Bankers Aren’t Above the Law: Five Things We Learned Last Week

A 14-year prison sentence handed to Tom Hayes, the former UBS and Citigroup trader, for manipulating Libor interest rates this week sent shockwaves through the financial industry, showing fines are no longer enough. The judge said it was a message “to the world of banking” that “high standards of probity” are expected.

Charts of anything Greek seems to look the same these days, falling from top left to bottom right. Greek stocks had a brutal first few days of trading after a five-week suspension. The Athens Stock Exchange tumbled the most since at least 1987 on Monday, and the weekly drop wiped out about 8.9 billion euros ($10 billion) in market value. That’s even with curbs in place - including maximum drop limits and restrictions on short selling. Banks got the worst of it. Despite a rebound over the last two days, the National Bank of Greece lost half its market value this week. After three bailouts and the biggest sovereign debt restructuring in history, the value of Greek equities has plummeted 90 percent since a 2007 high. One silver lining is that chances are slim the rout will spread - Greece now accounts for less than 2 percent of the euro-zone economy. The entire Athens stock exchange value now is about the same as Adobe Systems.