Month: November 2020

(Bloomberg Opinion) — Ant Group Co. will survive the 11th-hour suspension of its blockbuster $35 billion listing in Shanghai and Hong Kong if the company can learn from its technology peers. If there’s one thing that founder Jack Ma and Chinese regulators probably agree upon, it’s that finance and technology make for a powerful combination. The mix is where they ran into trouble. Halting the initial public offerings due to a “change in regulatory environment” is the government’s way of asserting that Ant is more fin than tech. Ma and team won’t get away with being digital cowboys riding roughshod …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — Gold fell with copper and oil pared gains as tight races in battleground states in the U.S. election shook traders’ initial faith in a decisive outcome, raising the prospect of a prolonged wait for a final result. Spot gold dropped 0.5% and the dollar strengthened as the race’s tightness spurred a flight to the safety of the greenback. Oil in New York rose 1.8%, paring an earlier advance of as much as 3.4%, with expectations OPEC+ will delay a planned easing of output cuts lending support.Traders are reacting to headlines and early clues of a possible Donald Trump …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — China’s shocking decision to halt Ant Group Co.’s initial public offering is reverberating across financial markets, sending Hong Kong shares lower and raising questions about the future of Jack Ma’s fintech juggernaut.Here are the latest developments on the 11th-hour scrapping of what was poised to be the world’s biggest IPO, worth $34.5 billion:Hong Kong Exchange Shares Fall After Ant IPO Is Pulled. It’s a blow to the Hong Kong bourse, which was expecting the IPO to boost share sales to a decade high.China Tells Ant It Can’t Go Public Until Capital Shortfall Fixed. The company will have to …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — Nasdaq 100 stock futures rose fast enough to trigger an exchange volatility halt that pauses especially rapid swings at 3.5%, as traders assessed election results.Contracts on the Nasdaq 100 rose jumped 3.5% within an hour, setting off a trading pause for two minutes. If gains extend to 7% from a Chicago Mercantile Exchange reference price calculated at the end of the trading day Tuesday, moves will be entirely capped with hard upside limits. Nasdaq futures are up 3.9% in the complete overnight session.Stock futures triggered trading limits multiple times earlier this year in the midst of the Covid-19 …read more […]

Betting markets continue to give the former vice president the inside track, while Trump’s chances of being reelected appear less probable. …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — Joe Biden scored early wins in traditionally Democratic states in the eastern U.S. while President Donald Trump won Republican strongholds in the south and Midwest, according to the Associated Press and networks, with key battlegrounds still to be decided.Florida, which Trump’s campaign considers crucial to his re-election hopes, remains undeclared. Trump held a narrow lead in the state after out-performing in one of its most populous counties, Miami-Dade.Other battleground states were also undecided, including North Carolina, Ohio, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Biden held narrow leads in North Carolina and Ohio, though there are many votes outstanding in both …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — Jack Ma was poised to become Asia’s richest person with Ant Group Co.’s initial public offering. Instead, his net worth tumbled almost $3 billion and both retail and institutional investors who were betting on a big first-day pop are in limbo.Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s U.S.-traded shares slid 8.1% in New York,the most since January, 2015, after Ant said its listings in both Shanghai and Hong Kong have been suspended. The Hong Kong stock fell as much as 9.3% in early local trading. Ma, a 56-year-old former English teacher who co-founded Alibaba with $60,000 and turned it into China’s …read more […]

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Betting data from Smarkets suggest there’s a 45% chance that Trump won’t concede if he loses the election. …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — U.S. equity futures pointed to further gains after the biggest two-day rally since September, while Treasury futures slid as investors speculated America would get a clear election decision and Congress will deliver a spending bill this year.December contracts on the S&P 500 rose 1% as of 7:18 p.m. in New York. The cash index jumped 3% in the past two days. The dollar fell and Treasury futures dropped as trading kicked off in Asia, with cash 10-year yields implied to rise another two basis points following Tuesday’s selloff.Polls have started closing on much of the East Coast, including …read more […]

Markets are moving as the U.S. awaits results of the 2020 elections. …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — It was heralded as China’s answer to JPMorgan — a homegrown financial giant on the cusp of the biggest stock-market debut the world has ever seen.Instead, with billions on the line and an initial public offering all but sealed, Chinese authorities have abruptly thrown into doubt the future of Ant Group Co. and its celebrated founder, the billionaire Jack Ma.Only days before the financial-technology juggernaut was to go public in Shanghai and Hong Kong — a coup for China’s financial markets that once would have been unimaginable — the $35 billion IPO was halted on Tuesday after Ma, …read more […]

Last week, we had the biggest stock market drop in months.
I took the opportunity to remind my parents that they shouldn’t panic when the stock market sells off… they should root for it.
In fact, the further the market falls, the better it is for them.
Let me explain…
My parents have built a portfolio that is skewed toward term deposits and savings accounts. They’ve worked hard and saved religiously.
Their parents, who went through the Great Depression, taught them that term deposits and savings accounts were the most secure places to invest their cash.
They have some exposure to the stock market, but not …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — The two U.S. mall owners that filed for bankruptcy on Sunday could be just the beginning.As retailers ranging from J.C. Penney Co. to Brooks Brothers Group Inc. go bust, their landlords are struggling, too. But rescuing malls will be unusually complicated because the properties have byzantine webs of financing that have only grown more elaborate with time. Interest groups ranging from lenders to shareholders to tenants to holders of complex mortgage bonds are wrangling over how to fix the situations, and for many large property owners, bankruptcy will be the only option, restructuring professionals said.That’s what CBL & …read more […]

Ire and unease have gripped the nation.
Americans have been wrestling with anxiety and unrest related to the pandemic. And to throw kerosene on that dumpster fire, we have mounting anxiety over today’s U.S. presidential election…
At least one of those will soon be in the rearview mirror… hopefully.
Over the past month, I’ve covered the “October Effect” during election years in-depth and how the markets collapse in the month leading up to the election as uncertainty reaches a crescendo.
That’s exactly what we’ve watched play out this year…

The Dow tumbled 4.6% last month.
That’s the largest pullback we’ve seen in October during an election …read more […]