Investors woke up this morning to a new era on Wall Street.

The last two big investment banks, Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS), have abandoned their freewheeling, frat-boy days to become bank holding companies. The move puts them under stricter Federal regulation. More important, they will now look to more conservative sources of money - such as customer deposits - over highly leveraged trading bets.

What remains to be seen, though, is whether the shift could dam up a torrent of money flowing into emerging markets.

OPEC nations, reports the Financial Times, earned as much in the first half of this year as they did in the whole of 2007.

According to the report, member nations pocketed a staggering $645 billion in the first six months of 2008, just under the record $671 billion they earned last year. This puts OPEC nations on track to earn a record $1,245 billion this year, despite the recent 20 percent drop in oil prices, as any price drop will be offset by an increase in demand.

Profit Hunter’s Manraaj Singh calls it the “biggest transfer in history.”

The U.S. economy is on the way out, says Dave Gonigam in The Daily Reckoning’s blog, Desidooru Saloon. Dave has picked up on a report from the Financial Times that says an anonymous Gulf sovereign wealth fund has slashed its dollar-based holdings. China’s biggest holder of dollar reserves, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, is also reducing its dollar exposure…

Editor’s Note: Bill Bonner in The Daily Reckoning says the recent slide in the dollar is nothing compared to the all-out collapse that could be on its way. Central banks throughout the world are holding $5 trillion, and some are getting worried about the greenback’s decline. Meanwhile, the euro and gold are become increasingly attractive holdings. If global central banks start dumping their dollars, it could mean the end of the global financial system as we know it…

Starving for capital and hell-bent on retaining its handsome dividend, Barclays PLC (ADR: BCS) plans to raise $8.9 billion (4.5 billion pounds) by selling shares to investment banks and sovereign wealth funds around the world.

As much as 1.58 million shares will be sold to existing investors China Investment Bank and Singapore’s Temasek Holdings Pte. Ltd., as well as new investors Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., Qatar Investment Authority and Challenger - a fund that represents “the beneficial interests” of Qatar’s royal family.