Despite Friday’s confirmation of another month of robust job growth, Wall Street couldn’t shake a “relentless decline” that’s going on 6 weeks now and was fueled on Monday “by new data from China that added to concerns about...more
U.S. jobless claims hit 166k last week, the lowest “since November 1968, when the labor force was less than half of its current size.” Labor Department data also showed some 4.3 million workers quitting their jobs in...more
JetBlue has made a last-minute $3.6 billion offer to buy Spirit Airlines, “throwing a wrench into Spirit’s plan to merge with Frontier Airlines and create a behemoth budget carrier.” The offer appears calculated to help...more
Jobs Report Friday again! Here’s what we’re looking for in the numbers (though after last month, good luck with any predictions)...more
Texas AG Ken Paxton has sued Facebook parent Meta accusing it of violating “a state consumer protection law by repeatedly capturing and commercializing biometric data in photos and videos for more than a decade without the...more
No surprise here—inflation continues to dominate the economic conversation. New CPI numbers showed prices rising some 7.5% in January, topping projections by .3% and “climbing at the fastest pace in 40 years and more quickly...more
Low-cost American carriers Frontier and Spirit Airlines have reached an agreement to combine forces, a merger that “would create the fifth-largest U.S. airline by market share, putting pressure on the nation’s biggest...more
Saule Omarova, the White House’s pick to helm the OCC, has withdrawing from consideration for the post, saying it was “no longer tenable” for her to seek the position following withering attacks from the banking industry and...more
12/8/2021
/ Amazon ,
Carbon Emissions ,
Citigroup ,
E-Commerce ,
Financial Markets ,
John Deere ,
Kellogg Company ,
Mergers ,
OCC ,
Tesla ,
Theranos ,
Unions ,
Whistleblowers
Samsung surprised the business world today by replacing the “heads of its three major business units and merg[ing] the company’s mobile and consumer electronics businesses into a single unit.” The moves mean the South Korean...more
12/8/2021
/ Bitcoin ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Markets ,
Mergers ,
Publicly-Traded Companies ,
Samsung ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) ,
Tesla
Labor Department figures out Tuesday showed that a record 4.3 million U.S. workers voluntarily quit their jobs in August, “up from four million in July and . . . by far the most in the two decades the government has been...more
10/13/2021
/ Amazon ,
American Airlines ,
Apple ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Mandates ,
Financial Markets ,
General Motors ,
Governor Abbott ,
Hasbro ,
Mergers ,
Price Inflation ,
Southwest Airlines ,
Vaccinations
President Biden sat down with a range of executives from Microsoft to Columbia Sportswear to discuss the administration’s recently announced vaccine mandates...more
9/16/2021
/ Biden Administration ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Financial Markets ,
Ford Motor ,
Mergers ,
Microsoft ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Fraud ,
Tesla ,
Vaccinations ,
Whistleblower Awards
On Friday, N.D. Cal. Federal Judge Yvonne Gonzalez issued an order in the high-profile Epic Games v. Apple App Store tilt, finding that Apple “violated California’s laws against unfair competition by barring app developers...more
9/14/2021
/ Amazon ,
App Developers ,
Apple ,
Bank of America ,
Car Dealerships ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Electric Vehicles ,
Financial Markets ,
Hertz ,
Mergers ,
Semiconductors ,
Unfair Competition
Coinbase, the “largest cryptocurrency exchange” in the U.S., revealed on Wednesday that SEC officials are threatening to sue it “over a proposed financial product that would let customers earn interest on digital asset...more
9/10/2021
/ Bitcoin ,
Bonds ,
Coinbase ,
Consumer Financial Products ,
Cryptocurrency ,
El Salvador ,
Federal Reserve ,
Financial Markets ,
Fraud ,
Mergers ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
U.S. insurance giants Aon and Willis Towers Watson have shelved their plans for a massive tie-up over an inability to resolve concerns raised by the DOJ’s antitrust division and a desire to avoid the lengthy timeline...more
As previewed earlier this week, four companies associated intimately with the opioid epidemic—three distributors and one drugmaker—have finalized a deal with state Attorneys General in which they will pay $26 billion to...more
Following a Supreme Court decision yesterday questioning the constitutionality of the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the White House ousted current FHFA chief Mark Calabria. The move is the latest “blow to...more
Hackers who targeted airport currency exchange mainstay Travelex in a ransomware attack on New Year’s Eve have alerted British media that they possess 5 GB of sensitive customer data from the company “since gaining access to...more
1/10/2020
/ Aircraft Equipment ,
Airplane Accidents ,
Airports ,
Bailout ,
Barclays ,
Boeing ,
China ,
Cross-Border Transactions ,
Currency Exchange ,
Cyber Attacks ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Breach ,
Economic Growth ,
EU ,
Exports ,
Failure to Comply ,
Financial Markets ,
Financial Transactions ,
Foreign Exchanges ,
Foreign Relations ,
Forex ,
Goldman Sachs ,
GrubHub ,
Hackers ,
Imports ,
Information Governance ,
Information Technology ,
Insurance Industry ,
Interest Rate Adjustments ,
Interest Rates ,
Internal Communications ,
Iran ,
Job Creation ,
Jobs Report ,
Legislative Agendas ,
Lloyds Banking Group ,
Mergers ,
Mining ,
On-Demand Services ,
Pending Legislation ,
Popular ,
Ransomware ,
Retail Banks ,
Revenue ,
Stock Prices ,
Tariffs ,
Trade Negotiations ,
Trade Relations ,
UK ,
UK Brexit ,
Unemployment ,
US Trade Policies ,
Wages
The White House has chosen Columbia University economist Richard Clarida as Fed Vice Chair—the number 2 spot at the central bank. Clarida is a “monetary policy scholar” and former Bush II administration Treasury official....more
4/17/2018
/ Administrative Appointments ,
Barclays ,
Benchmarks ,
China ,
Cloud Computing ,
Deutsche Bank ,
EURIBOR ,
Facebook ,
Investment ,
Job Creation ,
Marriott ,
Mergers ,
Netflix ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
Secured Overnight Funding Rate (SOFR) ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
SFO ,
Stock Prices ,
Trade Relations ,
Trump Administration ,
US Trade Policies ,
ZTE
Some solid non-search-engine growth helped Alphabet post pretty solid Q4 numbers (with profit missing estimates but revenue surging past them)....more
1/27/2017
/ Alibaba ,
Banks ,
Barclays ,
Charter Communications ,
EU ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Google ,
Importers ,
Imports ,
Mergers ,
Mexico ,
Telecommunications ,
Trade Relations ,
UK ,
UK Brexit ,
US Trade Policies ,
Verizon
The recent US rejection of the TPP will have wide-reaching effects in Asia. Among them is the strong likelihood of 80s-style trade warring between Japan and the US....more
1/26/2017
/ Aircraft ,
Banking Sector ,
Banks ,
Biotechnology ,
Boeing ,
Credit Suisse ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Deutsche Bank ,
Dow Jones ,
Fiduciary Rule ,
Financial Markets ,
Mergers ,
Nasdaq ,
RMBS ,
Royal Bank of Scotland ,
Securities ,
Stock Exchange ,
Trade Relations ,
Trans-Pacific Partnership ,
US Trade Policies
Judge John Bates of the US District Court for DC has blocked a proposed $37 billion mega-health-care-merger between Aetna and Humana, one of 2 major deals before the courts opposed by the Obama-era DOJ over antitrust...more
1/24/2017
/ Aetna ,
Antitrust Provisions ,
Automotive Industry ,
Automotive Loans ,
Citigroup ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Data Breach ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
EU ,
Financial Institutions ,
FinTech ,
Ford Motor ,
Healthcare ,
Humana ,
Investment Banks ,
Loans ,
Member State ,
Mergers ,
Money Market Funds ,
Mortgage Servicers ,
Mortgages ,
Online Marketplace Lending ,
Referendums ,
Search Engines ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Technology ,
Telecommunications ,
UK ,
UK Brexit ,
Verizon ,
Yahoo!
JPMorgan and other asset managers are pushing hard for a new type of ETF that “mimics active strategies but keeps its investments secret.” The concept hasn’t yet been embraced by the SEC, though the heavy-hitters looking to...more
1/23/2017
/ Acquisitions ,
Consumer Financial Products ,
Data Breach ,
EFTs ,
Federal Student Loans ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Markets ,
Initial Public Offering (IPO) ,
Investment ,
JPMorgan Chase ,
Loans ,
Mergers ,
Mortgage Lenders ,
Mortgages ,
Navient ,
Quicken Loans ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Search Engines ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Violations ,
Snapchat ,
Social Media ,
Telecommunications ,
Verizon ,
Yahoo!
Ratings Agency Moody’s Corp. has agreed to pay roughly $864 million to resolve federal and state claims that it gave juiced ratings to risky MBS in the run-up to the financial crisis. Half of the total will end up in DOJ...more
1/17/2017
/ 401k ,
Automotive Industry ,
Bitcoin ,
Bribery ,
Compensation & Benefits ,
Consumer Financial Products ,
Corruption ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Digital Currency ,
Employee Benefits ,
EU ,
Fiduciary Rule ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Markets ,
High Frequency Trading ,
Individual Retirement Account (IRA) ,
Investment Management ,
Mergers ,
Moody's ,
Rating Agencies ,
Retirement Plan ,
RMBS ,
Rolls-Royce ,
Samsung ,
Technology ,
UK ,
UK Brexit ,
Virtual Currency ,
White Collar Crimes
As anticipated, the Fed raised its benchmark interest yesterday (for only the second time since the 2008 financial crisis) to somewhere between .5 and .75 percent and, perhaps more critically, revealed its expectation for...more
12/15/2016
/ Amazon Marketplace ,
Automotive Loans ,
Consumer Lenders ,
Credit Cards ,
Data Breach ,
Deutsche Bank ,
Exxon Mobil ,
FHFA ,
Financial Institutions ,
Goldman Sachs ,
Interest Rate Adjustments ,
Kraft ,
Mergers ,
Morgan Stanley ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
RMBS ,
Verizon ,
Yahoo!
The bond market seems to have a pretty good guess of things to come, at least. The bond market lost more than $1 trillion in value last week, and 30-year US bond yields rose the most since January 2009—all in anticipation of...more
11/14/2016
/ AT&T ,
Banks ,
Big Data ,
Bonds ,
Enforcement Actions ,
False Claims Act (FCA) ,
Federal Reserve ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Markets ,
Mergers ,
Pensions ,
Presidential Elections ,
Presidential Nominations ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Time Warner ,
Trump Administration ,
Wells Fargo ,
Whistleblowers