Federated's Debbie Cunningham wrote last week, "With regard to our European bank exposures, Federated has pared back our maturities, but we have not pared back on our ultimate level of exposure. This approach is similar to the one we took with asset-backed commercial paper between 2007 and 2008, when many in the marketplace just said, "No, we're not using exposure to that sector at all." With European banks today, we continue to use them, and we continue to be comfortable with our analysis and day-to-day monitoring of those institutions.... So, we remain exposed, and we are keeping the maturities shorter so that we have increased decision points on whether or not to continue to go down that path. At this point, the answer is yes we will continue to use them." In other news, "BlackRock's Larry Fink "is scheduled to speak at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Banking and Financial Services Conference in New York, on Wednesday, November 16, 2011, beginning at approximately 12:55 p.m."