Free Republic

Former First Lady Hillary Clinton paid tribute to billionaire finances Thomas H. Lee at his Manhattan memorial – calling him a 'constant presence' in her life. Her husband and former president Bill Clinton also attended the service at the Lincoln Center for Performing Arts on Monday morning. Lee, who was once known as the 'envy of Wall street', shot himself inside the bathroom of his family office on Fifth Avenue on Thursday, with the city medical examiner ruling his death a suicide.

David McIntosh the president of the Club for Growth lobbying group that represents the interests of U.S. multinationals and Wall Street finance players, has organized another “donor retreat” session; where ‘donor retreat’ is the assembly of the Republican big club operatives who manipulate and control the Republican big club candidates, aka the establishment. The multinationals, led by CfG, are assembling to coordinate plans with, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Mike Pence, Glenn Youngkin and Mike Pompeo. .... Snip.... All preceding 2024 entrants are intended to weaken the America-First candidate through a series of planned, organized and media assisted unrelenting attacks. The...

(Reuters) -Technology and growth stocks lifted Wall Street's main indexes higher on Thursday after data pointing to signs of a cooling U.S. labor market eased worries about future interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve. Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Inc, Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN), whose shares have been battered in the past few sessions, gained more than 2% each, with traders attributing the rise to bargain hunting. All the major S&P 500 sector indexes rose, with consumer discretionary and technology leading the pack with a near 3% rise. The Fed's aggressive rate hikes have hammered equities...

The U.S. Virgin Islands on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against banking giant JPMorgan Chase, accusing the Wall Street corporation of turning a “blind eye” toward the conduct of the late disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. Virgin Islands Attorney General Denise George said in a complaint filed in a Manhattan District Court that JPMorgan Chase facilitated the trafficking of minors for sexual abuse at the hands of Epstein. The bank knowingly “provided and pulled the levers through which recruiters and victims were paid,” George wrote. George further alleged in the complaint that the banking giant ignored red flags for years as it...

I keep saying the 2024 GOP nomination is going to be fun because this is an epic Wall Street -vs- Main Street battle that needs to be done. The conniving republican political class are openly wearing their anti-working-class uniforms now. Despite their efforts to remain hidden, and thanks entirely to their hubris, they are glowing. The primary contest in 2024 is going to be epic, because this time the MAGA scruffnecks will, for the first time in years, clearly see who the enemy within the republican ranks really are. This makes them so much easier to defeat, and also explains...

(Reuters) - President Joe Biden's administration on Tuesday reversed restrictions imposed under his predecessor Donald Trump on retirement plans considering environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors such as climate change and racial justice when selecting investments. The Labor Department announced a final rule first proposed last year after Biden, a Democrat, ordered government agencies to assess climate-related risk to retirement and pension investments. The rule will make it easier for retirement plans to invest in socially responsible funds and companies, though it requires investment decisions to be based on traditional financial factors. The rule, which the department said covers plans...

Wall Street ended Friday -- the final day of the month and the quarter -- on another down note, with the main stock indexes posting their third straight quarterly loss for the first time since the Great Recession. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 500 points for a loss of 1.7 percent on the day, marking a decline of 8.8 percent for the month of September, 6.6 percent for the quarter, and 21 percent since the start of the year. The market's dismal recent performance follows historically high inflation, rapidly rising interest rates, and fears that the economy could soon...

Top investment banks expected Russia to suffer severe economic damage after it invaded Ukraine in February.But Russia's economy has held up better than expected, causing them to revise those predictions.In March, top investment bank JPMorgan said Russia's gross domestic product would fall 35% in the second quarter compared with the previous. Goldman Sachs predicted its economy would suffer its worst contraction since the Soviet Union imploded in the early 1990s. But Russia's GDP slipped only 4%Stronger-than-expected exports of Russian commodities, including crude oil, has helped support the economy. The country has also benefited from robust demand among its own consumers...

Senator Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona Democrat who single-handedly thwarted her party's longtime goal of raising taxes on wealthy investors, received nearly $1 million over the past year from private equity professionals, hedge fund managers and venture capitalists whose taxes would have increased under the plan. For years, Democrats have promised to raise taxes on such investors, who pay a significantly lower rate on their earnings than ordinary workers. But just as they closed in on that goal last week, Sinema forced a series of changes to her party's $740 billion election-year spending package, eliminating a proposed 'carried interest' tax increase...

There was a (very) brief period in which BofA’s Michael Hartnett – whom we long ago dubbed Wall Street’s biggest bear – turned ever slightly more bullish, when he told clients that while the bear market is far from over (recall he expects that to end some time in October with the S&P plunging down to 3,000) a powerful bear market rally had taken hold around the time we saw the biggest equity inflow in 10 weeks; even so, his advice to clients was simple: “fade all rallies.” All that’s over, and in his latest Flow Show note (available to...

One month after the April Fund Manager Survey was downright “apocalyptic” with the majority seeing a bear market and stagflation – yet nobody rushing to sell – and with optimism plunging to levels right before Lehman, today Bank of America published the latest, May FMS (available to pro subscribers in the usual place) in which the bank’s doom-and-gloomy Chief Investment Strategist Michael Hartnett (who most recently warned that the bear market will end when the S&P hits 3,000 in October) found that his view is shared by a growing number of even more apocalyptic Wall Street professionals, because the survey...

After a tumultuous week of violent lurches higher (but mostly lower), the S&P 500 has ended April with its worst start to a year since the start of World War 2...Vacation bookings are soaring, car sales are booming and Americans continue to spend with abandon, thanks to higher wages and brisk hiring; and yet, the economy unexpectedly contracted in the first quarter, led by trade deficits and a drop in inventory purchases.“The market is worried about a very fragile economic outlook, as it should be," said Joe LaVorgna, chief Americas economist at Natixis and former Trump White House economic adviser.“The...

One month after the March Fund Manager Survey was downright “apocalyptic” with the majority seeing a bear market and stagflation, and with optimism plunging to levels right before Lehman, today Bank of America published the latest, April FMS (available to pro subs in the usual place) in which the bank’s doom-and-gloomy Chief Investment Strategist Michael Hartnett found that his view is shared by even more Wall Street professionals, because the survey which polled 329 panelists managing $929 billion in AUM, found that global growth expectations plunged even more compared to last month, and dropped to fresh all-time lows (net -71%)...

Russia once again avoided a default on its foreign debt as the Kremlin transferred a $447 million bond payment. The payment was processed by JPMorgan, which is Russia’s foreign correspondent bank. It was then transferred to the admin agent, which in this instance is BNY Mellon, sources familiar with the matter told The Post. JPMorgan got the go-ahead from the Biden administration, which imposed sanctions on the Russian economy following President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, before processing the payment, Markets Insider reported. JPMorgan and BNY Mellon both declined to comment when reached by The Post. Holders of Russian bonds...

There’s little doubt that the growing influence of ‘ESG’ investing helped lead Western Europe to its present unfavorable position, allowing Russia to dominate the energy space. But going forward, a handful of Wall Street analysts are contemplating another ‘ESG’ revamp: allowing “military weapons” and “defense” stocks to be considered “ESG” plays. If you are thinking that this seems a little, well, off, don’t worry – you’re not alone. One prominent ESG investor said he was approached about the possibility last week, but he called the idea “absurd”, according to NYT. Leslie Samuelrich, president of the Green Century Funds, which was...

The U.S. Treasury Department clarified Friday afternoon that Wall Street’s traders and banks can continue to buy and sell Russian oil and gas despite a raft of sanctions against Russia and its largest lenders. The new guidance comes as traders and banks worry about running afoul of U.S. trade laws as world leaders rally against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. But Treasury underscored in a post that the U.S. sanctions against Russia’s biggest banks — including VTB Bank — do not apply to energy transactions until June 24. The department also reassured investors that companies that transport...

Wall Street investors are dumping their Moderna and Pfizer stock faster than the world can drop the mandates. Moderna is down 70 percent from its high, while Pfizer is off 19 percent. Former Blackrock Executive and investment adviser Edward Dowd calls for Moderna to go to zero and Pfizer to end under ten dollars per share.How is this possible given that Pfizer now enjoys record earnings per share and a market capitalization of some $270 billion, making it the 29th largest corporation globally? With nothing but profits in sight for the Pharmaceutical giant, what could be the problem?After all, in...

Three top oil producing states run by Republicans were absent from a letter warning Wall Street financiers of consequences over woke capitalism.West Virginia Republican Treasurer Riley Moore led a coalition of 15 states last month highlighting $600 billion in assets they pledged to take from banks that embrace corporate wokeism and refuse to bank equally with fossil fuel companies. “Just as each state represented in this letter is unique in its governing laws and economy, our actions will take different forms,” Moore wrote. “However, the overarching objective of our actions will be the same – to protect our states’ economies,...

As New York City political elites brag about their “urban utopia,” reality shows it’s nothing like that. Rather a dystopia as defunding the police and other progressive policies have resulted in a surge of violent crime. The city saw its most significant year-over-year increase in shootings and homicides in more than half a century between 2019 and 2020. Violent crime continues to plague the city today, as top Wall Street firms tell their employees to “dress down” to avoid being targeted. Outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio’s progressive policies doomed the city as successor, Mayor-elect Eric Adams, a former police officer...

General Electric, the storied American manufacturer that struggled under its own weight after growing to become a sprawling conglomerate, will divide itself into three public companies focused on aviation, health care and energy. The company’s announcement Tuesday is the culmination of an arduous, yearslong reshaping of a symbol of American manufacturing might that could signal the end of conglomerates as a whole.