The Federal Reserve is expected to hike interest rates at its upcoming policy meeting. What do you envision will be the impact of that decision?...more
Effective January 1, 2019, the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection raised the maximum amount a Consumer Reporting Agency is allowed to charge a consumer for a copy of their consumer file disclosure under the FCRA to...more
Some reaction to the HQ2 x2 news, including what a pair of new tech hubs actually means for the cities that have thrown out the red carpet to Amazon and other technology giants....more
The Federal Reserve bank released the minutes from its September meeting yesterday. Among other things, we learned that the Fed Governors moved largely in lockstep on September’s rate hike, even as the crew was less unanimous...more
On March 21, 2018 the Federal Reserve lifted its federal funds rate by a quarter percentage point to a range of 1.5% to 1.75%, the highest level since 2008. ...more
The Fed’s Open Markets Committee meets today, and despite relatively robust economic numbers of late, the lack of oped-for inflation (among other things) is likely to keep the Fed from moving on interest rates again at this...more
There’s been a hitch in Saudi Aramco’s IPO plans (mind-boggling $2 trillion possible valuation and all): where to list. The frontrunners, by the way, are the London Stock Exchange and the NYSE....more
Uber made it official today, announcing that controversial CEO Travis Kalanick will be taking an indefinite leave of absence, though even the announcement and board commentary that followed seemed to highlight the “bad-boy...more
Several members of healthcare hedge fund Deerfield Mgmt have been implicated in an insider-trading case over the alleged use of confidential information about gov’t financing to trade shares in affected health care companies....more
The Fed wrapped up its Open Market Committee meeting yesterday without any change in interest rates but with an expression of confidence in the economy, despite Q1’s sub-1 percent growth figure (which it dubbed “transitory”)....more
We know that China’s Didi Chuxing is powerful enough to have driven Uber out of China altogether. So what happens when Didi sets its sights outside of Chinese borders? Flush with $5.5 billion in new funding, Didi is likely...more
Accounting giant KPMG has terminated six employees—including the head of its US audit practice—after learning that they were given “improper warnings” ahead of planned audit inspections by the Public Company Accounting...more
Prepaid card company NetSpend has reached a $53 million settlement with the FTC to resolve claims that the company “deceived customers about when and whether they could access money they deposited on its reloadable debit...more
Another tech-related disappointment for the Winklevii, this time with ramifications for an entire means of payment, as the SEC has rejected an application by the brothers to create an ETF tied to the price of bitcoin....more
It’s been far from a smooth ride for Uber over the past few weeks. And Friday’s revelation that the ride-sharing company’s been using a tool called “Greyball” to mine and use app data to “deceive the authorities in markets...more
A review of the Fed minutes released yesterday shows the willingness of some Fed Governors to start rate raising again sooner rather than later....more
Activist investor Carl Icahn has taken a sizeable stake in Bristol-Myers Squibb, a move that reportedly caught execs at the drugmaker unawares and sets the stage for a potential sale....more
Snap Inc. filed its first public prospectus yesterday in advance of its fast-approaching offering date, playing up the strength of its ad revenue in just two short years as part of its pitch for big-time value....more
The CFPB has ordered UniRush (purveyor of the RushCard prepaid debit card) and its payment processor, MasterCard, to fork over $13 million in fines after a breakdown last year that blocked thousands of customers from...more
ECONOMIC REVIEW AND OUTLOOK - In this past year we were reminded again to expect the unexpected: The well-established political classes in the U.K., the U.S. and Italy learned that democracy was their Achilles’ heel, and...more
We learned about Navient and its allegedly trouble-filled student-loan servicing practices yesterday. Turns out the issues are not only long-standing, but they bear similarities to the mortgage-lending issues that were at...more
The emissions cheating scandal that recently cost VW $4.3 billion and a mess of criminal indictments isn’t, it seems, confined to the Germans. We heard months ago about a similar probe into Mitsubishi, and yesterday we...more
Our good friends at HJ Sims Investments recently published their “Market Outlook” for 2017, which features some interesting speculation on where interest rates will go under a Trump Administration....more
The December 22 announcement that Deutsche Bank had settled with the DOJ over long-standing RMBS-related claims and investigations for a reported $7.2 billion prompted this Times long-read that traced the Icarus-like rise and...more
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