Wall Street Roundup: Flash crash culprit. Diminishing private equity fees.

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The good and the bad. Personal income and spending are both up, as is consumer confidence, while an index of manufacturing growth is down a bit from last month. The outlook is still uncertain enough that the chief of the New York Federal Reserve, Bill Dudley, said the economy needs more support from policymakers.

Flash crash culprit. A number of papers are reporting that the Securities and Exchange Commission has found that the actions of a Kansas trading firm, Waddell & Reed, may have kicked off the May 6 flash crash -- though the SEC is not expected to report the company’s name in its soon-to-be-released report.

Diminishing private equity fees. One of the kings of private equity, the Carlyle Group’s David Rubinstein, said that many private equity firms have been forced to lower their fees in the difficult markets that have followed the financial crisis.

Washington-Wall Street commuter. A Morgan Stanley executive, Thomas Nides, who came to the firm after working in politics and an earlier career in banking, is now returning to Washington to work in the State Department.

-- Nathaniel Popper in New York