Philanthropy Grants

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

As central bankers’ hawkish messaging fueled fears of a deeper economic downturn, investors withdrew billions of dollars from U.S. equity funds over the past week. According to strategists at BofA Global Research, citing EPFR Global data in their weekly report, U.S. stock funds recorded their largest weekly outflow in 11 weeks from September 7. The exodus was largely from technology stocks, which booked withdrawals of $1.8 billion. Read More

In response to new guidance from federal health officials, Goldman Sachs said Tuesday it would lift all Covid-19 requirements in most offices beginning September 6. According to a memo received by CNBC on Tuesday, the bank will no longer require its employees to be vaccinated or wear face coverings when entering its offices. The policy covers most offices, except those in Lima and New York City. Read More

Cryptocurrencies opened in a sea of red on Friday morning, and little improvement was seen throughout the day. The price of Bitcoin fell below $21,400 again last week, wiping out its gains from better-than-expected inflation data. Bitcoin miners Marathon Digital (MARA), Riot Blockchain (RIOT), and Hut 8 Mining (HUT) were all down more than 12% on the day. Crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) dropped 11.3% by the closing bell as its SEC investigation heats up. And heavy bitcoin investor MicroStrategy (MSTR) saw its stock drop nearly 13% by the end of Friday. In the wake of July’s softer-than-expected CPI data, bitcoin almost reached $25,000 last week. It fell back to $21,300 by early Friday, its lowest level since the end of July, due to Fed plans for continued rate hikes and discussions regarding crypto risk and regulations found in Wednesday’s minutes.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency dragged the rest of the digital asset markets along with it. By Friday afternoon, Ethereum, which is ranked No. 2 by market capitalization, had lost its gains from last week and was trading around $1,700. Despite this, Ethereum has been holding above its July level due to its anticipated merging to a proof-of-stake consensus by the end of this month.

Downtown Detroit is experiencing a new wave of development. “Walking around Detroit in 2008 or 2009 is not the same as walking around in 2022,” said Ramy Habib, a local entrepreneur. “It is absolutely magnificent what happened throughout those 15 years.“ The Southeast Michigan Council of Governments reports that only 708 new housing structures were built in Detroit between 2010 and 2019. Many of the new construction projects are the result of philanthropic efforts by large local businesses. Ford Motor Company, for example, is in the process of constructing a 30-acre mixed-use development at Michigan Central Station. As the city fell into bankruptcy, the station sat abandoned for years.

Economists believe Detroit’s decline into insolvency is the result of globalization in the auto industry during the 20th century. During the most recent but controversial count by the United States Census, the city’s population decreased from 1.8 million to 639,000. “With the population leaving, with the infrastructure staying in place, it meant strains on the city. Cumulatively, they started to mount over time,” said Raymond Owens III, a former senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. The Great Recession of 2007-2008 left scores of homes in foreclosure in the city. Since then, the U.S. Treasury Department has funded the removal of 15,000 blighted structures in the city. “A lot of Black people are leaving the city. So sometimes that identity can change and shift in certain communities,” said Alphonso Carlton Jr, a lifelong Detroit resident. Tax and spending policies have been used by local leaders to promote economic development downtown.

According to Fed Governor Michelle Bowman, the central bank will likely continue raising interest rates until inflation is under control. In its last two policy meetings, the Federal Reserve raised benchmark borrowing rates by 0.75 percentage points, the largest increase since 1994. The moves were intended to reduce inflation at its highest level in more than four decades. In addition to the hikes, the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee indicated that “ongoing increases … will be appropriate,” a view Bowman said she endorses. “My view is that similarly sized increases should be on the table until we see inflation declining in a consistent, meaningful, and lasting way,” she added in prepared remarks in Colorado for the Kansas Bankers Association.

Bowman’s remarks are the first by a member of the Board of Governors since the FOMC approved the latest rate increase last week. According to multiple regional presidents, rates will continue to rise aggressively until inflation falls from its current rate of 9.1% annually. Based on Friday’s jobs report, which showed a 528,000 increase in jobs in July and a 5.2% rise in wages, both higher than expected, markets are pricing in a 68% chance of a third consecutive move of 0.75 percentage points in September, according to CME Group data. Bowman stated that she would closely monitor inflation data in the coming weeks to determine the precise amount at which rates should be raised. Despite this, she noted that the recent data cast doubt on hopes that inflation has peaked.

According to a memo obtained by CNBC, JPMorgan Chase has hired a Singapore-based quantum-computing expert to be its global head for quantum communications and cryptography. The memo from Marco Pistoia, head of the bank’s global technology applied research group, states that Charles Lim, an assistant professor at the National University of Singapore, will explore next-generation computing technology in secure communications. Pistoia describes Lim as a “recognized world leader” in quantum-powered communication networks.

Hired from IBM in early 2020, Pistoia established a JPMorgan team focused on quantum computing and other nascent technologies. Unlike today’s computers, which store information as either zeros or ones, quantum computing hinges on quantum physics. Instead of binary, qubits can simultaneously be a combination of zero and one, as well as any value in between. He added that dramatically advanced computing would transform drug development, materials science for batteries, and other areas. If advanced computing technology becomes a reality, the encryption techniques that are the foundation of global communications and financial networks could be rendered ineffective almost immediately. That has spurred the study of next-generation quantum-resistant communication networks, Lim’s area of expertise.