GS - The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.

Hedge Funds Souring On Goldman Sachs (GS) and Buying Morgan Stanley

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 […]

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  Hedge Funds Starting Cashing Out Of QUALCOMM, Incorporated (QCOM)

  Insider Monkey
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  Hedge Funds Actually Bought Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM) During The Crash

  Insider Monkey

NYSE president: 'While we are reopening, it is not back to business as usual'

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.

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  Masked traders return to NYSE floor after shutdown

  Reuters Videos
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  Bell rings but trading floor chaos subdued as NYSE reopens

  Associated Press

Goldman Seeks to Speedup Launch of Cash Management Business

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

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  Goldman Sachs Plans To Expand Cash Management To Europe Despite Coronavirus Impact

  Benzinga
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  Goldman Sachs to Expand Its Cash Management Business

  Motley Fool

Goldman Sachs Plans To Expand Cash Management To Europe Despite Coronavirus Impact

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) is looking to expand its corporate cash management services across Europe starting September, the Financial Times reported Tuesday.What Happened While the investment bank's cash management platform is set to launch in the United States next month, it is also aiming to extend operating in the United Kingdom in September, and in other European countries by the end of the year, people familiar with the matter told the Financial Times.Goldman Sachs is looking to implement a similar strategy as with its consumer-facing arm Marcus, when it comes to winning over clients from competitors, according to the Financial Times.One person familiar with the matter told the Financial Times that the bank has been offering to pay as much as 200 basis points over rivals on some of the deposits to U.S. corporates.Another person told the publication that the bank is offering pricing better than 70% of the market and not aiming to be the "most aggressive."Why It Matters Goldman Sachs reported a 46% drop in earnings in the first quarter and Chief Executive Officer David Solomon said the bank was "inevitably affected by the economic dislocation" caused by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.The bank has been long planning to enter the corporate cash management market dominated by rivals HSBC Holdings PLC (NYSE: HSBC), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM), Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C), and Deutsche Bank AG (NYSE: DB) for more than a year, as reported by Reuters in January last year.GS Price Action Goldman Sachs stock closed slightly lower at $179.93 per share on Friday.See more from Benzinga * Carvana Rival Online Car Seller Vroom Files To Go Public * SoftBank Plans B Offering Of Its T-Mobile Shares In Addition To Sale To Deutsche Telekom * Disney Plans Another Bonds Offering With A Six-Part Deal(C) 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

Goldman Sachs to Expand Its Cash Management Business

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

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  Goldman Sachs Plans To Expand Cash Management To Europe Despite Coronavirus Impact

  Benzinga
• Bank of America wealth management executive says clients are still holding more cash

  Reuters

China's Crypto Is All About Tracing — and Power

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The coronavirus has disrupted the world in very large ways. While that battle has been waged, however, another event has almost been missed: the birth of a new kind of fiat currency, which could forever reshape the relationship between money, economic power and geopolitical clout. An official Chinese digital yuan, more than five years in the making, is now in pilot runs to slowly start replacing the physical legal tender. If the experiment succeeds, this new cash, valued the same as the familiar banknotes bearing Mao Zedong’s image, will become the world’s first sovereign token to reside exclusively in the ether.The trials are taking place just as the blame game around the coronavirus deepens mistrust between the U.S. and China. With President Donald Trump warning that Washington would respond if Beijing intervenes against protests and democratic movements in Hong Kong, chances of a detente from last year’s trade war are fading.Outside the People’s Republic, the big question is if the digital yuan is a challenger to the dollar. Within China, though, there’s a more mundane explanation for why Beijing wants to turn banknotes in circulation into virtual tokens. Chinese consumers have bypassed both computers and credit cards to embrace mobile payment apps, which have gone on to spawn large money-market funds investing in high-yielding wealth-management products. This has led to the accumulation of risks in opaque shadow banking. Bringing them out in the open requires a leg up for traditional lenders in payments, an area where financial technology has left them far behind. The digital yuan, which will be pushed out to consumers via banks, seeks to restore this missing balance; it will allow authorities to “regulate an overstretched debt market more effectively,” says DBS Group Holdings Ltd. economist Nathan Chow.Still, there’s also a power play. It isn’t a coincidence that China’s project picked up speed last year as Facebook Inc. announced Libra. The proposed stablecoin promised to hold its value against a basket of major official currencies rather than gyrating wildly like Bitcoin. When it looked like regulators in the U.S. and elsewhere would nix this synthetic global cryptocurrency, the Libra Association curbed the scope of its undertaking. But the idea of “a regulated global network for cost-effective retail payments,” as described by Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings Pte, a new member of Libra’s Geneva-based governing body, remains alive. For Beijing to shake the dollar’s hegemony, it has to pre-empt Silicon Valley from taking the pole position. Hence the hurry for China’s test runs. According to media reports, half the May transport subsidy for Suzhou municipal employees will be in the form of digital currency electronic payment, or DCEP, as it’s being called in the absence of a catchier moniker. The pilot plan in Xiong’an, a satellite city of Beijing, includes coffee shops, fast food, retailers, theaters and bookstores, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has noted. The other trials are reserved for Chengdu and Shenzhen. Thanks to Alipay and WeChat Pay, 80% of Chinese smartphone users whip out their mobiles to make payments, more than anywhere in the world. To them, the DCEP wallets being provided by the big four state banks should seem much the same. But there are differences. In this new system, a low-value transaction can go through even if both parties are offline. Also, this is sovereign liability, safe if an intermediary goes bankrupt. The big four lenders — and later fintech firms — will distribute the tokens, but the funds won’t reside in bank accounts. This will be unlike existing payment apps that only move one institution’s IOUs to another. Beijing was going to launch the digital money even before the pandemic. However, adoption could be faster now because of people’s fear of catching an infection from handling cash. Also, it’s possible to trace in real time whether an anti-virus subsidy, given out in tokenized form, is reaching the target. Once it has, the tracking would be “turned off” to ensure corporate and household spending stays anonymous, Goldman says. Strictly speaking, though, the anonymity of cash will no longer exist. Authorities can look under the hood of pseudonymous transactions for unwanted activity, an outcome far removed from the vision that drove libertarians (and money launderers) to cryptocurrencies in the first place. With the outbreak giving legitimacy to intrusive physical contact tracing, the case for financial tracing gets even stronger. Exchange of digital yuan between customers and merchants will pop up on a centralized ledger, and go through far more swiftly than in Bitcoin-style setups that rely on widely distributed ledgers of asset ownership. Every nation projects power when others desire its money — something that costs the home country nothing to produce. But as with any digital network, the sovereign tokens that take off first could end up winning disproportionately. The digital yuan could find customers overseas, especially in places where China is making belt-and-road investments. For one thing, they wouldn’t have to pay banks fat fees for running the $124 trillion-a-year business-to-business international transfers market.By distributing digital currency through banks, China has given its big institutions a chance to match the payment technology of fintech rivals. But it’s possible that a central bank in another country would bypass intermediaries altogether, potentially making the state the monopoly supplier of money to retail customers. That, as I wrote in December, could upend banking. The digital yuan may have started modestly, but it might pave the way for changes that are both ambitious and long outlast the coronavirus. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Andy Mukherjee is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering industrial companies and financial services. He previously was a columnist for Reuters Breakingviews. He has also worked for the Straits Times, ET NOW and Bloomberg News.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.

Argentina to Rework Debt Offer After Missed Interest Payment

(Bloomberg) -- Argentina will improve the terms of its offer to restructure $65 billion of overseas bonds after sinking into default when it failed to make an interest payment.Economy Minister Martin Guzman didn’t give any details on his plans in an interview at his office on Friday evening, but he said discussions with creditor groups continue. The latest proposals from bondholders have shrunk the gap between the parties’ positions, he added.The South American nation, burdened by inflation near 50% and a shrinking economy even before the pandemic hit, missed the final deadline for $500 million of interest payments on Friday. The government has said Argentina needs $40 billion in debt relief to set it back on the path to sustainable growth, and officials have been in talks with bondholders for two months.“Our intention is to amend the offer based on the negotiations so that it has a structure compatible with the restrictions we face, as well as bondholders’ preferences and objectives,” Guzman said. “The message we’ve received from bondholders is that they’re interested to continue talks.”Argentina extended the deadline for creditors to consider its debt restructuring offer until June 2. Key bondholders have committed not to sue for immediate repayment on the defaulted debt, allowing talks to continue on friendlier terms, Guzman added.Read More: Argentina’s Stumble to Default Caps Brutal Four-Year DeclineArgentina’s Exchange Bondholder Group said the government invited some of its members as well as representatives from other creditor committees to sign a non-disclosure agreement for further talks.‘Good News’Jorge Arguello, the nation’s ambassador to the U.S., said in a statement late Saturday that formal negotiations are ongoing.“I understand there is still an important distance to cover but they clearly are on a positive course,” he wrote. “The good news is that all sides are at the table trying to find a solution.”Argentina has demanded a three-year moratorium on payments, sharp cuts to interest rates and a reduction in the principal owed. People familiar with the matter said earlier this week that there was a gap of about 20 cents on the dollar between what the government was offering and what creditors want.The government remains flexible on the specifics of the deal and could use sweeteners to make it more appealing to creditors, according to Guzman.“There’s flexibility on the combination of parameters,” he said. “While the counteroffers we received last week are closer than the first ones we received, they’re still far from what Argentina can sustain.”Bonds were little changed Friday, with most securities trading between 30 and 40 cents on the dollar, as investors had largely anticipated that Argentina wouldn’t make the overdue interest payments. The notes had rallied from record lows in recent weeks amid some optimism an accord can be reached in coming days and weeks.Investors are resigned to a certain amount of losses, and the government has tried to keep things friendly by avoiding rhetoric that demonized creditors, a hallmark of the country’s battles with hedge funds after its 2001 default.Argentina’s default at the turn of the century led to 15 years of costly court battles with creditors. It’s unlikely we’ll see a repeat of that, according to Alberto Ramos, the head of Latin American economics at Goldman Sachs Research.“Given all these signals that all these things seem to be progressing, I don’t think anyone will litigate immediately,” Ramos said. “There will be an understanding with bondholders and life goes on.”(Updates with statement from Argentina’s ambassador beginning in seventh paragraph.)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.

Is JPMorgan Stock A Buy Right Now, As The Coronavirus Hits Bank Stocks? Here's What Earnings, Charts Show

JPMorgan Chase has the reputation of being the best-run banking giant. But is the stock a good buy right now? Here’s a look at the JPM stock chart and fundamentals.

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  Why Buy MSCI (MSCI) Stock for Turbulent Times?

  Insider Monkey
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  3 Dividend Stocks to Buy on Sale

  Motley Fool

6 Banks PNC Might Want to Buy

PNC recently came into a large amount of cash after selling its entire stake in BlackRock, making it clear that it is looking to make a big deal.

China Abandons Hard Growth Target, Shifts Stimulus Focus to Jobs

(Bloomberg) -- The Chinese government abandoned its decades-long practice of setting an annual target for economic growth amid the storm of uncertainty unleashed by the coronavirus pandemic, and said it would continue to increase stimulus.Speaking Friday morning at the National People’s Congress in Beijing, Premier Li Keqiang delivered an annual policy address that laid out a renewed focus on maintaining employment and investment. Against a backdrop of escalating tensions with the U.S., Li said Beijing remains committed to implementing the terms of the ‘phase one’ trade deal.With more than $500 billion in infrastructure bonds to be issued this year and more monetary easing on the horizon, China is trying to cement a fragile domestic recovery without indulging in the kind of debt blowouts seen in the U.S. and Europe. The world’s largest exporter is therefore still reliant on other countries reining in the pandemic and on a reboot of global trade.“We have not set a specific target for economic growth this year,” Li said, speaking in the Great Hall of the People. “This is because our country will face some factors that are difficult to predict in its development due to the great uncertainty regarding the Covid-19 pandemic and the world economic and trade environment.”Shifting away from a hard target for output growth breaks with decades of Communist Party planning habits and is an admission of the deep rupture the pandemic has caused. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expect China’s economy to expand just 1.8% this year, its worst performance since the 1970s.At the same time, Li gave a precise figure for the targeted budget deficit, widening it to more than 3.6% of gross domestic product. Including the issuance of special bonds, that brings a broader measure of the deficit to more than 8%, according to Bloomberg Economics.Analysts including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. economist Yu Song said the package was less aggressive than expected. Market sentiment was overshadowed by the announcement Friday that Beijing would impose national security legislation on Hong Kong, risking further confrontation with the U.S.The CSI 300 Index fell 2.3% on Friday, its worst reaction to the opening of the country’s annual National People’s Congress since the stock benchmark started in 2005.What Bloomberg’s Economists Say...“Setting a target in such an uncertain economic environment would have been risky. Abandoning the decades-long tradition relieves the government of the straitjacket the annual target placed on economic policy. The challenge now will be to effectively guide expectations in the absence of the GDP target.”Chang Shu and David Qu, Bloomberg EconomicsFor the full note click hereLi said the government is setting a target for urban job creation of more than 9 million jobs, lower than the 2019 target of around 11 million, and a target for the urban surveyed unemployment rate of around 6%, higher than 2019’s goal, according to the document.The government’s official measures don’t capture the full extent of unemployment caused by the pandemic, which has hit both manufacturing and services hard. With jobs and income growth vital for the unelected Communist Party’s political legitimacy, stabilizing employment has become Li’s first priority.“We will make every effort to stabilize and expand employment,” Li said. “We will strive to keep existing jobs secure, work actively to create new ones, and help unemployed people find work.”Reflecting recent controversy over the ‘phase one’ trade deal with the U.S. signed earlier this year, before the pandemic broke out, Li said China will work with the U.S. to implement the agreement.The wider budget deficit target implies a significantly larger shortfall than 2019’s target of 2.8%. Greater spending on efforts to restart the economy and control the spread of coronavirus will be funded by issuing 1 trillion yuan ($140 billion) in sovereign debt.To help finance infrastructure investment, local governments will issue 3.75 trillion yuan in local special bonds this year, up from 2019’s quota of 2.15 trillion. Economists had forecast issuance of as much as 4 trillion yuan.The government’s language on monetary policy was kept basically unchanged, with the stance remaining “prudent,” as well as “flexible” and “appropriate.” The English-language report said new monetary policy tools would be developed to “directly stimulate the real economy.”“It is crucial that we take steps to ensure enterprises can secure loans more easily and promote steady reduction of interest rates,” according to the report. Li added that money supply will be guided “significantly” higher this year and that reserve ratios and interest rates will continue to be cut.Key leaders sat in two rows behind Li’s podium, well spaced and without face masks. Officials behind were more closely packed and wearing masks, as were the hundreds listening in the hall. The Congress represents the centerpiece of China’s political calendar, though it has a rubber-stamp role. The meeting was delayed more than two months by the virus shutdowns.Li detailed measures including continued implementation of VAT cuts, and a further 500 billion yuan in tax and fee reductions. The target for consumer price inflation was set at 3.5%, higher than the usual ceiling and a reflection of continued high food-price gains.Analysts said that while more stimulus was announced, the government’s ambitions for growth remain limited given the dangers of another run up in debt. China borrowed heavily to stabilize the economy after the 2008 crisis, and is taking a markedly different tack this time. At the same time, rising unemployment may force the government’s hand.“I think the central government would like local governments to play a much more active role in relieving domestic unemployment and boosting domestic consumption,” Michael Pettis, a finance professor at Peking University, said Friday on Bloomberg Television. “The problem is, local governments are indebted up to their eyebrows. There’s really not much room for them significantly to increase debt.”(Updates markets in eighth paragraph.)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.

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  'Freedom March of NJ' protest being held at Jersey Shore

  WABC – NY
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  Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan gets approval to begin its season June 19

  Yahoo Sports

Grocery Startup Missfresh Closes In on $500 Million Fundraising

(Bloomberg) -- Tencent Holdings Ltd.-backed Missfresh is on the verge of closing $500 million of new financing to quicken expansion after the Covid-19 outbreak bolstered demand for fresh groceries, people familiar with the matter said.Beijing Missfresh Ecommerce Co., which counts Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Tiger Global Management among its backers, recently wrapped up the second tranche of a funding round that will raise a total of about $300 million and another 1 billion to 1.5 billion yuan ($211 million) of Chinese currency funding, the people said, requesting not to be named because the matter is private. A third and final tranche will be completed soon but the financing has so far valued the grocery delivery startup at about $3 billion before investment, the people said.A company representative declined to comment.Missfresh -- one of a clutch of startups Tencent backed during China’s internet boom -- is competing in a cash-burning sector with deeper-pocketed corporations including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Consumers sheltering at home during the Covid-19 pandemic have reinvigorated the once-difficult online groceries arena, and Missfresh now needs ammunition to attack a Chinese online fresh foods sector that could reach $178 billion by 2025.The company, founded in 2014, has more than 1,500 mini-warehouses that promise deliveries as fast as within an hour, it said in a statement in July. Missfresh had nearly 25 million monthly active users as of May last year. It handled 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) of transactions in 2018 and had generated positive cash flow by the end of that year, the company said at the time.The funding will help tide Missfresh over during tough times in the venture capital market. VC funding plummeted at the start of 2020 with investors stranded at home and increasingly risk-averse. Excluding the latest effort, the Beijing-based startup has raised nearly $900 million via eight funding rounds from investors including Jeneration Group and Genesis Capital, the company has said.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.

Oil Posts Longest Streak of Gains in More Than a Year

(Bloomberg) -- Oil posted its longest streak of gains in more than a year, buoyed by output cuts across the globe that have whittled away at a stubborn supply glut.Futures climbed 1.3% in New York. U.S. supply data showed crude inventories fell for a second week after climbing steadily since January and stockpiles at the storage hub at Cushing, Oklahoma declined by a record. OPEC and its allies are reducing output and IHS Markit Ltd. says U.S. oil producers are also curtailing about 1.75 million barrels a day of existing production by early June.“There is a lot of narrative out there that the rebalancing is going to come quicker and will be more aggressive than we thought,” said Bart Melek, head of commodity strategy at Toronto Dominion Bank.Oil’s rally this month into the $30-a-barrel range raises the possibility that shale producers may slowly start to turn on the taps again after futures plunged into negative territory in April, leading to layoffs across the energy industry, a slowdown in drilling and deep declines in the number of oil rigs in operation. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said U.S. shale will emerge from the current slump as a lower growth and more cash generative industry, while consolidation will concentrate the number of players in the sector.While the large decline in stockpiles at Cushing, the delivery point for WTI futures, indicates the supply glut is starting to ease, a surprise increase in U.S. gasoline inventories last week reflects underlying demand weakness in the world’s largest economy. The economic outlook remains uncertain with another 2.44 million Americans filing for unemployment last week, Labor Department figures showed.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.

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  Brent at highest since March on U.S. stock draw, recovering demand

  Reuters
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  Oil Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Supported by Lower US Inventories, Recovering Demand

  FX Empire

COVID-19 is accelerating automation in the workforce: WorkMarket Founder

As states reopen, more companies look to technology and AI to limit prevent the spread of coronavirus in the workplace. WorkMarket Founder Jeff Wald joins Yahoo Finance’s On The Move panel to address the future of jobs and changes in the workplace post-pandemic.