Wall Street is growing increasingly confident that Democratic and Republican lawmakers will clinch a bill based on a $748 billion bipartisan proposal that would inject cash directly into the economy as prior benefits begin to expire at the end of the year.
The merger announced Monday will boost Columbus, Ohio-based Huntington’s assets to about $168 billion, nudging it closer to regional competitors Fifth Third Bancorp and KeyCorp.
Wall Street has rolled out the welcome mat for companies going public this year, boosting proceeds from initial public offerings to the highest level in six years.
The case could mean undoing an agreement between the mortgage giants and the government that has sent about $246 billion in their profits to the Treasury. That was compensation for the taxpayer bailout they received after the 2007 housing market crash.
For some, however, the ability to keep buying things with plastic and then pay the bill likely depends on whether current negotiations in Washington, D.C., produce another round of economic aid.
According to data on the government’s Paycheck Protection Program, about 600 mostly larger companies, including dozens of national chains, received the maximum amount allowed under the program of $10 million.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is taking shots at student debt cancellation and tuition-free college proposals, hallmarks of President-elect Joe Biden’s agenda for higher education.
The proposal filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday, if approved, would require all companies listed on the exchange to publicly disclose consistent, transparent diversity statistics about their board of directors.
New York City-based S&P Global announced that it would acquire IHS Markit, based in London, in an all-stock deal.
The Federal Reserve since June has been buying $120 billion in bonds each month to keep downward pressure on long-term interest rates as a way of giving the economy a boost as it struggles to emerge from a deep recession.
Trading volumes have been elevated in what is normally a calm week. More than 12 billion shares changed hands on Monday, up 75% from the Monday before last year’s holiday.
The central bank said it “would prefer that the full suite of emergency facilities established during the coronavirus pandemic continue to serve their important role as a backstop for our still-strained and vulnerable economy.”
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the threat also means that Congress and the White House should provide more stimulus spending to support the unemployed, states and cities, and small businesses, and to keep the economy afloat.
Initial Public Offering advisers are expecting to see a record amount of listing activity during the period between the U.S. Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.
Office space, the largest single slice of the commercial real estate sector, already is seeing rents fall as vacancies rise. Property values eventually could plummet 20% to 35%, according to a recent Barclays report. Hotels and retail properties have been hit even harder.
Muncie-based First Merchants plans to acquire Hoosier Trust for $3.2 million in a deal that is expected to close early next year.
The increase included a $3.98 billion increase in credit card borrowing, the first rise since February. Credit card use had fallen for six straight months as households cut back on use of credit cards once the pandemic hit.
High levels of uncertainty, along with other pandemic-related factors, have pushed U.S. commercial bank deposits to record highs since the beginning of the year.
The Federal Reserve kept its benchmark interest rate at a record low near zero Thursday. It announced no new actions after its latest policy meeting but left the door open to provide further assistance in the coming months.
The S&P 500 rose 1.9%, its fourth straight gain of more than 1%, and is now up 7.4% for the week. That would be its best week since the market was exploding out of the crater created in February and March by panic about the coronavirus pandemic.
