Finance

I tried looking this up but didn't find a satisfying answer. When a home is assessed for its taxable value, why isn't the market value just used?

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.04.11-114715/https://www.ft.com/content/4c78e822-3bb7-4e86-88eb-f5bfd1ee624f

Morgan Stanley reported a 26 per cent rise in first-quarter profits, powered by its equities trading business, which benefited from volatile financial markets during the early months of the Trump administration. 

Morgan Stanley on Friday said it had made net income of $4.3bn in the three months to the end of March, more than a quarter higher than the same period last year and beating analyst estimates of $3.7bn. 

“These results demonstrate the consistent execution of our clear strategy to drive durable growth across our global footprint,” chief executive Ted Pick said. 

The robust performance was powered by the bank’s equities trading business, which posted a 46 per cent surge in revenues to $4.1bn during the period. The fixed income trading arm reported a 4 per cent rise in revenues to $2.6bn. 

Net new assets in its wealth management business came in at $94bn for the quarter, slightly lower than the same period last year, but comfortably beating analyst expectations. 

This is a developing story

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.04.11-041804/https://www.ft.com/content/a3fb6b82-4a51-4a5c-b831-f755518f5863

(…) The dominance of the dollar in global trade and finance has long been assumed to be a net benefit for the American economy, but this assumption is increasingly being challenged. While it benefits Wall Street and global owners of moveable capital, these benefits come at a cost to American manufacturers and farmers.

In a world where some countries actively manage their external imbalances and others do not, the US dollar’s role as the primary safe currency has made America the chief enabler of global economic distortions. Addressing these imbalances requires a fundamental re-evaluation of the rules governing global trade and capital flows.

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.04.09-121115/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-09/citadel-securities-pitches-banks-on-handling-their-bond-trades

More than 30 banks are engaged in talks — some more advanced than others — with billionaire Ken Griffin’s market-maker, hashing out an arrangement that would let them submit orders to the firm without revealing their clients’ identities. Citadel Securities is marketing the concept as a way for small- and mid-tier banks to provide better pricing on fixed-income trades. But it also would give it more insight and clout in markets.

“We’re creating an ecosystem,” Citadel Securities President Jim Esposito said in an interview, describing the project’s development in recent months. “If and when successful, you can envision a broader suite of products fitting into this ecosystem.”

The nascent concept to partner with banks — first reported by Bloomberg in July — has vast implications for Wall Street’s underlying mechanics and staffing. For banks struggling to keep up with industry leaders such as JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which plow billions of dollars into recruiting talent and honing systems to compete on pricing, Citadel Securities is offering a way to continue serving clients and stay in the game.

Under the current proposal, banks could still process trades themselves or choose Citadel Securities, which expects pricing to continue improving as it scores a better view of market data and trends. That may help banks go toe-to-toe with larger competitors when vying for business. Firms could also mark up the price to make a profit.

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.04.09-073405/https://www.ft.com/content/0005e091-930d-46ff-9e81-8591704a9282

Treasuries sold off on Wednesday as President Donald Trump’s tariffs took effect, deepening investor concern about the “safe haven” status of US sovereign debt.

The 10-year US Treasury yield jumped to 4.51 per cent before falling back to 4.37 per cent — up 0.11 percentage points on the day — while the 30-year yield briefly rose above 5 per cent. The 10-year yield has risen from less than 3.9 per cent earlier this week.

The moves offer a new challenge to the Trump administration, which had previously cited lowering Treasury yields as a key policy aim, and could mark a loss of investor confidence in the world’s largest sovereign debt market.

“The sell-off may be signalling a regime shift whereby US Treasuries are no longer the global fixed-income safe haven,” said Ben Wiltshire, a rates strategist at Citi.

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.04.09-021331/https://www.ft.com/content/1df217c4-2732-41d5-89a2-9f51fbd45e7e

Yesterday our MainFT colleagues published an important story about some of the US government bond market’s weird behaviour lately, which, unfortunately, quickly got buried by the unending avalanche of other news.

Fortunately, it also helps explain why US Treasuries have gotten hit hard again today, despite the stock market dipping back down again on more bad tariff headlines. (…)

as many americans forced to run with a 401k because we dont know any better and its the 'path of least resistance' to a retirement account... what do we do in the face of a dying democracy and economy?

id love to move it to some 'foreign' investments, but is that even a possible option? do i just hope and wait for stability to return at some point in the future or is it hookers and blow time?

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.04.08-195116/https://www.ft.com/content/c94e851c-8f02-424e-a0c6-09bbbedcf4ba

Computer-driven hedge fund Renaissance Technologies was wrongfooted after Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariff announcement last week sent shockwaves across global financial markets. 

The Renaissance Institutional Equities Fund, one of the group’s flagship strategies offered to external investors, was down about 8 per cent for April as of Friday last week, according to three people familiar with the figures. The losses reduce the fund’s 2025 gains to 4.4 per cent. 

Renaissance’s losses underscore the tumult in financial markets since Trump last Wednesday said the US would impose universal 10 per cent levies and far higher duties for many of America’s leading trading partners. 

One of Renaissance’s smaller strategies fared better in the recent market turbulence. The Renaissance Institutional Diversified Alpha Fund, which as of last September managed just $3.6bn, was down 2.4 per cent in April and has returned 11.5 per cent for the year, the people said. 

The institutional equities fund, which managed $19.6bn as of September last year, gained 22.7 per cent last year, while the Diversified Alpha fund rose 15.6, according to a person who had seen the numbers. 

Founded by quant pioneer Jim Simons, who was known as the “quant king” and died last May, Renaissance is one of the world’s best-known quantitative hedge funds. Quant funds shun human decision making and instead rely on computer algorithms to make trades, often identifying patterns in market data and trying to surf trends.

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.04.08-012833/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-08/pboc-greenlights-yuan-weakness-with-fixing-past-7-2-per-dollar

China eased its tight grip on the yuan by weakening its daily reference rate past the keenly-watched 7.20 per dollar level amid the dramatically escalating trade war with the US.

The People’s Bank of China set the so-called fixing at 7.2038 per dollar on Tuesday, the weakest since September. It’s the first time since President Donald Trump’s November election that the fixing breached 7.20, a level seen by investors as a soft-red line for official intentions toward the managed currency.

Weakening its currency is seen an option for Beijing to raise the appeal of its exports, a key driver of growth now under greater pressure due to the trade tensions. But a decision to allow the yuan weaken sharply is a tough one as it may increase bearish bets on the economy, worsen capital outflows, antagonize the US and dim prospects of any trade negotiations.

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.04.07-095321/https://www.ft.com/content/b418d001-b1cf-4f0e-93f0-50470f40e97a

You might have missed it, but April is “Financial Literacy Month” in the US. On April 1 (yes, really!) the White House released the following statement from Donald Trump: 

During this National Financial Literacy Month, I urge families, communities, schools, and institutions to commit to bolstering their financial knowledge. There are amazing resources available to you and your family through the Department of the Treasury’s website that will assist you in making sound financial decisions. Together, we can all protect each American’s right to economic freedom, securing the promise of prosperity for generations to come.

Kudos to the White House for all all-time classic April Fool’s joke, and H/T Richard Metcalf for the spot. Anyway, here’s a selection of charts pilfered from various sell-side research notes that show how the US government’s sound financial decisions are securing the promise of prosperity for generations to come.

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.04.07-033221/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-07/asian-stock-benchmarks-drops-most-in-14-years-on-tariff-concerns

Stocks in Asia slumped, with a key benchmark sliding by the most in 14 years, as Chinese shares led a broad and deep selloff on worry over the trade war’s impact on the global economy.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell as much as 6.8%, the most since March 2011, with TSMC, Tencent and Sony among the biggest drags. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Indexplunged as much as 10%, the most in about 17 years. Every market was solidly in the red.

President Donald Trump dug in his heels after the tariffs he announced last week spurred retaliation by China. The biggest concern is that if nothing is done to de-escalate the situation, economies around the world could slide into recession.

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.04.06-200300/https://www.ft.com/content/b7c5aea6-c429-4917-bf35-a4f1b3159f85

Large institutional investors are studying options to shed stakes in illiquid private equity funds after the rout in global financial markets pummelled their portfolios, according to top private capital advisers.

The calls by pensions and endowments seeking ways to exit their investments, probably at discounts to their stated value, is a bad sign for the $4tn buyout industry. Industry giants such as Blackstone, KKR and Carlyle all saw their stocks plunge by about a fifth in value last week.

The race to find liquidity signals that investors in private equity funds increasingly expect to receive few cash profits from their holdings this year and may face liquidity pressures that cause them to further retrench from making new investments. Last year, the private equity industry’s assets dropped for the first time in decades, according to Bain & Co, as fundraising plunged 23 per cent from 2023. (…)

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.03.27-174159/https://www.ft.com/content/1671684c-23a0-45e5-b6cf-16a210a7393c

Imagine this set-up for a new stock market listing. A transformational new technology has sparked an infrastructure spending boom. Entrepreneurs from outside the tech industry have spotted the opportunity to borrow heavily to build a new type of infrastructure company, narrowly focused on feeding the new demand. With Wall Street hungry for pure-play ways to invest in the new technology, the conditions for an IPO would seem opportune.

That could be a description of CoreWeave, the wholesaler of AI computing power. Its shares are set to start trading on Wall Street on Friday in a litmus test for the state of the AI capital spending boom.

But it could also describe Global Crossing, a hot telecom start-up from the late 1990s. At a time when the financial markets were transfixed by the potential of the early internet, Global Crossing amassed undersea fibre optic cables capable of handling a surge in traffic — much as CoreWeave has amassed banks of powerful graphics processing units made by Nvidia.

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.03.27-042229/https://www.ft.com/content/864c6f2b-fd6e-448d-b67b-f208eb89d879

A flurry of new exchange traded funds is widening retail access to the fast-growing markets for private credit and equity, sparking concerns that these assets are a poor fit for small-scale investors and could prove tough to sell during a crisis.

A private credit ETF launched last month by State Street will hold up to 35 per cent of its portfolio in private debt deals originated by Apollo Global Management. Fixed-income specialist BondBloxx, meanwhile, has applied for regulatory approval for an ETF that could hold up to 80 per cent of its portfolio in private credit. 

But the US Securities and Exchange Commission last month raised a number of concerns about the State Street launch, enquiring about plans for mitigating liquidity risk and ensuring accurate pricing. 

While the regulator eventually signed off on the fund after State Street provided more information and changed the name, many industry executives remain unconvinced that assets typically bought by investors who can lock up capital for years are suited to daily liquidity fund vehicles that, until now, have mostly held easy-to-sell securities

Archive: tbc

The richest half of American families owned about 97.5% of national wealth as of the end of 2024, while the bottom half held 2.5%, according to the latest numbers from the Federal Reserve. 

The lower 50% of the distribution saw their wealth share improve marginally during President Joe Biden’s term in office, climbing from 2.2%. The 66.6 million households in that group collectively owned about $4 trillion in net wealth at the end of last year, an increase of $1.25 trillion from four years earlier.

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.03.25-050957/https://www.ft.com/content/39a6c6c4-a2f5-4ce5-96bb-0c542f6521da

Individual investors have pumped almost $70bn into US stocks this year even as professional money managers are slashing their exposure to the market on fears over Donald Trump’s policies. 

Net inflows from retail investors into US equities and exchange traded funds have registered $67bn in 2025, down only slightly from the $71bn spent in the final quarter of 2024, according to data provider VandaTrack. 

The powerful influx underscores how individual investors remain upbeat on Wall Street equities despite intense turbulence this year, triggered by the president’s erratic tariff plans and the emergence of Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek.

“Dip-buying has been an essentially foolproof strategy for four of the past five years,” said Steve Sosnick, chief market strategist at Interactive Brokers, a platform widely used by individual investors.

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.03.24-091009/https://www.ft.com/content/d90a401b-d086-44a9-b00a-adf46f00f450

President Prabowo Subianto launched the Danantara fund in February, bringing the country’s state-owned enterprises under one roof in a massive overhaul. The government expects the fund to boost economic growth by investing in strategic projects and industries. 

However, the fund’s direct control by Prabowo and the diversion of the SOE’s dividends from the state budget to the new fund have raised questions over political interference, transparency and lax governance. 

Those concerns have weighed on the Indonesian stock market, adding to mounting worries over an economic slowdown and a weakening fiscal position. Monday’s appointments failed to reassure markets, with Jakarta’s benchmark stock index tumbling as much as 4.7 per cent.

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.03.21-190545/https://www.ft.com/content/5794ed2c-6296-4f04-876e-bbaaa3d1cc30

Turkey’s central bank burnt through almost $12bn defending the lira in a record intervention after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s detention of his political rival triggered a political crisis that scared investors and sent the currency reeling.

The bank spent $11.5bn propping up the currency on Wednesday after the detention of Istanbul’s mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, the most prominent leader in Turkey’s political opposition, said a person with knowledge of the matter and calculations based on official data by Bürümcekçi Research and Consultancy. 

The intervention was nearly four times larger than any previous such move on the bank’s official records. It came after the lira plunged as much as 11 per cent against the US dollar to a record low on Wednesday as Erdoğan’s move against İmamoğlu ignited a stampede out of Turkey’s markets.

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.03.20-092417/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/03/credit-card-racket/682075/

High costs are weighing down working-class families, while driving big rewards to rich ones. Over the past few decades, the credit-card market has quietly transformed into two credit-card markets: one offering generous benefits to wealthy Americans, the other offering expensive debt to the poor, with the latter subsidizing the former. While balances are compounding at the highest average APR in decades, a brutal 21.5 percent, the haves are not just pulling away from the have-nots. The people swiping their cards to pay for food and gas are also paying for wealthy cardholders’ upgrades to business class.

In the credit-card industry, the well-to-do are known as transactors. They pay off their balance in full every month, avoiding late fees and interest charges. They use credit cards as a convenient payment method, and as a way to earn travel points, cash back, airport-lounge vouchers, seat upgrades, and other goodies. Given how valuable these rewards are, transactors make money by spending money. “If you’re spending $100,000 a year, you’re getting maybe $1,500 back in terms of points or cash,” Aaron Klein of the Brookings Institution told me. “You’re not paying taxes on that. It’s worth closer to $2,500 or $3,000 a year in taxable income.” (That’s double the average worker’s weekly earnings.)

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.03.18-224801/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-18/china-banks-cut-consumer-loan-rates-to-record-low-to-spur-demand

Chinese banks are slashing rates on consumer loans to record lows as policymakers ramp up stimulus to stabilize growth and counter US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Lenders across the wealthier areas of Shanghai, the nation’s financial capital, and Hangzhou, a key tech hub, are engaged in a price war, offering annual interest rates as low as 2.58% on loans to fuel restaurant visits and shopping, according to online ads. That compares to rates as high as 10% about two years ago.

Beijing is seeking to ignite consumer spending and stoke local demand to help make the long-struggling economy less reliant on trade and exports. The National Financial Regulatory Administration last week urged banks to expand the issuance of personal consumer loans while ensuring reasonable terms including credit limits and interest rates.

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.03.16-232726/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-16/banks-boom-and-shoppers-scrimp-a-year-after-japan-s-rate-pivot

One year on from Japan’s historic rate hike, profits at its biggest banks are soaring to records, while price rises are forcing consumers to cut back and higher borrowing costs are fueling a political battle over how the government can rein in its outlays. 

Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda scrapped the world’s last negative interest rate and its massive stimulus program a year ago, encouraged by record gains in annual wage deals. Those pay increases suggested consumers were in a position to help drive prices and growth, supporting the inflation trend.

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.03.16-053039/https://www.ft.com/content/e2469e65-df7d-42fe-8fa4-9d222bcb48b3

Vanilla” buybacks are no longer enough to placate shareholders of Japan’s biggest companies, with a string of conglomerates sacking chief executives and selling assets as the country’s corporate governance drive gains pace.

Toyota, Japan’s most valuable company, unveiled plans last month to trim its board from 16 members to 10 and make half of them independent, up from 40 per cent previously. It will also create a separate supervisory committee meant to enable stronger audits and monitoring of management.

Seven & i Holdings, owner of the 7-Eleven convenience store chain, has embarked on a radical restructuring and replaced its unpopular chief executive, while consumer electronics group Panasonic is restructuring, cutting costs and exploring the sale of several businesses, including its iconic but struggling TV unit.

Other groups that have replaced their chief executives or are considering sales of non-core assets include Rohm Semiconductor, which is overhauling management as it prepares to report its first annual loss in 12 years, and Kyocera, which in January signalled plans to divest low-profit units responsible for $1.3bn, or 10 per cent, of revenue.

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.03.13-222059/https://www.wsj.com/finance/currencies/trump-family-has-held-deal-talks-with-binance-following-crypto-exchanges-guilty-plea-05b029fa

Representatives of President Trump’s family have held talks to take a financial stake in the U.S. arm of crypto exchange Binance, according to people familiar with the matter, a move that would put Trump in business with the firm that pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating anti-money-laundering requirements. 

At the same time, Binance’s billionaire founder, Changpeng Zhao—who served four months in prison after pleading guilty to a related charge—has been pushing for the Trump administration to grant him a pardon, people familiar with the matter said. Zhao, widely known as CZ, remains Binance’s largest shareholder. 

The talks began after Binance reached out to allies of Trump last year offering to strike a business deal with the family as part of a plan to return the exiled company to the U.S.