Wall St. Relieved on Finance Reform

There may have been a “sigh of relief” on Wall Street after the Senate passed financial-regulatory reform last week, but stocks fell Monday morning amid concerns over the European economy. Regarding financial reform in the U.S., A Goldman Sachs analyst seconds the estimate that profits will initially drop by 20 percent. “The health care bill is going to transform the structure of health care exponentially more than this legislation on financial regulation is going to change Wall Street,” says Roger C. Altman, the chairman of Evercore Partners and deputy Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration. “It’s not even close.”