JPMorgan, and PNC Financial Services are among the large U.S. banks preparing a bid for embattled First Republic Bank, in a process the FDIC hopes to finalize over the weekend, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Why it matters: The scramble to both stabilize and find an owner for First Republic highlights the deep concern around the collapse of yet another U.S. bank, and the need to calm investors around the globe before Monday's market open.
First Republic Bank is uniquely and consistently praised by its customers — mainly wealthy individuals and businesses — but the San Francisco-based bank’s nearly 40 years of existence has been a bumpy ride.
Why it matters: The latest loop in the roller coaster that started nearly two months ago with the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank could soon end with a government takeover or sale.
Government officials scrambled to save New York-based Signature Bank as troubles mounted last month. They even kept its bank-to-bank system FedWire running for 4.5 extra hours on March 10 to process billions in wires to avoid a default — but it wasn't enough.
Driving the news: The New York State Department of Financial Services published its report on the fall of Signature Bank on Friday, saying the bank's liquidity problems and risky liabilities caused it to collapse as concerns about banks with similar customer profiles mounted.
Vehicles are adding poundage as the auto industry goes electric — and that's problematic for traffic safety, parking garages and roads.
Why it matters: Gas vehicles are slowly giving way to electric vehicles as investors, regulators and consumers clamor for more environmentally sustainable transportation.
Unless your name is Ethan Hunt, you probably don't need a hyperrealistic mask depicting the face of a celebrity. But wouldn't it make for the creepiest Halloween getup?
State of play: Artist Landon Meier is turning heads with his masks of people like Donald Trump, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
AUSTIN — On the ground at Consensus 2023, the gaze of crypto's longest-working denizens seems fixed on the bright future of the blockchain industry, despite a lousy 2022.
The big picture: "It feels as though the industry has lost its way," Michael Casey, chief content officer at CoinDesk, said yesterday, though he also sees this as a chance "to reflect on what went wrong," and "why we're here."
The Federal Reserve is considering stricter regulations for banks after an internal review found that looser rules were one key culprit behind Silicon Valley Bank's collapse — the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history.
Why it matters: The review, released Friday, lays blame on the bank itself, as well as Fed supervisors charged with overseeing it and a regulation rollback, for the failure. The episode forced the government to take extraordinary action to backstop the banking system.
Coinbase released a detailed response to the SEC's March Wells notice — the warning the securities regulator usually gives when it's likely to bring a lawsuit.
Why it matters: It marks a tone shift from the largest U.S. crypto exchange. The company seems to be finished with bowing and scraping, and now it's ready to fight.
With all that people talk about it, it's hard to believe that criminal charges haven't been brought against the world's largest crypto exchange.
Why it matters: The consensus among the U.S. ink-slinging class has been that it's "just a matter of when" a criminal complaint will be brought against Binance and its CEO, Chengpang Zhao (mostly known as CZ). Yet still, we wait.
A girl crawls under the train with her backpack. Credit: Gray Television/InvestigateTV
Long freight trains are blocking traffic crossings around the country, forcing school children to risk their lives to get to school, a new ProPublica investigation finds.
The big picture: There's a heightened focus on the safety risks around rail operators now, in the wake of the derailment earlier this year in East Palestine, Ohio.
A week that saw renewed fears about the banking system will come to a fitting end Friday with the release of two reports examining what first sparked last month's crisis.
What's happening: The first report is from the Fed — an internal review of regulatory missteps that led to the failure of Silicon Valley Bank. It's been dubbed the "Barr report" after the Fed's regulatory cop Michael Barr, who led the investigation.
Why it matters: The rapid decline in both viewers and ad revenue is forcing networks to turn to cheaper alternatives, threatening the future of the 70-year-old genre.
Neither corporate earnings nor the latest GDP numbers imply we're careening toward an economic contraction.
Why it matters: Last year, as the Fed tightened rates at the most rapid clip since the early 1980s — and stocks fell about 20% — obsession with the possibility of a downturn overtook both executives and the business press.
It's been about three weeks since I swapped my 2016 Volkswagen SportWagen for a 2023 Kia Sportage Plug-In Hybrid — and, so far, I'm loving the plug-in life.
The big picture: Electric vehicle (EV) chargers, once few and far between, are quickly becoming more commonplace — but they're still not as easy to find as I'd like before I go fully electric.
