How To Pay Off Student Loans
Student loan debt is the second-largest pile of debt in the U.S., trailing only mortgages. Here are some tips for tackling your student loans and getting debt free.
Greensill Capital filed for insolvency on Monday after losing insurance coverage for its debt repackaging business and said in its court filing that its largest client, GFG Alliance, had started to default on its debts. Greensill began to unravel last Monday when its main insurer stopped providing credit insurance on $4.1 billion of debt in portfolios it had created for clients including Swiss bank Credit Suisse. The court document supporting Greensill's insolvency application said without that insurance, Greensill was no longer able to sell notes backed by debts to investors, nor fund clients such as GFG in return.
(Bloomberg) -- Greensill Capital filed for administration in the U.K., capping a stunning collapse for the supply-chain finance company after key backers walked away over concerns about the valuation of its assets.A hearing was held in London on Monday to review the submission, according to court documents. Lex Greensill’s eponymous company had been readying the filing since last week, after Credit Suisse Group AG froze and then later started winding down $10 billion of funds that bought products from Greensill. That decision set off a chain of events that also saw regulators in Germany shut down its local bank.Greensill remains in talks with Apollo-backed Athene Holding Ltd. on the sale of its operating business, though any transaction will likely be at a fraction of the $7 billion valuation that the company had sought in fundraising talks last year when it was considering plans to go public. Athene is offering about $60 million for Greensill’s IT and intellectual property, the court documents showed.Greensill unraveled in a matter of days once the lack of confidence began to sweep across the financial world. At the heart of the trouble are loans made by its supply-chain finance business. Greensill backers from Credit Suisse to Softbank Group Corp. and GAM Holding Corp. signaled doubts about the debt, upending the multi-billion-dollar empire. It also emerged that Softbank’s Vision fund had substantially written down its $1.5 billion holding in Greensill late last year.Grant Thornton has been appointed as joint administrators, and is “in continued discussion with an interested party in relation to the purchase of certain Greensill Capital assets,” the firm said in an emailed statement. Bloomberg reported last week that Greensill was in the process of filing for insolvency.Read more: Greensill Crisis of Confidence Worsens as GAM Winds Down FundGrant Thornton was also named as administrators to Greensill in Australia and is working closely with the U.K. administrators, it said in a statement on Tuesday.Some of the most high-profile drama took place in Germany, where regulator BaFin shuttered Greensill Bank AG and asked law enforcement officials to investigate accounting irregularities. BaFin spent months probing the bank’s exposure to companies linked to U.K. industrialist Sanjeev Gupta. Greensill said it was always transparent with auditors and regulators about its approach to classifying assets.About 90% of Greensill’s revenues were derived from non-investment grade borrowers, according to filings from the court. The largest of those clients is Gupta, according to the documents. In a letter dated Feb. 7, Gupta’s GFG Alliance told Greensill that if it ceased to provide working capital for the firm, it would collapse into insolvency.Pressure on Greensill ratcheted up as it lost its allies, with Credit Suisse freezing and then deciding to liquidate the family of funds that invest in Greensill-sourced loans, citing “uncertainty” about the valuations of some of the debt. The Swiss bank also last week demanded repayment of a $140 million loan it had made to Greensill. The firm was unable to do this and was therefore cash insolvent, the filings showed.GAM also said it will begin shuttering its $842 million GAM Greensill Supply Chain Finance Fund and return investors’ money as it sought to end its dealings with the firm.Separately, Apollo earlier on Monday agreed to acquire the about 65% it didn’t already own of Athene in a deal that values the firm at about $11 billion.(Updates with administrators in Australia in sixth paragraph)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
(Bloomberg) -- Oil soared past fiscal breakeven prices for the Middle East’s four biggest producers after OPEC+ kept output largely unchanged and an attack on a highly protected Saudi Arabian oil facility.The late Sunday attack on an oil storage tank farm sent the global crude benchmark above $70 a barrel, days after the shock move by the OPEC+ cartel sparked a rally.If oil prices stay at current levels, “we would see fiscal surpluses for the larger Gulf Cooperation Council economies,” said Monica Malik, chief economist at Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank. “This provides more fiscal space to support economic activity and recovery.”Analysts at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their Brent price forecasts after the OPEC decision.On Monday, Dubai-based lender Emirates NBD PJSC revised its average oil price upward to $67.50 per barrel this year, leading to narrower budget deficits, “assuming spending remains unchanged and governments continue to prioritize deficit reduction over boosting growth.”Budget deficits in the Arab Gulf, where economies are reliant on oil, widened after prices crashed in 2020. OPEC+ agreed last year to take about 10% of global supply off the market to stem the plunge. While the group has slowly rolled back some of those cuts, it is curtailing more than 7 million barrels of daily production.Still, Brent prices have averaged just below $60 so far this year -- below the breakeven level for most Gulf countries. Saudi Arabia, the Arab world’s largest economy and OPEC’s biggest producer, has posted successive budget shortfalls in the past seven years, a trend the International Monetary Fund predicted would continue through 2024.And the OPEC+ decision may be eroded.“Compliance with OPEC restrictions may deteriorate, resulting in a smaller decline in average crude oil production this year relative to 2020,” wrote Khatija Haque, head of research and chief economist at Emirates NBD. “OPEC+ may decide to increase production more aggressively later this year, and governments could choose to increase spending to support the economic recovery in the non-oil sectors this year.”(Updates with missile attacks on Saudi facility from first paragraph, Emirates NBD report in fifth.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
(Bloomberg) -- Eric Yuan, chief executive officer of Zoom Video Communications Inc., donated more than a third of his stake in the company, filings show.Yuan gifted almost 18 million shares of the conferencing-technology firm last week. The filings didn’t specify the recipient of the stock, which was owned by a Grantor Retained Annuity Trust, or GRAT, for which Yuan is a trustee.The shares were valued at about $6 billion, based on Friday’s closing price.The distributions are consistent with the Yuans’ “typical estate planning practices,” a Zoom spokesman said in a statement.Yuan, 51, joins other members of the world’s mega-rich who’ve been transferring stock recently -- including Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, who last month gave some of his Zoom holding to his businessman son Richard. Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person, has been donating shares of Amazon.com Inc. in support of a $10 billion pledge made last year to combat climate change.Pandemic SurgeYuan became one of the world’s wealthiest people as demand for Zoom’s main product skyrocketed during the pandemic. The stock surged almost 400% last year, but has dipped 7.8% in 2021.He’s the world’s 130th-richest person with a pre-transfer net worth of $15.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a $9.2 billion increase since last March. The company has also brought huge gains to other shareholders, including Tiger Global Management’s Chase Coleman and Taiwanese investor Samuel Chen. Li’s Zoom stake now represents almost one-fifth of his net worth. Born in China, Yuan was refused a U.S. visa eight times before finally prevailing and moving to Silicon Valley. An early employee of rival video-conferencing group WebEx Communications, he founded Zoom in 2011, inspired in part by the challenges of maintaining a long-distance relationship when he was in college.The Wall Street Journal reported the share transfer earlier Monday.(Adds that Li Ka-shing cut his Zoom holding in fifth paragraph, details about the stake in seventh)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
And will you even get a payment this time, under the new limits the president agreed to?
(Bloomberg) -- Tucked away among the Ford, Dodge and Chevy sedans, the 12,000-gallon storage container and the inoperable Caterpillar tractor being auctioned off by the U.S. government is an unusual item: 0.7501 of a Bitcoin.The U.S. General Services Administration typically uses its auctions to sell surplus federal equipment to the general public. With lot 4KQSCI21105001, which goes up for auction in a week, the government is offering an amount of Bitcoin worth about $38,000 at Monday’s price.The government doesn’t say where its surplus digital currency came from. And while it’s a far cry from the 30,000 Bitcoins auctioned off by the U.S. Marshals Service in 2014 after they were seized from the Silk Road marketplace, the GSA auction is one more indication of how Bitcoin is becoming more and more mainstream.On Wall Street, too, there is a newfound openness to the world’s most valuable digital currency: Custody banking giant Bank of New York Mellon Corp. said it will hold, transfer and issue digital currencies, while Mastercard Inc. announced plans to let cardholders transact in certain cryptocurrencies on its network. A Morgan Stanley unit known for picking growth stocks is considering adding Bitcoin to its possible bets and, last week, a person close to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said the bank plans to reopen a trading desk for cryptocurrencies.The Bitcoins auctioned off by the U.S. Marshals Service in 2014 were estimated at the time to be worth about $19 million, though the winning bid -- by venture capitalist Tim Draper -- wasn’t disclosed. Those coins would be worth $1.5 billion today as the cryptocurrency’s price has skyrocketed to almost $51,000.The GSA auction is scheduled to be held from March 15 to 17.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
The U.S. Senate finally passed a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill over the weekend and stocks are broadly moving higher at the start of the week. The yield on the 10-year Treasury (BX:TMUBMUSD10Y) up 64 basis points this year through Friday, rose 2 basis points to 1.589% on Monday. After its biggest intraday comeback in a year at the end of last week, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (COMP) was 0.9% down into afternoon trading after a volatile morning.
Shares of AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. soared Monday, as the "meme" stock's bounce from last month's plunge continued, after Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter doubled his price target ahead of the company's earnings report, citing an increasing optimism over the post-pandemic environment.
It's true: Hurrying with your tax return could put your relief money at risk.
With President Joe Biden's American Rescue Plan, your 2020 tax return has become a moving target.
Goldman Sachs didn't start ranking bitcoin versus global assets until late January, but its year-to-date return is double the next-closest competitor.
They have been trading longer than many adults, and are learning valuable lessons about investing early. MarketWatch speaks to four teenagers who are taking on the markets.
Hi tech is the cool kid of investment sectors, offering an unbeatable combination of cutting edge chic and long-term stock market returns. It’s understandable; our digital world has clearly passed a point of no return in the integration of tech with our daily lives. Tech companies, whether large or small, are clearly in a position to gain from this trend, offering the products and innovations that will facilitate and expand the growth of our high-tech footprint. Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is at the forefront the tech wave. AI systems, which allow machines to learn from experience, adapt to change, and process more information faster than ever before, are powering the evolution of tech. New AI systems are making possible autonomous vehicles, personalizing sales and marketing, and speeding up the networked systems that hold the digital universe together. From an investor standpoint, the companies that are building and using AI systems now are in position for gains in the near future. AI is here, and it’s only going to expand its presence. With this in mind, we’ve opened up the TipRanks database to get the scoop on three "Strong Buy" stocks, according to the analyst community, which are making profitable use of AI technology, and jockeying for position out of the gate. iCAD, Inc. (ICAD) We’ll start in the medtech segment, where iCAD produces solutions, including advanced image analysis, radiation therapy, and workflow to facilitate early identification and treatments for cancer. iCAD offers a comprehensive platform of hardware and software. The company’s ProFound AI Risk tool is an integrated platform that streamlines the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer; the VeraLook platform uses similar advanced technology to improve image processing in the detection of colon polyps. Medical technology is in high demand, and iCAD’s AI-powered platforms take common diagnostic tools and improve their accuracy. It’s part of a natural trend in medtech, of greater integration of tools and treatments. The field, like much of the medical industry, is growth, and iCAD reported $10.5 million in revenues for 4Q20, a sequential gain of 47%, which was powered by a 70% sequential gain in product revenue from ProFound AI. Year-over-year, quarterly revenue was up 11%, and the ProFound AI sales, in particular, gained 21%. Covering this stock for Oppenheimer, analyst Francois Brisebois sees ProFound AI as powerful gainer for the company. "We believe growth investors will be rewarded over the years as ICAD gains further share in a growing TAM by providing transformative AI-driven breast cancer detection products as well as targeted, efficient, cancer therapy solutions (quality over quantity). We believe ICAD represents an attractive vehicle for investors looking for exposure to biotech innovation themes and AI data growth waves. Ultimately, while ProFound AI Risk is in its very early stages of launch, we believe it represents a great example of AI's potential in changing treatment paradigms," Brisebois opined. Unsurprisingly, Brisebois rates ICAD an Outperform (i.e. Buy) along with a $27 price target. This figure implies a 63% one-year upside. (To watch Brisebois’ track record, click here) The unanimous Strong Buy consensus rating on ICAD shares shows that Wall Street is in broad agreement with Oppenheimer’s analyst; there are 7 Buy-side ratings on ICAD shares. The $21.57 average price target implies an upside of 30% from the $16.55 trading price. (See ICAD stock analysis on TipRanks) Baidu, Inc. (BIDU) Not every high-end AI stock is based in the US. Shifting our view to China, we’ll take a look at Baidu, the Asian giant’s largest search engine. In fact, Baidu is the largest internet search platform in the world’s largest language, used daily by well over 1.3 billion people. Baidu has a massive userbase, and just because Western and Chinese internet systems aren’t interconnected doesn’t mean that Western investors should overlook BIDU stock. Baidu’s gains are driven by a series of initiatives. The company benefits, like Google, from placing targeted ads on the search platform, ads that are powered by AI software. In addition, Baidu has been expanding the potentialities of its AI, moving into cloud computing and autonomous vehicles. In the past year, the company has even begun launching an autonomous vehicle system, the 14-passenger Apolong bus, in Guangzhou. In February, Baidu reported 4Q20 earnings and revenues, with slightly mixed results. The top line revenues came in at $4.6 billion, just below the forecast of $4.7 billion, but was still up 12% year-over-year; EPS on the other hand, at $3.08, slipped 25% yoy despite beating the forecast by over 10%. Among BIDU's bulls is Fawne Jiang, a 5-star analyst with Benchmark, who writes: “BIDU is making great strides monetizing new AI initiatives including smart transportation and intelligent driving, which should fuel the Company’s longer-term growth. We believe BIDU is well positioned to grow into a meaningfully expanded TAM capitalizing on growth opportunities in cloud, smart transportation, intelligent driving and other AI initiatives.” In line with these upbeat comments, Jiang rates BIDU as a Buy, and sets a $385 price target that indicates confidence in a 65% upside potential. (To watch Jiang’s track record, click here) With 14 recent Buy ratings, opposed to only 4 Holds, the BIDU shares have earned a Strong Buy from the analyst consensus. The stock is selling for $232.68, and its $343.44 average price target implies ~48% upside from that level. (See BIDU stock analysis on TipRanks) Five9 (FIVN) Let’s look into the cloud now, where Five9 offers a scalable contact center platform using an AI cloud technology. Contact centers have been a successful growth segment in the past couple of decades, and cloud computing has changed the way we use software. AI, by making computers smarter and data analysis faster, more efficient, and more accurate, has revolutionized both; contact centers using AI ‘smart’ clouds can track and route calls, process information, and direct callers and service agents to each other faster for better results. In 4Q20, the most recent reported, the company showed 39% year-over-year growth in revenue, to $127.9 million – a company record. EPS, however, was negative, with the loss hitting 11 cents per share. This was an unfortunate turnaround from the 1-cent EPS profit posted in the year-ago quarter. On a more positive note, the company finished 2020 with $67.3 million in operating cash flow, up 31% from the prior year. Also of interest to investors, Five9 on March 4 announced that it has been selected as the cloud computing vendor for CANCOM, a leading UK IT company. The partnership makes Five9 the platform that CANCOM will use to expand its call center services, and gives Five9 a strong foothold in the European market. Weighing in for Craig-Hallum, 5-star analyst Jeff Van Rhee noted, “Digital transformations have been kicked into high gear by COVID and the genie is not going back in the bottle. In addition, FIVN has been very aggressive over the past few years moving to public cloud for the entire stack and layering in outstanding AI capabilities. Demand for AI was noted to be playing an extremely important role in many of the largest deals… there’s little doubt about the momentum, performance, and remaining opportunity for FIVN.” Van Rhee puts a Buy rating on the stock, along with a $215 price target implying a 40% one-year upside. (To watch Van Rhee’s track record, click here) Once again, we are looking at a Strong Buy stock. The analyst consensus rating here is based on 17 recent reviews, including 15 Buys and 2 Holds. Shares are trading for $153.81 and have a $202.31 average price target, making the 12-month upside ~32%. (See FIVN stock analysis on TipRanks) To find good ideas for AI stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.
On March 8, David Tepper, the founder of Appaloosa Management, said during an interview with Joe Kernen of CNBC that the rise in interest rates on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes (BX:TMUBMUSD10Y) to a yield of about 1.60% signaled that a major risk for U.S. bonds and stocks was “off the table.” Tepper, whose predictions are closely watched by Wall Street, went on to say that the expected $1.9 trillion government stimulus would be a near-term catalyst for stocks, pointing to Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) as especially attractive. Amazon’s shares fell 8.5% for the three-week period through the close March 5.
A former high-ranking Chinese government minister has said that China is at least 30 years away from becoming a “great power” in the manufacturing sector. What Happened: China has been the world’s dominant figure in manufacturing since 2010, according to United Nations data, with $4.8 trillion in industrial added value last year and a nearly 30% global share that is approximately equal to the combined share of the U.S., Germany and Japan. China’s State Council Development Research Center issued a report in January that defined the nation as being in the third tier in a four-tier ranking system based on key criteria including innovation, quality and effectiveness, environmental factors and global competitiveness, according to a South China Morning Post report. In comparison, the U.S., Germany and Switzerland were in the top tier, while Japan, South Korea, Singapore and France were in the second. In a speech before the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the government’s leading advisory body, former Minister of Industry and Information Technology Miao Wei warned that while China reigns in terms of industrial supply chains and accounts for more than one-third of global manufacturing output, its industries’ dependence on U.S. high-tech products including semiconductors remains a strategic obstacle that needs to be overcome. "Basic capabilities are still weak, core technologies are in the hands of others, and the risk of 'being hit in the throat' and having 'a slipped bike chain' has significantly increased," said Miao, who stepped down from his ministry post last year after a decade in office. "The ratio of manufacturing output to GDP has been declining too early and too quickly, which not only weighs on economic growth and affects employment, but also brings security loopholes to our industries and diminishes our economy's ability to withstand risks, and its global competitiveness." Related Link: Beyond Bitcoin: China's Publicly-Listed Beauty App Meitu Buys M Ethereum What Happens Next: Miao said a lack of progress on market-oriented financial reforms including tax relief and a deficit of high-tech talent in manufacturing is keeping the sector from reaching its fullest potential. "China's manufacturing industry has made great achievements in recent years, but the situation of being 'big but not strong' and 'comprehensive but not good' has not been fundamentally changed," he said. "We must maintain our strategic resolve, stay clear-headed and deeply understand the gaps and deficiencies." Miao, who is now vice chairman of the CPPCC’s economic committee, also acknowledged that China’s services sector has overtaken manufacturing as the nation’s main economic force, with 54.5% of its economic output last year coming from the services sector versus 37.8% from manufacturing. “We should emphasize the strategic role and contribution of manufacturing and stabilize its share of the economy,” Miao said. “We should protect our most comprehensive manufacturing system and upgrade our self-reliance in industry and supply chains.” Related Link: Tesla Reaches 6,000 Supercharger Installs In China Miao Wei. Photo courtesy G20 Argentina/Creative Commons. See more from BenzingaClick here for options trades from BenzingaDisney's 'Raya And The Last Dragon' Opens To Disappointing .6M Domestic Box OfficeMarkets Close On Positive Note After Turbulent Week© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
(Bloomberg) -- The Chinese yuan erased all its gains against the dollar this year, the latest to fall prey to the Treasury-led global market selloff.The onshore yuan weakened as much as 0.5%, falling past the 6.5283 per dollar level it closed at last year. At its January peak, it was up 1.6% from 2020 as the economy rebounded and investors poured money into the Chinese bond market.Optimism over a global recovery from the pandemic has morphed into concerns that central banks will withdraw stimulus quicker-than-expected, leading to higher bond yields. This latest bout of market selling was spurred by the U.S. stimulus package and better Chinese exports data.“Surging U.S. Treasury yields and a USD rebound are pressuring EM Asia currencies including the renminbi,” said Ken Cheung, chief Asia currency strategist at Mizuho Bank Ltd in Hong Kong. “Foreign investors may have started to trim their emerging-market asset exposure and repatriate capital back into dollars. We turn more cautious on the CNY outlook in the near term.”Monday’s rout across markets picked up pace as Treasury 10-year yields hit 1.61%, nearing Friday’s high. A Bloomberg gauge of the dollar’s strength gained as much as 0.5% to its highest in almost four months.Trading volumes for onshore yuan rose to $48.9 billion on Monday, the highest level in over two months. Some bank clients who were previously hoarding dollars were selling off positions at higher prices, according to China-based traders, who asked not to be identified as they’re not authorized to speak publicly.The traders added they also received a higher volume of requests for forward prices on the greenback, including from clients who had just signed import orders and were looking to lock in foreign-exchange rates to guard against further yuan depreciation risks.China’s main stock benchmark entered a correction on Monday, with concerns over liquidity conditions and lofty valuations in some stocks fueling bearish sentiment.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
The COVID-19 relief bill passed by the U.S. Senate on Saturday eliminates an obstacle to broad-based student debt cancellation — the tax treatment of any discharged debt. Right now, borrowers who have their student loans discharged — with a few exceptions, including through Public Service Loan Forgiveness — face a tax bill on the cancelled debt. If the bill passed by Senators on Saturday becomes law, any student debt wiped away through the end of 2025 wouldn’t be counted as income for tax purposes.
To win Senate passage, Biden agreed to make millions ineligible for the third checks.
Shares of GameStop Corp. ran up 10.7% in premarket trading Monday, putting them on track to push the videogame retailer's market capitalization back above $10 billion, after the company said it established a new strategy committee to identify ways to accelerate its transformation. The committee will be chaired by activist investor Ryan Cohen, manager of RC Ventures LLC and co-founder of Chewy Inc. , and will also include Alan Attal and Kurt Wolf. Since the committee was formed, the company has appointed a chief technology officer and hired two executives to lead its e-commerce and customer care functions. GameStop stock has run up 239.3% over the past two weeks, which followed a three-week plunge of 87.5%. That selloff followed a historic surge to a record close of $347.51 on Jan. 27, as the poster child of trading frenzy engineered by Reddit's WallStreetBets forum that targeted heavily shorted stocks. GameStop's stock has hiked up 713.1% over the past three months through Friday, while the S&P 500 has tacked on 3.8%.
‘If he contributed to any part of the mortgage payments, could he claim he contributed to the (increased) value of the property, asking for money if/when it is sold?’