By Kevin Drawbaugh and Glenn Somerville

Wall Street faces curbs on risk taking and the prospect of lower profits under sweeping U.S. proposals to prevent a repeat of the credit crisis.

The Obama administration’s plan to rewrite financial rules, announced on Thursday, would create a single regulator to monitor any firm whose failure could threaten the financial system, while also tightening rules for big hedge funds and private equity firms.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told Congress “comprehensive reform” was needed to prevent a repeat of the current credit crisis, the most virulent since the 1930s. “Not modest repairs at the margin, but new rules of the game.”

The proposals Geithner presented also require large, interconnected institutions to hold more capital, provide for derivatives to be traded on an exchange, and give the government authority to shut down troubled financial firms.

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