Despite recent warnings that the rally may be over, stock markets face a "meltup" as institutional investors will now feel obliged to buy to deliver returns, Philippe Gijsels, senior equity strategist at Fortis, told CNBC Monday.

The decade that brought us the Enron scandal, the Madoff scandal, the subprime scandal, the Stanford scandal and the great bailout scandal has just two months to run and we have another scandal, the Rajaratnam scandal.

When bond yields begin to return to their long term average expect money to pour out of equities. Until that moment factors such as profits, revenues and growth may have less of an impact on the equity market than you might think.

The new Supreme Court term that begins Monday will be dominated by cases concerning corporations, compensation and the financial markets that could signal the justices’ attitude toward regulatory constraints at a time of extraordinary government intervention in the economy.

Reform of rating agencies is badly needed as there is a culture of carelessness towards the law which needs challenging, Eric Kolchinsky, a former analyst at Moody's who has accused the agency of issuing inflated ratings, told CNBC Friday.

Ratings agencies need to adopt universal standards to prevent the kinds of abuses that helped fuel the collapse of the credit markets, an industry whistleblower told CNBC.

Tougher financial rules have been stymied by industry lobbying, government turf battles and a stabilizing banking system. Some analysts fear another crisis is inevitable.

The SEC will discuss rules to improve oversight of the credit rating industry as well as a proposed ban  on flash trades—or buy and sell orders that exchanges send to a specific group of participants before revealing them publicly.

Authorities have ruled out foul play in the death of a financier accused of using millions of dollars from international investors to fund a lavish lifestyle complete with vacations and personal jets.

A recent court ruling that forced two ratings companies to defend fraud claims is a "game-changer" for the industry, said David Einhorn, head of Greenlight Capital.

A global crackdown on bank secrecy and offshore tax havens is gaining steam due to  the worldwide financial crisis, the head of the OECD told CNBC.

Late Tuesday, a federal appeals court, without explanation, denied Allen Stanford's petition to remove U.S. District Judge David Hittner from his criminal case.

The industry self-regulatory organization that was supposed to police the brokers at the Stanford Financial Group acknowledges it received a tip from an employee in 2003 that the company was running a Ponzi scheme, but did not follow up on it because of the agency's own policy.

Several banks, including two in the U.S., face new scrutiny as investors and regulators try to sort out the alleged Stanford Ponzi scheme, CNBC has learned. At issue: what the banks and regulators knew about massive deposits and withdrawals from Stanford over the years.

One of Allen Stanford's mistresses—whom the accused fraudster euphemistically refers to as "outside wives"—should be held in contempt of court, according to the court-appointed Receiver in the case.