(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Don’t fight the U.S. Federal Reserve — repeat that mantra until it sticks.Jamie Dimon, the boss of JPMorgan Chase & Co., put it well this week. “This wasn’t the bazooka,” he said, referring to Jay Powell’s response to the coronavirus crisis. “The Fed took out the whole military and applied it. Just announcing these programs reduced spreads (the difference between corporate bond yields and their benchmarks) in the market. It’s going to save a lot of small businesses.” In the past month, the equity market’s glass has gone from pretty much empty to at least half full and that’s down to the coordinated fiscal and monetary effort from authorities far and wide. You want some quantitative easing? Please, have some more and take some for the journey home. Even those foot draggers at the European Union are talking about radical fiscal action. We won’t really see a V-shaped economic recovery, but it seems like we’ve stopped the L.Nonetheless, this is a recovery based so far on asset-price inflation rather than any economic data. Central bank and government action may have restored financial valuations but real incomes will still suffer dramatically for a long while to come. Unemployment and diminished consumption cannot be magicked away.The stock market is looking even further into the distance than usual to justify its valuations, which is sometimes hard to square away against a constant stream of dire economic statistics and evaporating company earnings. Since QE came to life during the global financial crisis, it has paid for investors to cast aside their usual forward-earnings analysis and focus instead on the rising tide of money. The central banks have learned their post-2008 lessons and have barely put a foot wrong this time. This is having uneven effects, however. The bulk of the stimulus is coming into investment-grade assets because that’s where central banks feel more comfortable. Credit spreads have recovered most in BBB and A-rated bonds. High-yield yield assets improved sharply at first, but this has abated. The spread between the yields on investment-grade debt and those of junk bonds is still nearly double the levels seen in February. Similarly, new debt issuance is motoring again but only for the better-quality names. While U.S. banks such as Citigroup Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. are returning for the fifth or sixth time this year to replenish capital, the junk sector has been restricted to one-off selective deals — often with eye-watering yields.The change in stock market sentiment isn’t just about QE. The oil price collapse has come and gone and fears of a devastating second wave of Covid-19 are easing. Short-selling bans have quietly been lifted in several European countries too, and some of the recent improvement may be explained by that. The sound of economies cranking back into life can just about be made out over the whirring of the monetary printing presses, allowing even bombed-out old economy stocks to recover, not just the new technology darlings.Notably, some of the recent action has been in high-dividend stocks, which had been forced to skip shareholder payouts at the height of the crisis. Investors had feared that the dividend bans might last several years; now they think it may be a quarter or two. Many investment funds work off a dividend-yield model.Investment managers may be doing the natural thing right now and chasing the rising stock market indexes, but that doesn’t mean they’re brimful of confidence. The Bank of America fund manager survey for May shows extreme bearishness pervades, with only 10% expecting a V-shaped recovery and 68% expecting stock prices to fall. Given the recent positive news on the virus and the gradual ending of lockdowns, the June survey might be different.The fiscal response will determine how the economy recovers over the long term but the monetary triage has worked better than anyone could have expected in those ugly days of March. For that we should be grateful, and for the stock market’s semi-rational exuberance.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Marcus Ashworth is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering European markets. He spent three decades in the banking industry, most recently as chief markets strategist at Haitong Securities in London.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.

No matter how dire things may have appeared in previous bear markets, bull-market rallies eventually erase all evidence of downward moves in the stock market. Also keep in mind that you don't have to be rich to generate a handsome return from the stock market. With the exception of the oil and gas industry, there's probably not a harder-hit industry lately than bank stocks.

In this article we will check out the progression of hedge fund sentiment towards Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC) and determine whether it is a good investment right now. We at Insider Monkey like to examine what billionaires and hedge funds think of a company before spending days of research on it. Given their 2 […]

(Bloomberg) -- Last decade, housing crashed the U.S. economy. But in the 2020 pandemic, it could be one of the bright spots.New home sales unexpectedly climbed 0.6% in April to a 623,000 annualized pace, government data showed Tuesday. That was 30% higher than the median forecast in a Bloomberg Survey of economists of 480,000. The news sent the shares of homebuilders surging, with an index that tracks the industry hitting the highest level since March 9.That’s not to say that housing is booming, it’s just performing better than some very low expectations. Mortgage rates near historic lows may be putting a floor under the housing market and construction -- in most of the country -- has been deemed essential so builders have been able to power through.Job losses, meanwhile, are primarily hitting renters who are more likely to be working in lower-paying service and hospitality jobs that were damaged most by social-distancing rules.“If the reopenings continue, housing may provide an upside surprise to the economy this year,” Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wells Fargo.Homebuilder ETF Soars to Pre-Crisis Level on Sales SurpriseUnlike the existing home market, which has seen a big drop in inventory as sellers pull back, builders are accommodating buyers, Vitner said. They’re showing floor plans virtually and even offering drive-thru closings.The stocks of homebuilders have rebounded in recent weeks, beating the gain in the S&P 500 since the start of May.The builders have a long way to go before they’re back at pre-pandemic levels. While sales were up slightly on a seasonally-adjusted basis, they were down 6.2% from a year earlier. And the median sale price fell 8.6% from a year earlier to $309,900.Still, three of four U.S. regions showed stronger home sales in April than a month earlier, reflecting 2.4% gains in the South and Midwest, the Commerce Department’s report showed. Purchases climbed 8.7% in the Northeast and dropped 6.3% in the West.The government’s data measure signed contracts to buy homes. The slight gain in April came after sales dropped the most since 2013 in March, when much of the U.S. economy shut down to stem the spread of coronavirus.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Yahoo Finance's Alexis Christoforous, Brian Sozzi, and Ethan Wolff-Mann discuss the rise in credit card fraud attempts as consumers are forced to use the online interface amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Six agtech startups selected for Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator.

INVESTIGATION ALERT: The Schall Law Firm Announces it is Investigating Claims Against Wells Fargo & Company

Wells Fargo & Company and the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC), the business voice of the LGBT community, are proud to announce an unprecedented program for LGBT entrepreneurs: The NGLCC XLR8 Program.

Joseph Otting, the head of a top U.S. banking regulator and former CEO of California's OneWest Bank, is stepping down from his government post after two and a half years, he announced on Thursday. Brian Brooks, Otting's top deputy at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which oversees lenders including Wells Fargo and Citibank, will lead the agency as acting head. Brooks, who joined the agency in April as chief operating officer, previously worked with Otting at OneWest and has also held senior posts at housing finance giant Fannie Mae and cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase.

Bank stock prices have declined significantly in 2020, but Dave King of Columbia Threadneedle Investments believes dividend cuts for the big players are unlikely.

S&P; 500 down 1.05% Continue reading...

Bireme Capital recently released its Q1 2020 Investor Letter, a copy of which you can download below. In the letter, the hedge fund said that its flagship U.S. equity strategy, Fundamental Value, returned -26.4% on a net basis. The fund underperformed its benchmark, the S&P 500 Index which returned -19.4% in the same quarter. You […]

Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, announces it is investigating potential securities claims on behalf of shareholders of Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) resulting from allegations that Wells Fargo may have issued materially misleading business information to the investing public.

Wells Fargo Asset Management Multi-Asset Strategist Brian Jacobsen joins Yahoo Finance’s Seana Smith to discuss the market rally amid optimism over Moderna's coronavirus vaccine data.

A look at the trends reported in 13F filings Continue reading...

General Motors Co and Ford Motor Co are using fast-payment programs set up with financial lenders to help cash-strapped small suppliers survive production shutdowns caused by the coronavirus pandemic. GM started its "Early Payment Program" last August with Wells Fargo & Co, and now is using it as a way to support suppliers during the pandemic, especially as they roll out new technologies, GM spokesman David Barnas said. GM operated a similar program with General Electric Co prior to 2008.

Banking stocks turned from laggards to leaders on Tuesday. Explore these trading ideas in three sector heavyweights.

Pomerantz LLP is investigating claims on behalf of investors of Wells Fargo & Company (“Wells Fargo” or the “Company”) (NYSE: WFC). Such investors are advised to contact Robert S. Willoughby at rswilloughby@pomlaw.com or 888-476-6529, ext. The investigation concerns whether Wells Fargo and certain of its officers and/or directors have engaged in securities fraud or other unlawful business practices.

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) said today that Chief Executive Officer Charlie Scharf will present at the Bernstein 36th Annual Strategic Decisions Conference to be held virtually on Friday, May 29, 2020, at 9 a.m. ET (6 a.m. PT).

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.