedented losses somewhat by rising 23% to $319.3 million.

End result: profit crashed from $70.2MM in 2012 to just $11.7MM in the current year. Naturally, the collapse in revenue had an impact on bonus provisioning as comp and benefits expense dropped 33% to $293.8 million.

So what happened? It is unclear: here is what CEO Dick Handler had to say via WSJ: 

"With the significant change in expectations regarding interest rates, we experienced a very challenging summer in our fixed-income businesses," said Jefferies and Leucadia Chief Executive Richard Handler in a statement. Still, he said that, since Labor Day, client flows have been stronger and fixed-income performance has "markedly improved to more normal levels."

Mr. Handler attributed the decline in fixed-income revenue to the rising-rate environment, spread widening, redemptions experienced by its client base which "heavily muted trading," and related mark-to-market write downs.

The last bolded sentence is what one would associated with a market plunging into a bear market... not trading at its all time highs.

Which begs the question: just how, if at all, are banks hedged or providioned for an increase in volatility and/or rates from these levels, if a mere 4% blimp in equity markets caused Jefferies to nearly write-down it entire bond-trading revenue for the quarter?

And now that Jefferies is in the record books, just how bad with bond trading results for the rest of the big banks be? We should know in about 4 weeks.

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Some recent comments from a 26-year-old analyst that caused a sell-off in Kinder Morgan seem to have spurred the company's multibillionaire CEO to host a conference call to defend his energy empire.

At the beginning of this month, Hedgeye Risk Management senior energy analyst Kevin Kaiser sent out an email called "Best New Idea: Short Kinder Morgan." 

Basically, Kaiser's claims focus on how Kinder Morgan allocates capital expenditures (CapEx) so they can report higher "Distributable Cash Flow" which means higher payouts for investors.  He also calls into question the safety of Kinder's pipelines. It gets pretty complex. (You can get some more detail from this Sept. 10th Hedgeye report available here [.PDF]) 

The point is that Kaiser's comments knocked off $4 billion from the company's market cap, according to Reuters.

Following the sell-off, Kaiser, who graduated from Princeton a few years ago, was widely criticized by the Wall Street analyst community in the Reuters report.  

Fast-forward to today and we have Kinder Morgan's CEO/chairman Richard Kinder, who is worth an estimated $10.2 billion, hosting a call.

The call happened early this morning before the opening bell.  It's pretty obvious that the call is a response to Kaiser's reports. He didn't name him explicitly, but he did refer to Hedgeye once. 

Those who listened in were buzzing about how angry Kinder's CEO sounded. 

"It was the most ferocious I've ever heard a high-profile CEO get," a source who was on the call said. 

We listened to the audio, too. It was pretty intense, though whether his tone is "ferocious" is debatable.  

After the opening remarks, Kinder goes into a 20-minute or so discussion.  That part was relatively calm.  

The CEO said investors should rely on his and the company's employees' experience over an analyst. 

"I would also say that experience counts as I said I have 33 years in the pipeline industry, the rest of the team making the real decisions on maintaining our pipelines have as a combined total hundreds of years experience in this business. And I would suggest that investors should prefer to rely on that expertise rather than the opinion of one analyst looking at a number of financial reports. And I can't let it pass without mentioning that some of the numbers in that report, were just flat out wrong ..." Kinder said during the beginning of the call. 

Toward the end and during the Q&A is where he gets a little fired up.  He really gets into it when it comes to all the numbers. 

Here's an example: 

"Let me start with the first item, which is launchers and receivers. In 2011, El Paso was in the process of a long-term plan to put launchers and receivers on all their pipelines. Now after those in the pipeline industry, this is simply the mechanical factor – facts that you use to insert the pigs or other ILI devices in the pipeline and then retrieve them at the end of the run — because El Paso was completing this project and it was finished in 2012, in 2011, they spent $41 million on launchers and receivers. Because that project was completed, we are only spending $6 million on launchers and receivers in 2013. That is a difference of $35 million. If you're keeping score put down 35."

Kaiser, who has more than 4,800 Twitter followers, seemed disappointed that he didn't get to ask questions on the call.  

Props to those $kmp analysts that were allowed to ask questions, and asked good ones. But I had better q's!

— Kevin Kaiser (@HedgeyeENERGY) September 18, 2013

Still, not many 26-year-old analysts can get a billionaire CEO to host a conference call after they issue a report. 

Listen to the call here »

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JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay $920 million in fines as part of a settlement with regulators in the London Whale trading loss case, Bloomberg News'Dawn Kopecki reported.

Those fines will be paid amongst the SEC ($200 million), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency ($300 million), the Federal Reserve ($200 million) and the U.K.'s Financial Conduct Authority ($221 million), according to Bloomberg.

According to the SEC's release, JPMorgan admitted that its conduct violated the federal securities laws.

"We have accepted responsibility and acknowledged our mistakes from the start, and we have learned from them and worked to fix them. We will continue to strive towards being considered the best bank – across all measures – not only by our shareholders and customers, but also by our regulators. Since these losses occurred, we have made numerous changes that have made us a stronger, smarter, better Company,"JPMorgan's CEO Jamie Dimon said in a statement. 

The CFTC and the Justice Department are still probing the matter, according to Bloomberg.

Back in May 2012, JPMorgan revealed a $2 billion dollar trading loss in it's Chief Investment Office in London related to derivatives trades.

A few months later it was revealed that the number was actually $5.8 billion. 

Before this, though, there were media reports from Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal about a trader known as the "London Whale" who had a massive position that it was rattling the market.  JPMorgan's CEO Jamie Dimon dismissed those early reports as a "tempest in a teapot."

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Leonardo DiCaprio is already set to grace the screen in The Wolf of Wall Street, an upcoming highly-anticipated Martin Scorsese film about a 90s-era pump and dump firm.

Now it looks like Leo has caught the finance bug. Deadline is reporting that DiCaprio will produce an adaptation of Wall Street thriller novel Graveland by Alan Glynn.

Here's Deadline's synopsis:

The novel is a murder mystery that begins with the discovery of a dead Wall Street investment banker, who was shot while jogging in Central Park. Later that day, a top hedge-fund managers is gunned down outside a restaurant. A female investigative journalist is on the trail as bodies pile up and she tries to figure out if terrorists are killing the financial industry’s best and brightest, or if someone is holding accountable those who engaged in Wall Street corruption.

Sounds pretty gripping.

SEE ALSO: 15 Outrageous Scenes In Martin Scorsese's 'Wolf Of Wall Street' We Can't Wait To See

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Those days of "without admitting or denying" from financial firms for allegations set forth by the Securities and Exchange Commission seem to be a thing of the past. 

Today we got a rare admission of wrongdoing from JPMorgan Chase in a settlement with the SEC related to the $6 billion "London Whale" trading loss.  

"JPMorgan Chase & Co. (“JPMorgan”) admits to the facts set forth below and acknowledges that its conduct violated the federal securities laws,"the SEC's release stated. 

The SEC said JPMorgan misstated financial results and lacked effective internal controls to detect and prevent its traders from fraudulently overvaluing investments to hide losses. 

This is different from how these sorts of cases with the SEC involving investment banks were handled in the past.

Back in July 2010, Goldman paid a record $550 million fine to the SEC to settle charges related to subprime mortgage CDO without admitting or denying the agency's allegations. The bank did admit that it the Abacus marketing materials were incomplete though.

Then, in October 2011, Citigroup settled charges about misleading investors over CDO for $285 million. They didn't have to admit any wrongdoing either.

However, Judge Jed Rakoff of Federal District Court blocked that settlement and criticized the SEC's "without admitting or denying" policy.

The SEC's chair Mary Jo White, who was sworn in back in April, told the New York Times' James B. Stewart this summer that she was going to start changing the that policy. 

From the NYT: 

“In the interest of public accountability, you need admissions” in some cases, Ms. White told me. “Defendants are going to have to own up to their conduct on the public record,” she said. “This will help with deterrence, and it’s a matter of strengthening our hand in terms of enforcement.”

She's been keeping her word. 

Back in May, hedge fund manager Phil Falcone said in a filing that his Harbinger Capital had reached a settlement"without admitting or denying" the SEC's allegations.

That deal with the SEC was rejected in July.  Last month, the SEC said Falcone agreed to pay $18 million, accept a five-year ban from the industry and admit to wrongdoing.

Today it's JPMorgan admitting. 

Wall Street, you've been warned. 

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Billionaire investor Carl Icahn told CNBC's Maria Bartiromo in a telephone interview this afternoon that he agrees with Warren Buffett that stocks are fully valued.   

"I think at the risk of being modest, we're up 30% and yet we have a huge hedge on because I agree with what Warren Buffett said.  I think right now the market is giving you a false picture. I don't think a lot of companies are doing that well.  They're taking advantage of low interest rates," Icahn said, adding, you don't have to be a "genius" to figure that out.  

Earlier on CNBC, Buffett noted that the economy continues to "creep along." 

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Know your history, it'll help you recognize what's going on when you're doomed to repeat it.

In his daily note, Wall Street's unofficial historian Art Cashin reminds us of what tipped the world into the Panic of 1873 on this day 140 years ago.

On September 18th 1873 Jay Cooke and Company — a powerful brokerage and the first to communicate to its clients via telegraph — fell when it was unable to sell enough railroad bonds to meet other obligations.

The NYSE closed two days later.

And the exchange had to close, Cashin writes. As the market emerged from the confusion of losing Cooke and Co., it began to understand its dire situation. The panic spread.

And as usual, traders could only dance to the music the market was playing. Here's what the end looked like (from Cashin's note):

For most of its first century of existence the NYSE was a “call market”. The chairman, or other senior officer, would call out the name of one of the listed issues. Brokers who had an interest in that “issue” would arise from their “seats” and begin to bargain with any other brokers arisen from their “seats”. When transactions ended in that issue (assuming they were not all buyers), brokers returned to their “seats” and the chairman called the next issue on the roll. When the last issue was called, the session officially ended. There were two sessions each day...

So, here they were. Rumors surfaced that, perhaps some other brokers were involved and the first call on the 18th turned soft. The second call turned soggy. Prices were down and with no on-going after market; all you could do (as the banks did) is await the next call.

The morning call on the 19th was messy and the afternoon call was just a disaster. Outside, in a heavy rain, crowds gathered on Wall Street to withdraw securities and money from brokers. By the morning of the 20th anyone who was in the phone book (if there had been one at the time) was rumored to have been impacted by the problem.

So, naturally the morning call on Saturday the 20th was a disaster. So much so that the Exchange opted to close until the crisis calmed (skipping the P.M. call).

Close they did and for a lot more than one "call." But, but perhaps because banks and investors naturally needed some means of evaluating holdings, they reopened about ten days later. However, the rumors would not go away and liquidations and defaults continued. The history books call it the Panic of 1873. And, it put the American economy in a tailspin for years. (Nearly 10,000 businesses failed.)

Sound familiar?

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Jason Lee, the 37-year-old Goldman Sachs managing director facing rape charges in East Hampton, was arraigned in Suffolk County Criminal Court today.  

Lee, who was arrested last month, posted $100,000 bail,  East Hampton Patch's Taylor Vecsey reports.

According to Patch.com, Lee's attorney Edward Burke, Jr. told reporters outside of court that his client didn't rape the 20-year-old woman visiting the United States from Ireland.  He says the sex was consensual, the report said.  

The alleged assault happened at Lee's summer rental home on Clover Leaf Lane the last month, according to a press release from East Hampton Police.

Lee and his friends were out celebrating his birthday at Hampton's hot spot Georgica when he met the 20-year-old Irish woman and her friends, Patch.com reports citing Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota. According to Spota, Lee invited the woman and her friends back to his place at 4 a.m. 

The 20-year-old told police she was going to the bathroom when Lee allegedly forced his way in and raped her, according to Patch.

Police were responding to a disturbance early in the morning involving a car that was believed to be stolen when they learned about the alleged assault on the 20-year-old woman.

When authorities showed up, Lee was allegedly hiding in his Range Rover.

Lee is married and resides in New York's Tribeca neighborhood. Goldman has placed Lee on leave.

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We know that a bunch of our readers spend a lot of time in front of their monitors trading the markets. It's basically their second home, so they have to tailor to their needs and strategy.

That's why we'd like you to send us photos of your trading desk setup.  We also want you to tell us what makes your desk so awesome. 

And no worries, we'll keep you anonymous if you wish. We're just curious.

Here are some things we want to know: What sort of trading platform do you use (CQG, Bloomberg, Trading Technologies, PATS, Redi, Sterling, etc.)?  Is it browser based or a standalone app? Or do you have your own proprietary software?

Do you use a Bloomberg Terminal? 

Do you use a squawk such as RANsquawk or TradersAudio or something similar?

How many monitors do you use? What do you like to look at on your monitors? Any business news sites or blogs that you like to read?

Do you have a TV by your trade station? If so, do you watch CNBC, Bloomberg or Fox Business? 

Also, where in the world do you trade from? 

And do you have anything special such as a killer view of the Hudson or the Pacific Ocean? 

Finally, can you give us an overview of your strategy and why your tools are so important for executing it?

Please send photos and descriptions to jlaroche@businessinsider.com and llopez@businessinsider.com. 

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You might think of a trading desk as a trader's second home, but really it should be their first. It's where markets happen (and markets = life).

So the setup's got to be perfect. Traders can't miss a beat — everything they need to know needs to be a glance away.

We asked our readers to send us photos of their desks to check out how people are doing this all over the world.

They obliged. You're welcome.

If you missed out and want your trading desk set-up included, feel free to send and email with photos to jlaroche@businessinsider.com or llopez@businessinsider.com

This setup belongs to a pair of forex traders in Malaysia. 'We make our office as spacious as possible with minimum clutter and with as much green as possible. We have a fridge loaded with food and drinks. We have a sofa bed that we can use for relaxing or for resting. Our place is so conducive, we do not want to trade anywhere else,' one of the traders tells us.

This is the home trading station of a Connecticut-based trader.

This is the same trader's office setup. He uses TT, CQG, CTS trading platforms.

Today at the Bloomberg Markets 50 Summit, we got two little surprises from SEC Chair Mary Jo White.

One was a strong signal as to where the SEC would be focusing its energies, the other is just awesome.

First thing's first — White said that the SEC had "renewed" its focus on a specific area of enforcement action — accounting frauds, financial statement frauds, and reporting frauds. 

So watch out Bernie Madoffs of the world.

The second surprise has nothing to do with the SEC, it's just awesome. White happens to be an avid motorcycle rider. She says she's a bit too busy to ride anymore, but she also owns "the smallest Honda in the world" so that's probably a good thing.

The rest of the interview was pretty standard. White said the SEC is a law enforcement agency with a great track record even before she got there.  It's an agency that will have "zero tolerance" for technical issues with exchanges.

Additionally, it will continue to use 'no admit, no deny' (allowing entities/individuals not to admit culpability) as a powerful tool in its arsenal, though White also considers it extremely important that their "settlements have teeth."

She would not comment on individual cases (of course not), but she said that her agency would be "bold, unrelenting, and fair... and we'll be everywhere."

Okay, now that you know she rides a motorcycle, doesn't that sound just a little more badass?

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Is the headline risk finally catching up with JPMorgan? The relentless barrage of legal problems hasn't hurt the company's business one whit so far from outward appearances, but might it be affecting the stock price?

Josh Rosner's latest investigative report at Graham Fisher suggests that the nation's most notorious Too Big To Fail bank is an absolute swamp.

Over the four years ending 2012, Rosner notes that JPMorgan has paid more than $8.5 billion in legal settlements, equal to roughly 12% of all company net income generated during that period. And with the investigations and actions continuing to pile up, it seems as though there's no end in sight.

How are they able to do this?

Simple - no high-ranking executives at the company are ever at any personal risk, it's just the company's profits at risk - and those profits have been fattened to such a huge extent, for so long, by the Federal Reserve and Treasury, that it almost doesn't matter. There's probably no amount of money that JPMorgan can be forced to settle for that can stop the company from rolling on. And if a handful of people have to lose their jobs every once in awhile, so what?

This is what happens when you make it clear to the marketplace that a firm is too important systemically for it to ever truly be in danger. The big banks would have to be caught openly funding assassinations in a third world country to actually be at existential risk - and even then they'd probably claw their way out using the near-limitless amount of money and influence at their disposal. Five years after the financial crisis, we now have banks that are even bigger and more unmanageable, despite the rickety latticework of new regulation we've attempted to encircle them with.

I'm not casting judgment on this system, I'm just pragmatically relaying to you the facts and the way things currently work. It is for you to decide if there is a better way or if we should allow the TBTF banking hegemony to continue in the interest of the nation's economy.

JPMorgan's CEO Jamie Dimon has made the case that America needs giant, global banks so that we can compete for giant, global deals. He seems to believe very strongly that this is somehow worth the risks that his firm's giant-ness engender. Apparently, there is consensus in Washington for this view, because his bank has only grown larger in the wake of the bailouts.

The stock market looks to be voting on whether or not the bad press matters once again. In the wake of the London Whale fiasco, the markets rewarded JPM shares for the deftness with which the bank put the issue to bed. But now, from a technical standpoint, the headlines appear to be keeping equity buyers away from the name as the recent lower-high put in might represent the right hump of a textbook head-and-shoulders pattern.

The below chart comes to us from ChartSmarter.com:

To read Josh Rosner's in-depth, devastating report, click over below:

JP Morgan Chase: Out of Control (Complete Rosner Report) (The Big Picture)

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This morning the U.S. Department of Justice announced criminal charges against three former ICAP brokers in the Libor manipulation case.

The ex-ICAP employees named DOJ's complaint are Darrell Read, who lives in New Zealand, and Daniel Wilkinson and Colin Goodman (a.k.a. "Lord Libor"). Wilkinson and Goodman are from England. 

The former ICAP brokers (two derivatives brokers and one cash broker) are accused of conspiring together with a senior trader from UBS to manipulate Yen Libor, according to the DoJ. 

Aside from facing criminal felony charges, the former ICAP brokers had their Instant Messages, text messages and e-mails from 2006 to 2011 made public by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

We've included some of the more cringeworthy ones below: 

According to the CFTC, the following exchanges show how the ICAP brokers skewed Libor for the UBS senior Yen trader. 

October 23, 2006: 

Derivatives Broker 1: Morning Lad [Cash Broker 1], On the scrounge again, if possible keep 3m the same and get 6mos as high as you can. My guy has an enormous fix on Wednesday in 6mos and will want it as high as possible. Waiting for my credit card to get returned to me from a drunken night out bowling, but will be supplying you with copious amounts of curry on it's imminent return. Cheers 

December 7, 2007 :

Derivatives Broker 1: Hi [Cash Broker 1], Thanks again for all your efforts, … Can you do your best to drive these libors higher,especially 3 mos if you can and it is still well bid....UBS had to stagger their move up but will definitely be in the count today. … p.s Bubbly on its way with [Senior Yen Trader].

February 29, 2008 (via text message to personal mobile phone)

Derivatives Broker 1: If u can pls move 3m up more than 6m wud be much appreciated :-P

Cash Broker 1: What happens if they go down. 3m looked higher yesterday pm and 6m no change

Derivatives Broker 1: Make 6m go lower! They r going up. [Senior Yen Trader] will buy you a ferrari next yr if you move 3m up and no change 6m

Cash Broker 1: Not bad isuppose 9625 against 01625

The CFTC says that these messages show how the ICAP brokers bonuses would be impacted by their "Libor services."

April 18, 2007 

Cash Broker 1: Hi [Yen Desk Head] with ubs how much does he appreciate the yen libor scoop? It seems to me that he has all his glory etc and u guys get his support in other things. I get the drib and drabs. Life is tough enough over here without having to double guess the libors every morning and get zipper-de-do-da. How about some form of performance bonus per quarter from your b bonus pool to me for the libor service ***

Yen Desk Head: Lord Baliff, I would suggest a lunch over golden week.Monday or Tuesday if you are around. *** As for kick backs etc we can discuss that at lunch and I will speak to [Senior Yen Trader] about it next time he comes up for a chat.

In this message, one of the brokers talks about how they're 'managing to fudge' the Libor rates for the Yen trader. 

January 10, 2009 

Derivatives Broker 1: [to Derivatives Broker 2] I hope [Senior Yen Trader] is not being too painful, he has had a storming start and is very happy with the libors [Cash Broker 1] and yourselves re managing to fudge for him (as long as he thinks you are trying!).

The brokers also talk about other banks will be "making fortunes" with "high fixings." 

August 23, 2007 

Derivatives Broker 1: [Derivatives Broker 3] does [RBS Yen LIBOR Back-Up Submitter] have any influence over their libor sets . . . if he does ask him to do us a favour and edge 6m up please.....think [Bank E Yen Trader] was chasing [Cash Broker 1] for a high fix as well ,so should do us all a favour. . . thanks

Derivatives Broker 3: [RBS Yen LIBOR Back-Up Submitter] is doing them this wek , he wants 6's up so will be marking them up anyway

Derivatives Broker 1:brooliant!! they are making fortunes with these high fixings!!! :-) thats UBS,RBS and[Bank E] + M’Lord should be ok!!

The CFTC says this IM exchange shows how the brokers continued to help the Yen trader. There's also a mention of buying a steak dinner in here. 

March 3, 2010:

1st message:

Senior Yen Trader: i really need a low 3m jpy libor into the imm any favours you can get with the due at rbs would be much appreciated even if he on;ly move 3m down 1bp from 25 to 24

Sterling Broker: i'll give him a nudge later, see what he can do

Senior Yen Trader: thanks mate really really would appreciate that

Sterling Broker: haven't seen him since i left so might buy him a steak to catch up

Senior Yen Trader: yeah … i have a huge fix on the imm so if he moves down 1bp now and leaves it that would be great

2nd message:

Sterling Broker: can i pick ur brain?

RBS Yen Submitter: yeah

Sterling Broker: u see 3m jpy libor going anywhere btween now and imm?

RBS Yen Submitter: looks fairly static to be honest , poss more pressure on upside , but not alot

Sterling Broker: oh we hve a mutual friend who’d love to see it go down, no chance at all?

RBS Yen Submitter:haha [Senior Yen Trader¬¬¬] by chance

Sterling Broker: shhh

RBS Yen Submitter: hehehe , mine should remain flat , always suits me if anything to go lower as i rcve funds

Sterling Broker: gotcha, thanks, and, if u cud see ur way to a small drop there might be a steak in it forya, haha

RBS Yen Submitter: noted ;-)

Sterling Broker: 8-)

3rd message sent the following day:

RBS Yen LIBOR Submitter: Libor lower ;-)

The U.K.'s Financial Conduct Authority fined the London-based brokerage house £14 million, or $22.4 million, in the Libor case. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading slapped ICAP with a $65 million civil penalty.

SEE ALSO: 23 Cringeworthy Quotes Wall Streeters Probably Wish Were Never Public

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A now-former 59-year-old Bank of America vice president, Kirk Simmons, was arrested this summer for trying to have sex with a thirteen-year-old girl.  

According to The Associated Press, Simmons now wants a public defender because he doesn't have any money in his bank account to pay for a lawyer himself. 

Simmons was arrested in July by the Delaware Child Predator Task Force after responding to an online ad for paid sex with a thirteen year-old and making arrangements with her father, DelawareOnline reported.

The advertisement was actually created by undercover law enforcement authorities who arranged for a meet-up with Simmons at a Newark motel, the report said.

Simmons, who showed up to the location expecting to have sex with the girl, also had a laptop and camera with him, DelawareOnline reported citing investigators.

He faces charges related to attempted sex with a minor and attempted child pornography charges, according to  The AP.

Simmons worked as a market information manager VP with Bank of America. He was fired after his arrest. 

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