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☆ Morning Bid: Markets labor under recession cloud
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

A look at the day ahead in U.S. and global markets from Mike Dolan. If the tight U.S. labor market is finally unwinding, markets suspect the Federal Reserve's job may well done after all - but at the cost of a looming recession. With Wednesday's private sector jobs reading for March and Friday's national payrolls report ahead, U.S. interest rate markets were jolted again on Tuesday by surprisingly soft data on job vacancies that suggested cooling demand for staff. More decisively, the two-year Treasury yield plunged more than 20 basis points intraday to hover just above 3.8% on Wednesday. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

☆ How First Republic's courtship of the wealthy led to meltdown
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Lawrence Delevingne | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

March 27 (Reuters) - First Republic Bank (FRC.N) became the epicenter of the U.S. regional banking crisis after the wealthy clients it courted to fuel its breakneck growth started withdrawing deposits and left the bank reeling. Reuters GraphicsFor years, First Republic lured high net-worth customers with preferential rates on mortgages and loans. Morgan Stanley analysts estimated a deposit outflow of nearly half of total deposits according to a March 20 note. First Republic's loan book and investment portfolio also became less valuable as interest rates rose, which is hampering a capital raise. "Wealthy customers were drawn to First Republic in part because they could get large mortgages at rock-bottom interest rates," said McCoy.

☆ World stocks gyrate as bank contagion fears bite
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-24 | by ( Koh Gui Qing | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

"The growing sense of unease about the global banking system is heightening volatility in stock markets around the world," said Nigel Green, chief executive of deVere Group, a financial advisor. The failure of U.S. regional banks Silicon Valley Bank (SIVB.O) and Signature Bank (SBNY.O) this month triggered fears of a banking contagion and prompted U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Thursday to pledge action to safeguard bank deposits. JP Morgan Chase (JPM.N) dropped 1.52%, the S&P 500 banks index (.SPXBK) was down 0.33%, while the KBW regional bank index (.KRX) climbed 2.92%. "I don't expect this volatility (in bank stocks) to subside anytime soon," said Peter Doherty, head of investment research at private bank Arbuthnot Latham in London. Doherty said issues of "contagion risk within the U.S. banking sector" were undoubtedly weighing on appetite for bank stocks elsewhere.

☆ Morning Bid: Central banks try to see through stress
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

A look at the day ahead in U.S. and global markets from Mike DolanEven with a nod to greater banking stress, the major central banks all seem determined to tighten the monetary screw another notch. With Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's pushback against suggestions of a blanket insurance of all U.S. banking deposits unnerving investors again after the Fed decision, few believe the financial stress has fully dissipated. Even though stock markets swooned after the Yellen comments on Wednesday, S&P500 futures were back up smartly ahead of Thursday's open. European bourses and banking stocks were only a touch lower in the face of the latest European rate rises. The dollar hit its lowest since early February but regained its footing ahead of the U.S. open and BoE decision.

☆ Americans are wary of bailouts as banking concerns mount -Reuters/Ipsos
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Jason Lange | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Stock markets have swooned around the world since Silicon Valley Bank collapsed on Friday as worried customers pulled their deposits. In a 2012 Reuters/Ipsos poll, only 20% of Republicans and 53% of Democrats said they supported bailouts. About half of respondents to the Reuters/Ipsos poll said they had heard at least a fair amount about Silicon Valley Bank's implosion. The Reuters/Ipsos poll showed broad bipartisan support for Washington backing bank deposits. The Reuters/Ipsos poll, conducted online, surveyed 1,004 people nationwide and had a credibility interval of about 4 percentage points in either direction.

☆ These 23 bank stocks offer upside after Silicon Valley Bank's stunning collapse sent the whole sector plummeting, according to Bank of America
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( James Faris | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank has caused panic in the banking sector. One of the biggest scares for the banking sector since the financial crisis came late last week when Silicon Valley Bank (SIVB), which was the 16th-largest bank in the nation just days ago, imploded nearly overnight. Stocks swooned and market volatility spiked when it became clear that Silicon Valley Bank was going under. Although the US government pledged to protect individuals and businesses who made deposits at Silicon Valley Bank, fears about the potential for widespread collapse carried into this week. Shares of small- and mid-sized regional banks got crushed on Monday in what seemed to be a crisis of confidence.

☆ Citadel boss Ken Griffin made $4.1 billion last year, the most of any hedge fund manager in history
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( Phil Rosen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Institutional Investor just released its annual rankings of the highest-earning hedge fund managers. The top 25 hedge-fund managers on the list together made $21.5 billion in 2022, the third highest total in the rankings' history. Griffin took the number one spot on the rich list for the first time in six years. Across the firm, assets under management ballooned to $53.7 billion, according to Institutional Investor. Overall, in 2022 Citadel brought in $16 billion, and returned roughly $7 billion to investors at the end of the year.

☆ The State of Biden’s Presidency Is Blah
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Karl Rove | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The Beltway conventional wisdom is in: President Biden’s State of the Union address was a great success. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared it “inspiring.” NPR said the president likely came across to many as both “confrontational” and “reasonable,” while CNN swooned that “his message was one of unadulterated optimism.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Mr. Biden “talked with vigor,” and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries proclaimed the address “compelling.”The president suckered the House GOP’s Knucklehead Caucus—led by the crazed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene—to scream at him, providing a made-for-TV moment. After speaking for 73 minutes, he spent another 20 shaking hands in the chamber before departing for the White House, apparently to leave an image of camaraderie and energy.

Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs - often a market mover with its big macro calls - is a good example. Last month's Bank of America survey of fund managers around the world still had net 68% expecting recession this year. Rates markets reared up to price Fed rates back above 5% and now expect them higher at yearend than they are today. And yet market volatility gauges have stayed peculiarly serene. Bond market volatility (.MOVE) remains well above its 20-year mean - but it has retreated sharply to two-thirds of last year's peaks.

☆ Morning Bid: Fed fillip, double trouble, triple A
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

It looks less like fighting the Fed, than a mild disagreement. Powell didn't endorse that market view - which now has just one more quarter point rise to a terminal rate under 4.9% by May and 40 basis points of cuts from there by December. But he seemed ambivalent about investors' more optimistic take on disinflation and indicated the central bank was increasingly keeping its options open about a 'couple of hikes'. Meta's stock boomed as its earnings update showed stricter cost controls and a new $40 billion share buyback. With the risk around the BoE's split monetary policy council for a smaller quarter point move, it was the euro that looks set to emerge the winner of the three big central bank events.

☆ FedEx to cut senior jobs as part of larger staff reduction
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Lisa Baertlein | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

FedEx did not say how many positions would be affected by the new layoffs. In mid-September, FedEx pulled its profit forecast and shares swooned more than 20% - the largest single-day drop in the company's 50-year history. But those numbers only tell part of the story because they exclude roughly FedEx 6,000 contractors and their workers, who handle most of the FedEx Ground's home delivery business. FedEx already has temporarily furloughed workers at its trucking division FedEx Freight as the pandemic-fueled e-commerce delivery bubble deflates and recession threatens, joining transportation-focused companies ranging from delivery upstart Amazon.com (AMZN.O) and trucking company C.H. Robinson Worldwide (CHRW.O) to freight broker Uber Freight and freight forwarding startup Flexport in announcing layoffs.

Former President Donald Trump unleashed a slew of insults against writer E. Jean Carroll when he was deposed in her civil suit accusing him of rape, newly unsealed court filings show. During the lengthy deposition, Trump was asked about a post he wrote on Truth Social shortly before his testimony claiming that Carroll's story was "a hoax." Roberta Kaplan, Carroll's lawyer, then asked him about writing in the post that Carroll said Trump had "swooned her" inside the store. Didn’t she say that?” Trump continued, before indicating he was referring to Carroll's 2019 interview on CNN with Anderson Cooper. When Cooper said that most people think of rape as a violent assault, she responded, “Most people think of rape as sexy.

☆ Trump, in newly released deposition, explains what he meant by 'swooned her': 'It's a nicer word than the word that starts with an F'
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-14 | by ( Charles R. Davis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

In an October 2022 deposition, Trump was asked about a post he wrote about E. Jean Carroll. In the post, Trump denied that he had ever "swooned" Carroll, who accuses him of raping her. In 2019, Carroll accused Trump of raping her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s. And it's a nicer word than the word that starts with an F, and this would be word that I used because I thought it would be inappropriate to use the other word. In the deposition, Kaplan noted a similar definition, asking: "That's not what you meant here?"

☆ Citadel Posts Record Revenues for Hedge-Fund, Securities Operations
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Juliet Chung | Alexander Osipovich | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Citadel ’s winning streak continued in 2022, with Kenneth Griffin ’s hedge-fund and electronic-trading businesses both posting record revenues even as markets swooned, people familiar with the matter said. Citadel, the hedge-fund operation with $54.5 billion under management as of Jan. 1, had about $28 billion in revenue, the people said. That far outstripped its prior record of $16.2 billion the year before. The separate Citadel Securities, one of the world’s biggest electronic-trading firms, had $7.5 billion in revenue, up from the prior record of $7 billion in 2021.

Marathon, and Valero's market valuations reached record highs in 2022; while Phillips 66 and PBF's are near highs reached in 2019. LESS CAPACITY, MORE PROFITSWhen the pandemic hit, big U.S. refiners closed numerous facilities that were less profitable than other operations. Processing capacity is expected to increase by 1 million bpd per day in 2022 and 1.6 million bpd in 2023, mostly in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The margins to produce gasoline were consistently higher throughout 2022 than in the last several years as a result of the Ukraine war. A series of closures have caused U.S. processing capacity to decline even as refiners have become more profitable.

☆ Morning Bid: Bonds lap up crude, costs and Canada
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

The big consensus bet of 2023 is already in full swing - bonds are bid. With year-on-year oil price gains evaporating to zero, that is dragging inflation expectations down in lockstep. The exception was in Hong Kong, which the Hang Seng benchmark (.HSI) has now recouped all this year's underperformance versus world indices and the S&P500. The Hang Seng added another 3% on Thursday as the Hong Kong government loosened its COVID-19 curbs further. The isolation period for patients and contacts will be cut to five days from seven days and requirements for arrivals to Hong Kong to undergo daily tests will similarly be reduced to five days.

☆ Gonçalo Ramos: Meet the striker who replaced Cristiano Ronaldo and made World Cup history at Qatar 2022
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Ben Morse | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Not only was it his first start at Qatar 2022, the tournament’s first hat-trick, but Ramos’ three goals in this last-16 tie puts Ronaldo record in one-off World Cup games somewhat in the shade. Ronaldo has never scored in a World Cup knockout match, despite competing in five tournaments. Michael Steele/Getty ImagesBenfica CampusRamos is a product of the famous Benfica academy. Never gives up!” Ramos’ Benfica teammate Grimaldo told Marca. His trio of goals ensured Ramos became the first player to score a hat-trick in his first World Cup start since Miroslav Klose against Saudi Arabia in 2002.

☆ E. Jean Carroll, writer who accused Trump of 1990s rape, files new lawsuit
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-25 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

NEW YORK — A writer who accused former President Donald Trump of rape filed an upgraded lawsuit against him Thursday in New York, minutes after a new state law took effect allowing victims of sexual violence to sue over attacks that occurred decades ago. Previously, Carroll had been barred by state law from suing over the alleged rape because too many years had passed since the incident. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who presides over the defamation lawsuit Carroll filed three years ago, may decide to include the new claims in a trial likely to occur in the spring. Trump and Carroll also have already been deposed. Attorney Michael Madaio, a lawyer for Trump, said at the hearing that the new allegations are significantly different than the original defamation lawsuit and would require “an entirely new set” of evidence gathering.

☆ Writer who accused Trump of 1990s rape files new lawsuit
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-24 | by ( Larry Neumeister | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Carroll claims that Donald Trump sexually assaulted her in a dressing room at a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s. Trump denies knowing Carroll. Trump responded to the book's allegations by saying it could never have happened because Carroll was "not my type." Previously, Carroll had been barred by state law from suing over the alleged rape because too many years had passed since the incident. In her new claims, Carroll maintains that Trump committed battery "when he forcibly raped and groped her" and that he defamed her when he denied raping her last month.

☆ Morning Bid: Congress unswept, crypto a mess
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

A look at the day ahead in U.S. and global markets from Mike Dolan. Incumbent Democrats enjoyed a stronger-than-expected showing, with a chance of retaining the Senate, limiting expected losses in the House of Representatives and taking important governors' races. Regardless of the poll results, problems in the crypto world deepened amid fears of widespread contagion and selling following the near collapse of a major exchange on Tuesday. Perhaps partly related to the crypto shakeout, shares in Tesla (TSLA.O) dropped as much as 5% on Tuesday after filings showed owner Elon Musk sold almost $4 billion Tesla shares before his Twitter takeover. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

☆ Explainer: Crypto industry spends millions on U.S. midterm elections
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( Hannah Lang | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Crypto companies are eager to back industry-friendly political candidates. The election comes at a time of turmoil for the crypto industry. FTX's CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has far outspent all others in the crypto industry. WHAT IS THE CRYPTO INDUSTRY LOOKING TO GET IN RETURN? Crypto companies such as Circle want lawmakers to create a framework for stablecoins to help mature the industry and codify consumer protections.

☆ Self-driving cars were supposed to take over the road. What happened?
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Matt Mcfarland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

Caitlin O'Hara/Bloomberg/Getty ImagesGeneral Motors bought a self-driving company in 2016. Big talk, smaller resultsUrmson, while leading Google’s self-driving car project before founding Aurora, talked of his preteen son never needing to get a driver’s license. A self-driving car, without a steering wheel or pedals, would have to be able to drive itself in literally every situation possible. “It’s really, really hard,” Waymo’s then-CEO John Krafcik said in 2018 of self-driving technology. Companies developing lidar, widely seen as a key component for self-driving vehicles, as well as self-driving companies, have seen their stocks plummet recently.

☆ Fed 'united,' moving at 'appropriately aggressive' pace -Kashkari
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Sept 27 (Reuters) - Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Neel Kashkari on Tuesday said U.S. central bankers are united in their determination to do what is needed to bring inflation down, and financial markets understand that. "We are committed to restoring price stability, but we also recognize, given these lags, there is the risk of overdoing it on the front end, and so I think we are moving at an appropriately aggressive pace," he said. Kashkari said he believes markets have digested the Fed's intent to bring inflation down and that while monetary policy now is tight, it will need to be tighter still. "The economy is sending us a lot of mixed signals right now," Kashkari said. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterReporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by Leslie AdlerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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