Market News

With the strong labor market and a hawkish Fed, traders recalibrated their bets around rate cuts with June becoming the highest probability for the first cut. Meanwhile, some market investors have begun considering the possibility that we may not see rate cuts this year.

For the millions of workers who find going into the office stinks, some executives say they have a remedy: Make the office smell better. Employers are using scent to boost moods and get workers to come in.

Global banking giant HSBC wrote down its 19% stake in Bank of Communications, a large Chinese bank, by $3 billion leading to a $153 million loss for the last quarter.

Gross Domestic Income has been running well below GDP figures since late 2022, and was just 1.5% in the third quarter of 2023, its most recent release.

The U.S. government is expected to pay an additional $1.1 trillion in interest over the coming decade. Interest costs are on pace to surpass defense this year as one of the largest government expenses in the budget. Only Social Security and Medicare are forecast to be bigger burdens in the coming years.

The vast majority of late payments on CLO loans haven’t led to foreclosure. Still, the large number of late payments shows the strain on borrowers and the growing risk of losses for lenders.

Lyft shares soared over 60% in after-hours trading Tuesday after its earnings release accidentally added an extra zero to a key profitability metric. Lyft’s release said one of its profit margins was expected to expand by 500 basis points—or 5 percentage points—in 2024. That margin was only expected to expand by 50 basis points, the company’s chief financial officer later clarified on a call with analysts.

In one of the largest distressed deals, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. agreed to sell $17 billion worth of loans seized from the failed Signature Bank to a venture including Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust in a deal that valued the portfolio at about $12 billion.

Overall, global real-estate funds operated by private-equity firms were sitting on $544 billion in cash as of the second quarter of last year—a record level and up from $457 billion at the end of 2022. The largest increase was in so-called opportunistic funds, which often search for distressed opportunities.

Silicon Valley investors, executives and CEOs are banding together to host fundraising events for local candidates, pouring money into city ballot initiatives and using their influence to try to sway public opinion.