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"I think that any time you have a bank failure like this, bank management clearly failed, supervisors failed and our regulatory system failed," Michael Barr, Fed Vice Chair for Supervision, told Congress. REPORTS DUE MAY 1Both the Fed and FDIC are is expected to produce reports on the failure of Silicon Valley Bank by May 1. Barr told the House Financial Services Committee that he first became aware of stress at Silicon Valley Bank on the afternoon of March 9, but that the bank reported to supervisors that morning that deposits were stable. Gruenberg of the FDIC told lawmakers he also became aware of SVB's stress that Thursday evening. "(Fed) staff were working with Silicon Valley Bank basically all afternoon and evening and through the morning the next day to pledge as much collateral as humanly possible to the discount (window) on Friday," Barr said.

☆ Softer dollar buoys gold, but banking optimism limits safe-haven appeal
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Kavya Guduru | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

SummarySummary Companies Gold might retest support at $1,945/oz - technicalsU.S. dollar down 0.2%Global stocks rise on TuesdayMarch 28 (Reuters) - Gold prices rose on Tuesday as the dollar slipped, although an improvement in risk appetite after efforts by regulators to allay fears over the global banking system limited the safe-haven metal's appeal. "The U.S. dollar seems to be stabilising, this should entice fresh buying back into the (gold) market," said Clifford Bennett, chief economist at ACY Securities. However, gold remains the "resolute safe-haven" in a "rolling risk environment" for the banking sector as risks of contagion are far more persistent than the market would like to believe, Bennett added. Gold might retest a support at $1,945 per ounce, a break below could open the way towards $1,927, Reuters technical analyst Wang Tao said. Spot silver eased 0.1% to $23.06 per ounce, while platinum rose 0.5% to $976.87 and palladium added 0.7% at $1,418.44.

☆ Premarket stocks: Banking chaos could break the strong job market
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

New York CNN —The job market has remained strong even as the Federal Reserve has spent a full year attempting to cool off the economy by raising interest rates. But economists think that the recent banking turmoil may be what finally raises unemployment. Even with those big job cuts, the labor market in the United States remains white hot. Since the pandemic, regional banks “have provided a vast majority of lending to small firms, underwriting local small business formation,” said Philip Wool, an analyst with asset manager Rayliant. AI will likely lead to job loss, they wrote, but technological innovation that initially displaces workers has historically created employment growth over long haul.

☆ What to expect from the Senate hearings on recent bank failures
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

New York CNN —Silicon Valley Bank’s liquidity crisis and subsequent downfall sent waves of panic through the financial system in early March, setting off a chain reaction of chaos with which regional banks are still grappling. On Wednesday, the House Financial Services Committee will continue with their own line of questioning. Sen. Brown has called for the executives of Silicon Valley Bank to be held accountable for the bank’s failure. “Our banking system is sound and resilient, with strong capital and liquidity,” Barr said. The failures of SVB and Signature Bank, he wrote, “demonstrate the implications that banks with assets over $100 billion can have for financial stability.

☆ Morning Bid: Swinging between bank fears and rate risks
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

A look at the day ahead in U.S. and global markets from Mike DolanMarkets seem caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. Easing concerns about bank stability this week have merely re-introduced interest rate risk, reining in any suggestion of a runaway relief rally as the first quarter closes on Friday. While nerves persist over March bank failures and contagion fears, central banks are still faced with punchy growth and inflation and will likely switch attention back to cooling that down once they're assured banks can take the strain. But interest rate markets are already correcting as signs of stability in the banking arena emerge. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

The nation's top bank regulators will face tough questions for the first time Tuesday about how Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank collapsed practically overnight earlier this month. This allowed the FDIC to guarantee hundreds of billions of dollars in uninsured deposits at the banks, money that might otherwise have been wiped out. Both Republicans and Democrats on the 29-member panel questioned whether these deposit guarantees amounted to a government bailout for rich account holders. "One clear takeaway from recent events is that heavy reliance on uninsured deposits creates liquidity risks that are extremely difficult to manage," the FDIC's Gruenberg said in his written testimony. "Particularly in today's environment where money can flow out of institutions with incredible speed in response to news amplified through social media channels."

☆ First came bank failures. Now comes the House hearing
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-26 | by ( Krystal Hur | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

New York CNN —Federal regulators are being called to testify before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday about the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. What lawmakers are saying: Elected officials want a review of what happened at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank earlier this month, as well as stricter regulations to prevent it from happening again. Regulators on March 12, just days after SVB collapsed, announced a guarantee of all deposits at the bank and Signature Bank. What to expect: It’s unclear what will come of the hearings on SVB and Signature Bank. Wednesday: The House Financial Services Committee’s hearing on the banking crisis continues for a second day.

☆ Key lawmakers say upcoming hearings on bank failures aim to boost U.S. confidence in banking sector
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-24 | by ( Chelsey Cox | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of lawmakers overseeing the recent turmoil in the banking sector said Wednesday that they aim to increase Americans' confidence in the banking industry after Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank collapsed over the last two weeks. Regulators and lawmakers are also trying to contain further damage to the economy and reinforce confidence in the banking system. Sen. Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican and ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, also said writing new laws should take a back seat at the hearings to investigating what happened. We can't legislate that either in the financial sector or among financial institutions management, nor with the regulators." Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat and chairman of Senate Banking Committee, compared the SVB collapse to the devastating train crash in East Palestine, Ohio.

☆ Senators call on former Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank CEOs to testify
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Chelsey Cox | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

WASHINGTON — Bipartisan leaders of a Senate committee investigating the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank called Thursday for both institutions' former CEOs to testify about the collapses that have sparked fears about broader economic damage. Ex-SVB CEO Gregory Becker and former Signature CEO Joseph DePaolo "must answer for" their banks' "downfall," wrote Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Tim Scott, R-S.C., in letters to the former executives. Brown and Scott are the chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. Brown and Scott urged the two former executives to answer the panel's questions "at a future date."

☆ US Senate Banking Committee to hold hearings on Silicon Valley Bank collapse
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( Moira Warburton | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

WASHINGTON, March 21 (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate Banking Committee will hold the first of several hearings on the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank on March 28, Democratic Chairman Sherrod Brown said on Tuesday. "It is critical that we get to the bottom of how Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank collapsed so that we can maintain a strong banking system, protect Americans' hard-earned money, and hold those responsible accountable, including the CEOs," Brown said. Silicon Valley Bank was taken over by federal regulators on March 10, with Signature Bank following suit a few days later. Multiple federal agencies - including the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission - are probing SVB. Last week, Brown told reporters that new bank industry legislation is unlikely to emerge from Congress.

☆ It's wild that Western governments have decided that TikTok might spy for China. The app hasn't helped itself.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-18 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

TikTok denies it feeds user data to China, but the drip-drip of revelations hasn't helped. The suspicion is that TikTok's owner ByteDance is in cahoots with the Chinese Communist Party and shares data about Western users with China. TikTok has maintained the app doesn't spy on individuals, and has pointed to the steps it's taking to hive off user information. FCC commissioner Brendan Carr responded to Bertram asking if "any member of the CCP accessed non-public US or EU user data from inside China." US social-media services normalized the aggressive harvesting of user data, and routinely hand over information to international governments.

☆ The 20 best airports in the world according to passengers
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Taylor Rains | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Aviation ranking website Skytrax has revealed the world's best airports for 2023. "Changi Airport is honoured to be named World's Best Airport for the 12th time," Changi CEO Lee Seow Hiang said in a press release. Of the top 20 airports, nine are in Europe, eight are in Asia, two are in North America, and one is in Australia. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and Vancouver International Airport came in at numbers 18 and 20, barely making the list. In fact, Seattle once again won the award for being North America's best airport, and LaGuardia's Terminal B won "world's best new airport terminal."

☆ Four days of panic: How startup execs navigated SVB's meltdown and prepared for the worst
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Ari Levy | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

A Silicon Valley Bank worker talks with people lining up outside of the bank office on March 13, 2023 in Santa Clara, California. Refreshing GoogleOtter.ai founder and CEO Sam Liang spent Monday driving to SVB branches in Silicon Valley to try and retrieve millions of dollars of his company's money. "I checked Google like 20 times an hour, watched [Treasury Secretary Janet] Yellen talking about not bailing out Silicon Valley Bank." Silicon Valley Bank customers listen as FDIC representatives, left, speak with them before the opening of a branch SVBs headquarters in Santa Clara, California on March 13, 2023. "But at the moment, as long as Silicon Valley Bridge Bank is 100% federally guaranteed, there's no need to diversify.

☆ US regulators are working to bail out SVB customers
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-12 | by ( David Goldman | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

New York CNN —American regulators are working through the weekend on an extraordinary plan to make Silicon Valley Bank customers whole after the financial institutions’ stunning and rapid collapse late last week. Treasury, Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. officials over the past two days have worked with the Biden administration to develop facilities that would guarantee all uninsured deposits held by SVB customers. If a sale fails, customers could collect some of their uninsured deposits as the government unwinds and liquidates the bank’s assets to repay them. As of the end of last year, Silicon Valley Bank said it had $151.5 billion in uninsured deposits, $137.6 billion of which was held by American customers. Customers yanked $42 billion from Silicon Valley Bank on Thursday, leaving the bank with $1 billion in negative cash balance, the company said in a regulatory filing.

☆ Elon Musk says he's 'open to the idea' of buying Silicon Valley Bank, but a Tesla investor tells him 'no thanks'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-11 | by ( Sam Tabahriti | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Elon Musk tweeted late Friday he was "open to the idea" of buying the failed Silicon Valley Bank. Musk sold about $23 billion of Tesla stock last year to help finance his Twitter takeover. Musk made a series of Tesla stock sales last year to help finance his Twitter acquisition, helping to depress the share price. The CEO sold stock worth $8.5 billion in April, $6.9 billion in August, $3.95 billion in November, and $3.6 billion in December, totaling almost $23 billion. Silicon Valley Bank was shut down on Friday by US regulators following a run on deposits, Insider's Sindhu Sundar explained.

☆ China takes a cautious approach to its economy in 2023
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-06 | by ( Evelyn Cheng | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Beijing announced Sunday a target of "around 5%" growth in gross domestic product for 2023, with only a modest increase in fiscal support. "The government's conservative growth target of 5% for 2023 recognizes that the pickup in China's growth continues to face headwinds," Martin Petch, vice president and senior credit officer, Moody's Investors Service, said in a note. "Some local governments are finding economic recovery difficult and are facing prominent fiscal imbalances," the report said. Consumption is keyConsumption can become the primary driver of economic growth this year, Li Chunlin, deputy director at the NDRC, told reporters Monday. An overall recovery in the economy can help fiscal revenues grow, and boost demand for workers, he said.

☆ The Treasury just gave the strongest indication yet that the US will get a digital dollar, but an expert says proliferation of CBDCs poses risks to the dollar.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( Phil Rosen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The US Treasury just made its strongest indication that a central bank digital currency is on the table. A US digital dollar, Liang said, would be legal tender and users could convert it one-for-one with other forms of central bank assets, like paper money or reserves. Redbord also believes the US must carefully evaluate the space, given that China is embarking on a similar digital currency program that's aimed at competing with the dollar. In her Wednesday speech, Liang differentiated between wholesale and retail digital dollars. The upside for a retail CBDC, meanwhile, comes from access, rather than technology, but could also destabilize private sector lending during times of duress, she added.

Police officers involved in the deaths have become an intense focus of investigation, protest, and media coverage. Despite being at the heart of some of the most defining incidents in modern policing, most of the officers involved continue to live their lives under the radar. Insider's review of 72 cops involved in two dozen of the most notorious police killings of the past 30 years shows the many different paths officers have taken. There's no nationwide view into what happens to officers involved in egregious incidents of violence. In rare cases, cops involved in these killings have tried to publicly rehabilitate their image rather than seek out anonymity.

☆ Factbox: Some potential successors to Brainard at the Fed
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Meanwhile, analysts and Fed observers are already swapping notes on potential replacements for Brainard at the Fed from a bench of economists aligned with Biden's Democrats, who control the U.S. Senate. MARY DALYDaly is president of the San Francisco Fed, ascending to that position in 2018 after 22 years at the regional Fed bank, including a stint as its director of research. Furman has been a prominent, Twitter-savvy commentator on macroeconomic and Fed policy. He has a PhD from the University of Virginia and served as a Fed economist for a little over a year in the mid-1990s. With a PhD from Stanford University, he's held staff positions at the Fed board and the San Francisco Fed, where he also served as president before moving to the New York Fed role in 2018.

☆ Huawei turns to patents for a lifeline — including those in the U.S.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( Evelyn Cheng | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

In 2022, Huawei announced it signed more than 20 new or extended licensing agreements for its patents. But the sheer number of patents filed meant Huawei ranked fourth last year by the number of patent grants in the U.S., IFI said. For Huawei, licensing its patents to other companies has the potential to claw back a bit of that revenue. Huawei did not break down specific figures, and only said it met its intellectual property revenue expectations for 2021. "I don't think they had a choice in terms of sort of boosting their licensing revenue."

October 2022 Wang Linfang,92, molecular biologist Four members of China’s two most prestigious academic institutions died in October – in line with the average in recent years. October 2022 Wang Linfang,92, molecular biologist Four members of China’s two most prestigious academic institutions died in October – in line with the average in recent years. Zhang Guocheng, 91 Zhao Zisen, 90, developed China’s first practical optical fiber Tang Hongxiao, 91 The obituaries began accumulating. October 2022 Wang Linfang,92, molecular biologist Four members of China’s two most prestigious academic institutions died in October – in line with the average in recent years. October 2022 Wang Linfang,92, molecular biologist Four members of China’s two most prestigious academic institutions died in October – in line with the average in recent years.

The U.S. is considering new sanctions on Chinese surveillance companies over sales to Iran’s security forces, officials familiar with the deliberations said, as Iranian authorities increasingly rely on the technology to crack down on protests. U.S. authorities are in advanced discussions on the sanctions, according to the officials, and have zeroed in on Tiandy Technologies Co., a surveillance-equipment maker based in the eastern Chinese city of Tianjin whose products have been sold to units of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a hard-line paramilitary group.

☆ Indian rupee is unlikely to see sharp gains, says DBS Bank
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailIndian rupee is unlikely to see sharp gains, says DBS BankChang Wei Liang of the Singapore bank that's because India's central bank will be looking to build up its foreign exchange reserves and the current account deficit is still "very large."

☆ Ketamine is being sold as a depression wonder drug. For some, it's making everything worse.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Anna Silman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +42 min

The infusions at the ketamine clinic in his West Texas hometown were a Christmas gift from his grandmother. About five years ago, more and more of my friends started using ketamine recreationally. IV ketamine treatment centers charging $400 to $2,000 an infusion popped up all over the country. "Ketamine used as directed in an appropriate clinical setting very rarely leads to any dependence," Mindbloom says on its website. Like Nadia, most of the people I interviewed said when they started using ketamine, they didn't think it was possible to become dependent on it.

SINGAPORE, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Japan's central bank appears to have scored an interim win in its long-drawn battle with bond bears. The Bank of Japan's (BOJ) policy meeting this week was, at first glance, a damp squib for excited markets. It maintained its cap on 10-year yields, defying market expectations for change, and modified a funds-supply operation such that it offers more money for longer tenors to banks. After Wednesday's decision to retain ultra-low rates, 10-year bond yields, which had been testing the BOJ's 0.5% cap for a week, settled below 0.4%, suggesting many speculators were closing positions. "Most people are concerned about market liquidity in the bond market," a senior trader at a global bank in Asia told Reuters.

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