DOW UPDATE Shares of JPMorgan Chase and American Express are trading higher Wednesday morning, propelling the Dow Jones Industrial Average into positive territory. Shares of JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and American Express (AXP) are contributing to the index's intraday rally, as the Dow (DJIA) is trading 112 points higher (0.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is soaring Tuesday afternoon with shares of Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase leading the way for the price-weighted average. Shares of Goldman Sachs (GS) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) have contributed about two thirds of the blue-chip gauge's intraday rally, as the Dow (DJIA) was most recently trading 588 points, or 2.4%, higher. Goldman Sachs's shares are up $16.86, or 9.4%, while those of JPMorgan Chase have risen $7.53, or 8.4%, combining for a roughly 167-point boost for the Dow.

Dow Jones gains 2.17% Continue reading...

The world's second-largest printing ink maker, Flint Group, is nearing a debt deal seen as a pre-condition to proceed with a sales process that its owners launched last year, people close to the matter said. Flint Group has seen its supply chains affected and sales decrease during the coronavirus pandemic and expects its 2020 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization to fall from the 266 million in 2019, the sources said. The company, owned by Goldman Sachs' private equity arm and U.S.-based conglomerate Koch Industries, has engaged with its lenders to put its financing on a new footing, the people said.

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The deterioration of U.S.-China relations is fast and furious, with Washington throwing out accusations of unfair trade practices, unlawful technology transfer and an early cover-up of the coronavirus outbreak, which has claimed over 100,000 American lives. The Chinese yuan, this year’s beacon of stability, is now is now at risk of tumbling like other emerging markets currencies.On Wednesday, the offshore yuan, which trades freely, flirted with its weakest level on record, dropping as much as 0.7% to 7.1965. While Thursday morning’s yuan fix came in stronger than expected, the overall sentiment is downbeat.It’s tempting to theorize that a weaker yuan could become a powerful weapon in the new Cold War, yet there’s little evidence of foul play from the People’s Bank of China. Since mid-2017, the central bank has based its fixing on the previous day’s close, dollar movement overnight against a currency basket, and what it calls the “countercyclical factor," a catch-all metric that grants wiggle room to deviate from market fundamentals. The yuan can move in a 2% trading range around the PBOC’s daily target.Take a look at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s estimate of the countercyclical factor. Over the last year, the PBOC has been consistently guiding its yuan stronger, not weaker, to artificially track the dollar. For all the theatrics of getting labeled a currency manipulator, Beijing wasn’t making its exports any cheaper.What’s new this year is the PBOC’s Zen-like attitude. Rather than playing the heroic fireman, handling one crisis after another, the central bank has been largely hands-off. It has used the countercyclical factor in a meaningful way only twice since January, on Feb. 4 when China emerged from the Lunar New Year holiday to face a national lockdown, and at the end of March when the outbreak was shaking up global markets.And why should the PBOC adhere to the dollar anyway? The coronavirus downturn has only showcased America’s exceptionalism — it prints the world’s reserve currency. Haven demand for the dollar has surged, evidenced by soaring currency swap rates from the euro zone to South Korea, and the Federal Reserve’s scramble to re-establish swap lines with other central banks. Looking back to 2008, the greenback only started to weaken two months after demand for “emergency dollars” peaked, data provided by Deutsche Bank AG show.So it makes sense for China to adopt a more enlightened approach, allowing the yuan to weaken during periods of dollar strength, and catch up when global tensions recede. From the PBOC’s view, the trade-weighted yuan is certainly stronger now than it was last fall, when the central bank was in fire-fighting mode. China doesn’t want to spend another $1 trillion of its foreign reserves defending its currency. The rapid drawdown in 2015 and 2016 traumatized the Chinese for good.To be sure, the pressure of capital outflows is still there. Just look at the consistent negative value of the “net error and omissions” figures in China’s balance of payment data. However, here’s the beauty of the virus: The Chinese can’t go anywhere. They can’t come to Hong Kong to buy insurance products, and unless you’re ultra-rich (with private bankers around the world apartment-hunting for you), Manhattan real estate is off-limits. The PBOC has less to worry about than before.So now the market can test the true value of the yuan. It could easily drop below 7.30 if the phase one trade deal breaks down and the Trump administration imposes some of the tariffs it had previously threatened, estimates HSBC Holdings Plc.Long-time China bear Kyle Bass abandoned his yuan short in early 2019 for the greenback-pegged Hong Kong dollar. He didn’t profit from his yuan trade because the PBOC established powerful tools, such as selling yuan-denominated bills in the offshore market, to kill anyone betting against the currency. Now that their interests are becoming aligned, it’s time for the bears to wake up.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Shuli Ren is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asian markets. She previously wrote on markets for Barron's, following a career as an investment banker, and is a CFA charterholder.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

DOW UPDATE Behind strong returns for shares of Raytheon Technologies Corp. and Goldman Sachs, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is soaring Tuesday afternoon. Shares of Raytheon Technologies Corp. (RTX) and Goldman Sachs (GS) are contributing to the blue-chip gauge's intraday rally, as the Dow (DJIA) was most recently trading 592 points, or 2.

DOW UPDATE Led by positive momentum for shares of Raytheon Technologies Corp. and Goldman Sachs, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is soaring Tuesday morning. The Dow (DJIA) was most recently trading 665 points higher (2.

Despite the coronavirus-related woes, Goldman (GS) is planning to launch its new cash management platform globally by the end of this year.

Goldman Sachs has pushed back this year’s planned launch of a digital wealth management platform and is slowing its hiring of advisers, president John Waldron said on Wednesday, citing the need to act “prudently” in the current economic environment. The platform — the latest step in Goldman’s move into mass market wealth management — would now go live in 2021, Mr Waldron said. The launch was designed to build on Goldman’s $750m acquisition of wealth adviser United Capital last year, offering online services to those with as little as $5,000 to invest, United boss Joe Duran told the Financial Times in December.

The annual stress tests will be different this year, as the Fed incorporates fallout from the coronavirus crisis in its analysis.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is climbing Wednesday morning with shares of Goldman Sachs and American Express seeing positive momentum for the index. The Dow (DJIA) is trading 185 points higher (0.7%), as shares of Goldman Sachs (GS) and American Express (AXP) have contributed to the index's intraday rally. Goldman Sachs's shares are up $9.16 (4.7%) while those of American Express are up $4.31, or 4.5%, combining for a roughly 92-point boost for the Dow.

The iconic New York Stock Exchange floor is back open for business. Here is what New York Stock Exchange President Stacey Cunningham told Yahoo Finance.

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The Chinese consumer has been one of the most important drivers of the world economy over the past decade, fueling hopes of prolonged growth and profits. So it’s worth looking at what’s happening to household balance sheets as Covid-19 wreaks havoc on a population now feeling the downside of growing personal leverage from the boom. In the last major financial crisis, big-spending Americans were hit hard, but the Chinese found new ways to open their wallets and took the rest of the global economy along for the ride. China accounted for 31% of growth in household consumption between 2010 and 2017, World Bank data show, bringing its share now to about 10%. That includes around 30% of spending on cars, luxury retail and mobile phones, and hundreds of billions of dollars on travel and tourism.Chinese consumers are the “single most important thing in the world economy,” Jim O’Neill, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. chief economist, told the Financial Times last year. They could be key to the next 40 years of growth, and it’s unlikely that any other country could replace them.Will they be able to spend away the global economy’s gloom this time? They’ll have their own worries to deal with first.In the quarter to March, disposable household income shrank sharply for the first time since at least 2013, putting strain on balance sheets in which new forms of credit and financial assets take up a bigger part. Consumer credit – from cards to peer-to-peer loans and other lending – has proliferated in recent years. A central bank survey showed that around 60% of household assets are parked in real estate; some 97% of liabilities are tied up in bank loans, with mortgages almost 70% of the total. As borrowings and incomes diverge, stresses on individuals and families rise. All told, households owe 63 trillion yuan ($8 trillion), or 65% of gross domestic product, according to CLSA Ltd. analysts. Leverage is more than 130% of last year’s earnings. Adjusted on a GDP per capita basis, that puts China among the highest in relation to major countries. The debt service ratio is climbing much faster compared to the U.S., Australia and Japan.Spending patterns are changing due to lockdowns, less money and changes in consumer psychology brought by the coronavirus. Online shopping has increased, of course. The gross merchandise value of essentials and goods like home hygiene products has surged. A UBS Evidence Lab survey in April showed that while people were returning to work, 54% of respondents said their incomes had declined, and 60% had reduced offline spending. Fewer than half expected a pay raise soon and just over a quarter planned to reduce their debts. Property purchases were being put on hold.That austerity is probably a good thing. Early signs already point to trouble. Credit card delinquencies are rising. Consumption loan asset-backed securities are even weaker, with overdue payments rising sharply from 6% in January to over 9% in March. That indicates a deteriorating quality of household balance sheets between prime and weaker borrowers. Non-performing consumer credit is expected to double this year.Middle-class borrowers have been China’s big spenders, but much of the incremental growth was going to come from aspiring buyers trying to enter higher socio-economic strata. Now, they won’t quite make it. If they’re hurting, who will spend? Goldman analysts point out that in China, not only is the marginal propensity to consume for lower-income urban households greater than for higher earners. It also varies widely with migrant workers spending less than those in cities, even at similar levels of income.Since China modernized its economy in recent decades, the new generations of consumers have arguably never faced a lesson in crisis management. The shock for them may be greater in some ways than what American households endured circa 2008. So far, delinquencies in the U.S. have held steady. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, first-quarter national non-housing debt was flat, and fell for credit cards. While there is no doubt that U.S. consumer spending will suffer as income insecurity and joblessness rise, a social safety net is in place. China’s remains underdeveloped and an unemployment problem is brewing.How Chinese deal with these pressures will matter. Sure, it’s comforting that a large portion of wealth is stashed in hard real estate assets. But a change in property values or prices doesn’t really impact consumption of durable goods. What happens when cash flows shrink? The retail spending that the economy needs to revive won’t materialize for countless businesses, incomes will continue to decline, and the vicious circle continues. Beijing’s stimulus for individuals needs to be more robust.Whatever a new normal looks like, the individual Chinese spender may no longer be as reliable a part of it. Those looking for a consumption boost may want to turn elsewhere.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Anjani Trivedi is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering industrial companies in Asia. She previously worked for the Wall Street Journal. For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

DOW UPDATE The Dow Jones Industrial Average is rallying Wednesday afternoon with shares of American Express and Goldman Sachs leading the way for the index. The Dow (DJIA) was most recently trading 281 points, or 1.

By Yasin Ebrahim

DOW UPDATE Led by positive gains for shares of American Express and Goldman Sachs, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is rallying Wednesday afternoon. Shares of American Express (AXP) and Goldman Sachs (GS) have contributed to the index's intraday rally, as the Dow (DJIA) is trading 350 points (1.

DOW UPDATE The Dow Jones Industrial Average is soaring Tuesday afternoon with shares of Raytheon Technologies Corp. and Goldman Sachs seeing positive growth for the blue-chip average. Shares of Raytheon Technologies Corp.

The investment bank plans to launch the service in the United Kingdom in September, and the rest of Europe by end of the year.

Goldman Sachs make a key argument on the economic recovery in its latest piece of research.

Before we spend countless hours researching a company, we like to analyze what insiders, hedge funds and billionaire investors think of the stock first. This is a necessary first step in our investment process because our research has shown that the elite investors' consensus returns have been exceptional. In the following paragraphs, we find out […]