Tag: Yahoo Finance

Italy Goes Green for the First Time With Inaugural Bond Sale

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/italy-goes-green-first-time-082347375.html?.tsrc=fin-srch

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Excerpt:

Italy is making its first foray into the green bond market, the latest major debt issuer to tap into one of the fastest-growing sectors of finance.

The nation is selling debt maturing in 2045 via banks, an unusual tenor that is expected to draw interest from domestic investors as well as specialist environmental funds. European nations are piling into the market as they seek to finance a greener recovery from the pandemic.

Author(s): John Ainger

Publication Date: 3 March 2021

Publication Site: Yahoo Finance

‘Markets Are Wrong’: $2 Trillion of Pension Funds Skip Bond Rout

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/markets-wrong-2-trillion-pension-065920871.html

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As interest-rate jitters supercharged a meltdown in the world’s biggest bond market, Sam Sicilia barely blinked.

“The markets are wrong” about inflation expectations, said Sicilia, chief investment officer of the A$56 billion ($43 billion) Host-Plus Pty pension fund in Melbourne. “Deflationary forces are bigger. Interest rates are going to stay at effectively zero.”

With governments around the globe still adding to trillions of dollars of stimulus to ride out the pandemic, pension fund managers who are trying to discern the long-term effects are posing the question: Will inflation make a comeback? If it does, more than $46 trillion of global pension assets would be affected as central banks pivoted toward sustained higher interest rates.

Author(s): Ruth Carson, Matthew Burgess

Publication Date: 1 March 2021

Publication Site: Yahoo Finance

Senate Rules-Keeper OKs Pension, Health Items: Stimulus Update

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/senate-rules-keeper-oks-pension-014128087.html

Excerpt:

The Senate parliamentarian approved provisions in Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic-relief bill aiding multi-employer pensions and providing laid-off workers with health-care premium subsidies.

….

Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has found that provisions bailing out multi-employer pensions and providing laid-off workers with health-care premium subsidies are eligible for the simple-majority process Democrats are using to pass the pandemic-relief bill.

“This economic crisis has hit already struggling pension plans like a wrecking ball, and the retirement security of millions of American workers depends on getting this package across the finish line,” Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden said in a statement after his office said the parliamentarian made the two approvals.

Author(s): Bloomberg News

Publication Date: 1 March 2021

Publication Site: Yahoo Finance

The good and bad in Biden’s giant relief bill

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-good-and-bad-in-bidens-giant-relief-bill-210546323.html

Excerpt:

Aid to states and cities. Cost: $350 billion. This money would offset lost tax revenue and help mayors and governors “mitigate the fiscal effects stemming from the public health emergency,” according to draft legislation. it’s clearly related to the pandemic, so it counts as relief, but it might also be more than states and cities need, since government revenue has held up better than expected during the last 12 months. 

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Pension relief. Cost: $74 billion. This money would address longstanding problems at roughly 1,400 underfunded pensions covering 10 million workers and retirees, most of them belonging to unions. A government agency called the PBGC is supposed to backstop pensions that run short of money, but it, too, is drastically underfunded and poised to collapse in coming years. The money in the House bill would bail out the riskiest pensions, but it’s controversial because it’s not paired with needed reforms—and it’s not specifically related to problems caused by the pandemic. This could be one provision that doesn’t survive the Senate.

Author(s): Rick Newman

Publication Date: 22 February 2021

Publication Site: Yahoo Finance

Spain Counts on Citizens to Buy Into Revolution for Pensions

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/spain-counts-citizens-buy-revolution-050000160.html

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Spain is hoping to entice people to prepare for retirement with a voluntary saving plan as it tries to wean them off relying solely on state pensions.

The aim is to set up a fund run by private investment companies by the end of the year, offering Spaniards an affordable alternative to supplement their public pension. But unlike some other countries, the system will require workers to opt in rather than being automatically enrolled.

“We think there’s a group of middle- and low-income Spaniards who will be interested in a boost to their lifetime savings, which can complement their public pension,” Jose Luis Escriva, the social security minister for Spain’s Socialist-led government, said in an interview.

Author(s): Jeannette Neumann

Publication Date: 19 February 2021

Publication Site: Yahoo Finance

Global pension funds weather the storm of 2020

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/global-pension-funds-weather-storm-151200506.html

Excerpt:

 Global institutional pension fund assets in the 22 largest major markets (the P22) continued to climb in 2020 despite the impact of the pandemic, rising 11% to $52.5 trillion at year-end, according to the latest figures in the Global Pension Assets Study conducted by Willis Towers Watson’s Thinking Ahead Institute.

The seven largest markets for pension assets (the P7) — Australia, Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the U.K. and the U.S. — account for 92% of the P22, unchanged from the previous year. The U.S. remains the largest pension market, representing 62% of worldwide pension assets, followed by Japan and the U.K. with 6.9% and 6.8%, respectively.

Author(s): Willis Towers Watson (press release)

Publication Date: 16 February 2021

Publication Site: Yahoo Finance

Robinhood’s future is ‘toast,’ says ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ Jordan Belfort

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/robinhoods-future-is-toast-says-wolf-of-wall-street-jordan-belfort-143933479.html

Excerpt:

The self proclaimed “Wolf of Wall Street,” Jordan Belfort, expects the Robinhood trading platform to go out of business over the GameStop (GME) trading controversy. “I really believe the lawsuits are going to be very problematic,” Belfort told Yahoo Finance Live.

Belfort was the founder of the defunct Stratton Oakmont brokerage. He plead guilty in 1999 to running an illegal “pump and dump” stock scheme that cost his clients more than $100 million. Belfort served 22 months in federal prison and later authored a memoir, “The Wolf of Wall Street,” which became a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

GameStop shares soared more than 1,600%, in three months, hitting $483 last week and that surprised Belfort. “When I first looked at it I said, ‘Yeah, it’s a modified pump and dump,’” he said.

Author: Adam Shapiro

Publication Date: 2 February 2021

Publication Site: Yahoo Finance