The U.S. Senate passed financial regulation yesterday, leaving just a presidential signature to transform bill to law. To be sure, the push to passage has been less titillating than Mel Gibson's ongoing series of vitriolic rants.
The highlights (on financial regulation, not Mel Gibson) include a council of regulators to monitor firms for financial system risk, extended derivatives regulation, limits on propriety trading, and a mechanism for liquidating large institutions whose collapse would threaten the economy.
Despite widespread criticism of the bill, some on Wall Street are warming to the idea. Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) CEO Lloyd Blankfein said during Congressional hearings on the financial crisis that, "on the whole, financial reform is, absolutely is essential ... the biggest beneficiaries of reform will be Wall Street itself." Mr. Blankfein's pronouncement is likely one of many reasons almost four out of five Americans surveyed by Bloomberg say they have little or no confidence that the measure will prevent a future crisis.
But that's looking longer term. In the short term, regulatory costs will increase for everyone, but disproportionately. According to JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon, new regulation will cost his bank billions of dollars. But as the New York Times reports, JPMorgan may also be poised to gain market share.
I suspect much of that business will be gained from smaller competitors. Higher regulatory costs favor economies of scale; those costs represent a higher share of small banks' profits than those of their larger competitors, giving big banks a big advantage.
Perhaps more importantly, big banks will continue to benefit from being too big to fail. No matter how tough the political talk, the U.S. Treasury will still serve as the moral-hazard back stop, even if it's a reluctant one. Sure, Citigroup (NYSE: C), Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), and Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) took their hits during 2008's financial crisis, but the dip in their stocks was a buying opportunity. I believe that opportunity still exists, especially given that the next earth-moving financial crisis is likely a few years away.
Fool contributor Stephen Mauzy, CFA, owns shares of Citigroup. He's the author of the upcoming book Wealth Portfolio. Try any of our Foolish newsletters today, free for 30 days. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
