Goldman Sachs vice president charged with insider trading

Federal prosecutors charged a vice president at Goldman Sachs Group Inc on Thursday with insider trading by illegally using non-public information about several companies that were clients of the investment bank.

Prosecutors said Woojae "Steve" Jung, a 37-year-old Korean citizen, made more than $130,000 by trading illegally on confidential information relating to upcoming transactions and merger negotiations that he was privy to through his job.

Authorities said Jung, who joined Goldman in 2012 and worked in San Francisco, conducted his trades through a brokerage account in the name of a friend living in South Korea.

"Woojae Jung violated his duty to his company and traded on stolen insider information, over and over again," U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman in Manhattan said in a statement.

Christopher Steskal, a lawyer for Jung, declined to comment.

"We are aware of the situation regarding Mr. Jung and are cooperating with legal authorities on the matter," Goldman said in a statement.

Amazon falls 5% on reports of Trump targeting co by changing tax treatment

The Nasdaq Composite index fell on Wednesday, dragged down by losses in Amazon and Apple, while gains in healthcare stocks propped up the Dow and the S&P 500.

Amazon fell more than 5 percent after reports that President Donald Trump is looking to target the company by changing its tax treatment.

Apple dropped 1.6 percent after Goldman Sachs analyst cut sales estimate for iPhone for March and June quarters, citing weak demand.

However, Facebook's shares rose more than 2 percent after the company said it was giving users more control over their privacy by making data management easier and redesigning the settings menu.

The social network has lost more than $100 billion in market value since March 16, when it first acknowledged that user data had been improperly harvested by a consultancy firm.

"We had Facebook making some announcements. That's obviously taking some pressure off the stock at the moment," said Andre Bakhos, managing director of New Vines Capital LLC in Bernardsville, New Jersey.

Goldman puts London staff on notice for German move over Brexit stalemate

Goldman Sachs has put more than a dozen UK-based banking, sales and trading staff on notice to move to Frankfurt within weeks, two sources with knowledge of the matter said, as it braces for divorce between Britain and the European Union.

After months of patience and private lobbying, the US investment bank has decided it can no longer wait for clarity from lawmakers on how its business might be impacted by Britain's imminent exit from the trading bloc and is taking the steps to minimise disruption to clients.

It has informed members of its London-based derivatives and debt capital markets teams working on German accounts that their activities will be relocated to its base in Frankfurt and to make the necessary preparations to move to those offices by end-June, the two sources told Reuters.

Several members of those teams have already negotiated and signed new German employment contracts in advance of the move, one of the sources added.

Goldman declined to comment.

Wall Street opens flat as investment banks fail to fuel optimism

Wall Street opened flat on Tuesday as upbeat earnings from big investment banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley failed to fuel the optimism that has led the major indexes to record highs.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 15.01 points, or 0.07 percent, to 22,971.97. The S&P 500 lost 0.5 points, or 0.01 percent, to 2,557.14. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 3.44 points, or 0.05 percent, to 6,620.57.
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