Philanthropy Grants

In an effort to compete with Apple Pay and PayPal, several banks are reported to be developing a digital wallet that integrates debit and credit cards. According to The Wall Street Journal, the digital wallet will be operated by Early Warning Services, a joint venture between several banks that also operates Zelle. According to the report, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America are among the major banks involved. The new wallet would initially be launched with Visa and Mastercard already on board. The company has confirmed to CNBC that it intends to launch a wallet product in the near future. Read More

FTX has recovered over $5 billion in liquid assets, including cash and digital assets, according to attorneys representing FTX in Delaware bankruptcy court. The news comes after federal prosecutors announced plans to seize at least $500 million worth of FTX-connected assets as part of their ongoing prosecution of FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried. It will be a welcome boon to FTX customers following the collapse of the crypto exchange in November. FTX’s new CEO, John J. Ray, previously attested that at least $8 billion of customer assets were unaccounted for in the “worst” case of corporate control he’d ever seen. Read More

Esther George, president of the Kansas City Federal Reserve, is urging her colleagues to remain aggressive in their efforts to deal with runaway inflation as she nears the end of her 40-year central banking career. She stated on Thursday that the Fed should raise its benchmark borrowing rate to above 5% and maintain it there until substantial evidence that prices are stabilizing. “Holding that until we get evidence that inflation is actually coming down is really the message we’re trying to put out there,” she told CNBC’s Steve Liesman during a “Squawk Box” interview. “I’ll be over 5%, and I see staying there for some time, again, until we get the signal that inflation is really convincingly starting to fall back toward our 2% goal.” Read More

Despite recent turmoil and concern over Elon Musk’s priorities, Morgan Stanley remains bullish on Tesla stock. In a client note, longtime Tesla advocate Adam Jonas cut his price target on the stock to $250 from $330, his new forecast calls for a 122% upside from Wednesday’s close. Tesla will extend its lead over electric-vehicle competitors, and the Inflation Reduction Act will benefit the company. Those are the reason for Jonas’ optimistic outlook. Read More

On Tuesday, Robinhood Markets CEO Vlad Tenev said he did not know what the disgraced former CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, intends to do with his 7.6% stake in his trading app. “I’m not surprised that it’s one of the more valuable assets they have on their balance sheet because it is public company’s stock,” Tenev said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “We don’t have a lot of information that you guys don’t have. We’re just watching this unfold and … it’s going to be locked up in bankruptcy proceedings, most likely for some time. And so we’re just kind of seeing how that plays out.” Read More

On Thursday, the Commerce Department reported that inflation grew roughly in line with estimates in October, suggesting that price increases might stabilize, at least for the time being. The core personal consumption expenditures price index, which excludes food and energy and is favored by the Federal Reserve, rose 0.2% for the month and was up 5% from a year ago. The monthly increase was less than the 0.3% estimate by Dow Jones, while the annual growth was in line with estimates. The gains reflect a slowdown from September, which saw a 0.5% monthly increase and a 5.2% annual increase. Including food and energy, headline PCE was up 0.3% on the month and 6% every year. The monthly increase was the same as in September, while the annual gain was a step down from the 6.3% pace. Read More

David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs, said Thursday that he expects capital markets to recover soon. “I think what we’re going through at the moment is a reset of valuation expectations,” he said in an interview with CNBC’s Jim Cramer. “In the coming months, we’ll see a little reopening in the capital markets when people get used to this valuation adjustment.” During the early stages of the pandemic, low-interest rates enabled newly formed companies to thrive and witness their valuations rise rapidly. Still, this year, the market for initial public offerings collapsed. U.S.-listed companies raised $4.8 billion in proceeds during the first half of 2022 compared to $155 billion in 2021, according to EY and Dealogic. Read More

Investors are weighing whether a pivot away from rising interest rates by the Federal Reserve may come soon, and traders are considering a portfolio pivot of their own with longer-dated bonds. Long-term expectations are reflected in the funds, which are less susceptible to policy changes. And according to Strategas, Treasurys and cash-like bonds have been the two most popular ETF categories ranked by inflows this year. “The rising-rate environment has been the story of the year, and so investors are looking for new tools in their playbook,” Bryon Lake, global head of ETF Solutions at JPMorgan Asset Management, told Bob Pisani on CNBC’s ‘ETF Edge’ on Monday. Read More

Patrick Harker, president of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve, said on Thursday that higher interest rates are insufficient to control inflation, so further increases are needed. “We are going to keep raising rates for a while,” the central bank official said in remarks for a speech in New Jersey. “Given our frankly disappointing lack of progress on curtailing inflation, I expect we will be well above 4% by the end of the year.” It was a reference to the federal funds rate, which is expected to remain between 3% and 3.25 percent for the foreseeable future. Read More

According to Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, a “very, very serious” combination of headwinds will likely cause both the U.S. and global economies to enter a recession by the middle of next year. In an interview with CNBC, Dimon, the CEO of the largest bank in the country, stated that the U.S. economy is “actually still doing well,” and consumers are likely to be in better shape compared to the 2008 financial crisis. “But you can’t talk about the economy without talking about stuff in the future — and this is serious stuff,” Dimon told CNBC’s Julianna Tatelbaum on Monday at the JPM Techstars conference in London. Read More