U.S. charges ex-Morgan Stanley executive for fraud

A former Morgan Stanley executive settled with U.S. securities regulators in connection with real estate investments in China and prosecutors have filed a related criminal case, the Securities and Exchange ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former Morgan Stanley executive pleaded guilty

AP - Federal regulators on Monday accused Sunwest Management Inc., one of the nation's largest operators of assisted-living facilities, and its former chief executive of securities fraud in connection with real estate investments that turned sour.

WASHINGTON – Regulators on Monday charged the Chinese affiliates of five top accounting firms with violating securities laws, alleging they refused to produce audit documents in connection with accounting fraud investigations into Chinese companies. The Securities and Exchange Commission began proceedings against the Chinese units of Deloitte & Touche; Ernst & Young; KPMG; PricewaterhouseCoopers and BDO.

IFM Investments Limited (Century 21 China Real Estate) (CTC) Q3 2011 Earnings Call November 17, 2011, 8:00 a.m. ET Executives Donald Zhang - Co-founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Harry Lu - Co-founder, Vice Chairman and President Kevin Wei - Chief Financial Officer Josh Gartner - IR Presentation Operator

China has passed many reforms aimed at easing capital controls. But these are being rolled out slowly.

Morgan Stanley reported earnings today that beat expectations. Analysts expected profits of $0.27 a share and the bank reported profits of $0.45 a share excluding accounting charges (see an explanation of that below).

Inquiring minds are reading an excellent report China Real Estate Unravels by Patrick Chovanec, a professor at Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management in Beijing, China. The report confirms many of the things I said would happen in regards to the Chinese real estate bubble and GDP. Here are a few items of note.