WikiLeaks & Data Dumps: Weekly Financial Recap

Bank of America's shares came under pressure from reports that WikiLeaks would release damaging information about the company.
By Laurie Kulikowski ,

NEW YORK (

TheStreet

) -- Financial stocks seesawed this week.

The big buzz of the week,

Bank of America

(BAC) - Get Report

, saw it shares teeter after

reports came out that Julian Assange's WikiLeaks Web site

is releasing damaging information that in Assange's words could "take down a bank or two." Shares of Bank of America stumbled on Tuesday after the report came out.

Watch

TheStreet

reporters Maria Woehr and Laurie Kulikowski discuss in this week's

Bank Stock Buzz whether WikiLeaks

has a case.

Foreign banks came under the spotlight this week as the

Federal Reserve

released documents showing which banks took bailout money

, as part of a court order related to a lawsuit by

Bloomberg

.

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Banks including

Royal Bank of Scotland

(RBS) - Get Report

,

Barclays

(BCS) - Get Report

, Dresdner and

Society Generale

borrowed heavily from the Fed's Term Auction Facility (TAF) during the initial days of the financial crisis, the report showed.

Both

State Street

(STT) - Get Report

and Barclays

announced layoffs this week

, just in time for the holiday season.

State Street said that it plans to let go of 1,400 positions, or 5% of its workforce, over the next year as part of a company-wide restructuring plan.

Barclays confirmed this week that it plans to fire several hundred employees in the next three months after a decline in investment banking revenue.

Two online brokers saw shares surge early in the week after each announced plans to return capital to shareholders in the form of special dividends.

OptionsXpress

(OXPS)

said Monday that its board of directors authorized a dividend of $4.50 per share ($259 million in total) payable to shareholders later this month.

Interactive Brokers

(IBKR) - Get Report

also plans to return of $1 billion to shareholders in the form of a $1.79 per share dividend this month.

-- Written by Laurie Kulikowski in New York.

To contact the writer of this article, click here:

Laurie Kulikowski

.

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.

Disclosure: TheStreet's editorial policy prohibits staff editors, reporters and analysts from holding positions in any individual stocks.

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