Elon Musk always does things in a big way. The same is true of his plans to take SpaceX public. But how investors will make out could depend on how much they like him. As Musk works to convince buyers that his rocket company could be valued at as much as $2 trillion, SpaceX is earmarking up to 30% of shares for “nonprofessional, noninstitutional investors” and “banking on the popularity” of the tech billionaire to help it raise as much as $75 billion from the stock offering, said The Guardian. And the so-called “retail” trade by his fans will be a “critical part of this and ​a bigger part than any IPO in history,” Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen told a meeting of bankers on April 6, per Reuters.

SpaceX is more than just rockets. It now includes xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence company, along with Starlink, Grok and the X social media network. Money raised from the IPO would help SpaceX finance “launching artificial intelligence data centers into orbit, creating a colony on the moon and getting humans to Mars,” said The New York Times. But those are “expensive and unproven” technologies that could take “years and billions of dollars to achieve.”

What did the commentators say?

IPOs “used to fund growth,” Brad Badertscher said at The Conversation. Going public helped “young, cash-strapped companies” like Amazon and Apple get traction, and “much of their dramatic growth” happened afterward. These days, most companies “can now raise billions privately” and, like SpaceX, only go public after they have entrenched themselves in the marketplace. Investors are not getting in on the ground floor. Most “explosive growth in corporate value” comes while “companies are still private.”

The SpaceX IPO could “showcase the free market at its best,” Matthew Lynn said at The Washington Post. The company is “pioneering innovative technologies and generating jobs and wealth.” Bringing along ordinary investors might add to those accomplishments. Giving regular people ownership of stocks gives them a “stake in the free market” and makes them “far more likely to support the system.” Musk’s stock offering could convince Americans that “free-market, risk-taking entrepreneurship isn’t such a terrible thing after all.”

A “bumper crop of mega initial public offerings” is expected over the next year, Jonathan Levin said at Bloomberg. History suggests investors should “tread very, very carefully” when evaluating companies like SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic. Mega IPOs have “underperformed the market” on average in recent years. But some investors will inevitably decide that Musk’s company and its peers “are in a league of their own.”

What next?

SpaceX “could trade like a meme stock” after the IPO, said MarketWatch. Stocks driven by “social media trends” are often prone to “high trading volumes and price volatility.” The Musk-helmed company “clearly has some of the ingredients” to fit that profile, Roundhill Investments CEO Dave Mazza said to the outlet.

AI is losing its stock. More investors are opting to put their money into industries that are less likely to be affected by the technology and selling off shares of companies that are more likely to be impacted by AI. While this may not become a long-term investment choice, it points to skepticism about whether artificial intelligence truly benefits the economy.

What’s HALO trading?

“HALO” stands for “heavy assets, low obsolescence.” This means investing in “businesses less vulnerable to being supplanted by AI,” including companies operating “pipelines, utilities, transportation infrastructure, factories and ports,” said Bloomberg. Fast-food restaurants and commodity companies are included as well. These are companies that “you cannot type something in a prompt and disrupt,” Josh Brown, the chief executive at Ritholtz Wealth Management who coined the term, said to The Wall Street Journal.

HALO trading also goes hand-in-hand with AI scare trading, defined as selling “all things AI-linked,” said Bloomberg. Two specific developments are causing the rise of scare trading. The first is the concern that companies will lose valuation after announcing they are spending money on AI infrastructure, and the second is the fear that AI will “severely disrupt entire industries because AI agents will be able to replace white collar workers, shrinking the workforce and, by extension, consumer spending.”

AI scare trading has been “on a bender this year, steamrolling entire industries based on the flimsiest of evidence that the technology is coming for them,” said Axios. HALO trading, on the other hand, is a more recent occurrence and is why “many real-world sectors are outperforming this year, even as the overall market and especially tech stocks have floundered,” said CNBC. The two “top-performing sectors are energy and materials, which are surging more than 23% and 15%, respectively.”

What’s the future of investing?

HALO trading may be a temporary trend or “another iteration of the jitters that have periodically rippled through markets since the AI investing boom began,” said the Journal. Many investors are trading “on the expectation that AI will eat away at future revenue streams rather than current ones.” Much of the trading “has felt very whiplash-y,” Lisa Shalett, the chief investment officer of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, said to the Journal. We “don’t have any real idea” who the AI “losers are going to be.”

There are some recent signs that HALO trading has been decreasing. Tech shares have already “regained some ground this past week, with the Nasdaq besting the Dow industrials,” and stock values went up “after the news that the U.S. Supreme Court had struck down” President Donald Trump’s global tariffs, said the Journal. However, many HALO stocks “have room to run after years of underperformance, can benefit from easier monetary policy and fiscal stimulus, and could even realize improved margins from AI,” said CNBC.

What’s certain is that the “choppy trading of the past few weeks,” along with “lingering concerns that big tech companies are overspending to get ahead in a technological arms race,” indicates a “kind of evolution for the AI investing frenzy” in which investors are “more discerning,” said the Journal. A company’s previous success is not a good enough reason to continue investing in it.

“We are in a new chapter, and I think that chapter is going to be defined by companies proving” their longevity, said Jed Ellerbroek, a portfolio manager at Argent Capital Management, to the Journal. “Hype isn’t cutting it anymore.”

‘The Dow just broke 50,000. Here’s what that means.’

Michael Hiltzik at the Los Angeles Times

The Dow Jones “crossed 50,000 points for the first time, but that doesn’t mean the economy is healthy,” says Michael Hiltzik. The Dow “doesn’t rank as a reliable picture of the U.S. economy” and “doesn’t rank as a picture of the stock market as a whole.” As for “whether it’s possible to read conclusions about the economy in the Dow Industrial figures, it’s hard to discern.” The Dow had a “very nice day. That doesn’t mean the euphoria will last.”

Read more

‘A foreign policy worse than regime change’

John Bolton at The Atlantic

President Donald Trump “campaigned in 2024 saying he would begin ‘no new wars,’ ‘regime change’ and ‘nation building,’ and generally prioritize domestic policy over foreign affairs,” says former National Security Adviser John Bolton. But Trump “has instead opted for global buccaneering: attacking Islamic terrorists in Nigeria, launching pinprick swipes at Yemen’s Houthis, and seeking a massive, elusive trade deal with China.” He has “done so inconsistently and incoherently,” and “this is much worse as a policy model than ‘regime change’ ever was.”

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‘On Ukraine, “liberal” war hawks make the far right look like peacemakers’

Leonid Ragozin at Al Jazeera

Ukraine is “stuck between two kinds of Western populism,” says Leonid Ragozin. One is “that of Donald Trump and his European far-right equivalents, who don’t care much about either Ukraine or the rules-based order.” The “other one is that of the anti-Russian (and anti-Trump) hawks who tend to wrap the cynical interests of the military-industrial complex in phony liberal rhetoric.” Claims “misinterpreting Russia’s motives and intentions are an integral part of jingoistic populism, which has been fueling this conflict.”

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‘America won’t be easily forgiven — even after Trump is gone’

Alaric DeArment at The New Republic

President Donald Trump’s “worst offenses pale in comparison to Nazi crimes, and invoking the Holocaust to make political points is never acceptable,” says Alaric DeArment. But “when a nation breaks the world’s trust, forgiveness does not come quickly or easily,” and that’s a “hard lesson that Americans, even the liberals and progressives who might absolve themselves of contributing to Trumpian misrule, will have to learn as we grapple with the damage Trump has done to our international standing.”

Read more

Fresh from his online mauling at the hands of Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary, the world’s richest man can take some consolation. Elon Musk’s SpaceX is reportedly “lining up” four Wall Street banks to advise on “a record-breaking IPO”, and it could make the rocket group – already the world’s most valuable startup – the biggest flotation in history, valued as highly as $1.5 trillion, said the FT.

No final decision has been taken, but the float may come as soon as this year. SpaceX’s soaring valuation has been driven by its “cemented” status as the leading US developer of commercial rockets for space exploration – and its Starlink satellite service. Markets were already anticipating a feast of “US mega listings”, with two big beasts of generative AI – OpenAI and Anthropic – also plotting potential floats.

Still, don’t get too “starry-eyed”, said Katie Prescott in The Times. Both are growing at a rate of knots: OpenAI’s annualised revenues rose above $20 billion in 2025. But they’re spending billions more. Staying private would keep “a comfortable cloak of secrecy over their operations”, giving time “to unpick their devilishly complex corporate structures”.

Much of the secrecy around OpenAI has already been blown open by the “increasingly public legal beef” between CEO Sam Altman and Musk, said Bloomberg. Musk, who is suing OpenAI for $134 billion, accuses its management of violating original promises about its governance (he was an early investor) and he has been providing “a steady drip of juicy internal documents”. Altman counters that Musk wants to take OpenAI down to boost his own xAI business. Certainly, this suit “poses an existential threat to OpenAI”, said Danny Fortson in The Sunday Times. “It could prove decisive in the battle for who prevails in the multitrillion-dollar race for AI dominance.”

America’s housing affordability crisis is mostly a supply-and-demand problem: Not enough houses, too many people needing a place to live. President Donald Trump has an unexpected solution. He wants to take on Wall Street.

Trump last week said he would “ban Wall Street firms from buying up single-family homes” to ease affordability issues, said Reuters. Big institutions like Blackstone, American Homes 4 Rent and Progress Residential have “bought thousands of single-family homes” since the Great Recession, and “institutional investors” now own about 3% of all single-family rental homes. “People live in homes, not corporations,” the president said on Truth Social. The threatened move to ban big investors would align Trump with Democrats who have long “criticized corporate homebuying, claiming it has helped stoke housing costs,” said Reuters.

Defending the American dream?

“It’s about time,” said Brian Hamilton at The Hill. Institutional investors own more than 15% of rental housing in cities like Atlanta, Jacksonville, Tampa and Charlotte — a fact that is probably connected to the 55% rise in real estate prices over the last half-decade. It has left many Americans “locked out of homeownership.” The big investors “buy up supply and basically corner the market” in some cities, driving up prices or turning potential homeowners into renters. Wall Street “must be thwarted to preserve and defend the American Dream.”

Big institutional landlords are “not the cause of the nation’s housing crisis,” said Binyamin Appelbaum at The New York Times. The best way to make housing more affordable is to “build more housing,” and that is unlikely to be helped by using private investors as a scapegoat with policy that “reduces investment in housing.” Construction was hit hard by the 2008 financial crisis, and since then the U.S. population has grown faster than the housing supply. But Trump has so far failed to “put forward any meaningful plans to increase housing construction.” Every single solution to the crisis should be judged by one question: “Will it result in more housing construction?”

“Scapegoating investment bankers is always politically popular,” said The Washington Post editorial board. But there is “no correlation” between housing shortages in any given state and its “share of homes owned by large investors.” Democrats have frequently criticized institutional investors, but Trump coming to a similar conclusion may give them space to acknowledge that the blame is “populist claptrap.” Blaming bankers “won’t do anything to make housing more affordable.”

Mom-and-pops still welcome

Trump’s proposed ban has “raised alarms across the real estate investment industry,” said Business Insider. But White House officials say the proposal is “forward-looking” and will not result in a “forced sale of current holdings,” said Bloomberg. “The idea here is bygones are bygones,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The final proposal will be designed to exclude institutional investors while keeping “mom-and-pop” landlords in the market. The administration wants to keep “families who rent out to their other family members,” he said.

Crypto is supposedly the currency of the future, but it is not doing so well presently. The sector has lost more than $1 trillion in value over the last few weeks.

The crypto industry is having a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad month,” said USA Today. Bitcoin has lost more than 10% of its value for the year, dropping from a high of $126,000 in October to under $90,000 last week. The drop in digital currency values is due to a “whirlwind of factors” that include shaky showings for artificial intelligence and technology stocks amid growing concerns about the overall economy. “No one can say” when the dust might settle.

“It was supposed to be crypto’s year,” said The Wall Street Journal. Since 2025 brought a “crypto-loving White House, Wall Street adoption and friendly legislation,” it seemed poised to erase the industry’s regulatory obstacles. Instead, the “sky-high expectations of a golden age” have foundered. Cryptocurrency’s original reputation was as an “antiestablishment asset” coming out of the Great Recession. Now the sector is trying to “go legit” but having trouble shedding its standing as the “deranged, foul-mouthed little sibling of Wall Street.”

What did the commentators say?

“Brutal” selloffs in the crypto sector happen “every few years, or whenever sentiment snaps,” said Emily Nicolle at Bloomberg. But those previous cycles did not match the “speed and scale” of crypto’s collapse in recent weeks. The difference this time is that crypto is now “woven into the fabric of Wall Street and the broader public markets.” That means its fate is now “tied to AI-fueled market optimism.” Amid growing fears of an AI bubble, though, it does not take much prompting to “spook investors into selling.”

Crypto in recent years has gone from an “object of mockery” to “broadly accepted, even encouraged” by mainstream financial institutions, said The Economist. That victory actually poses a problem. The “wider acceptance” has deepened crypto’s links to the broader financial markets, so that the “pain from a crypto crash will be felt more widely than in the past.” A government intervention seems remote, but “surprises can never be ruled out” in politics and in crypto.

What next?

Crypto believers see it as a “safe store of value against inflation and rising national debt,” said Marketplace. But the current instability comes amid “sticky inflation and a rising national debt.” The sector’s growing acceptance on Wall Street means your 401(k) probably includes some crypto stock. If the downturn lasts, that would produce “some knock-on effects on spending” in the broader economy, said Columbia Law School lecturer Todd Baker to the outlet.

There are now some fears of a “crypto winter,” said MarketWatch. But other observers say the sector is likely still in solid shape for the long term, thanks to its integration with financial markets. Banks like J.P. Morgan now accept crypto assets as collateral. We are not seeing a crypto winter, said Frontier Investments CEO Louis LaValle. “I think we’re watching bitcoin grow up.”

It feels like old times, but not in a good way. Financial experts around the world are warning of an impending 1929-style financial market crash brought on by trade wars, large national debts and overbuilding in the AI sector.

“We will have a crash,” financial journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin told CBS News. Sorkin is promoting a new book, “1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History — and How It Shattered a Nation,” about the market collapse that sparked the Great Depression. But other voices are also sounding alarms. World markets are “susceptible to a disorderly adjustment” thanks to economic and political uncertainty, said G20 risk watchdog Andrew Bailey on Monday, per Reuters. Bank of England officials warned last week that the AI bubble driving tech stocks may soon burst, said CNBC. And JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon is similarly concerned about a “major market correction,” said Fortune. “Buckle up,” said International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva last week, “uncertainty is the new normal and it is here to stay.”

Echoes of 1929?

The 1929 crash was the “definitive stock-market collapse,” said David Champion at Harvard Business Review. The 1920s were beset with trade protectionism, anti-immigrant fervor and new technologies that were upending “traditional livelihoods.” The question is whether finance executives have “absorbed the lessons of history by now.” After all, the echoes of 1929 in today’s economic landscape seem clear. “Once you start looking for similarities, you see them everywhere.”

“The numbers just don’t make sense” when it comes to AI, said journalist Derek Thompson in his newsletter. Tech companies are spending $400 billion on artificial intelligence this year, which is more in inflation-adjusted terms than was spent on the entire Apollo moon program over a decade, yet it is “not clear” that those companies are “prepared to earn back the investment.” American consumers, after all, currently spend only $12 billion a year on AI services. Investors are still pouring money into tech, though. That looks like an “obvious economic bubble.” Bubbles pop, and “none of the typical rules for sensible investing can explain what’s going on with stock prices right now.”

Scary, but rare

Tech companies may be overinvesting in AI, but that does not mean investors should worry about a “contagion across the broader economy,” said Axios. The boom in tech investment is from “big, stable companies with the balance sheets to support their spending.”

Observers could be over-reading the signs of trouble. Bubble bursts are “memorable. They are colorful. They are scary,” said economic analyst William Goetzmann at The Wall Street Journal. But bubbles are also “much rarer than their presence in the public imagination.” Since 1887, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 10% in a day just four times, and two of those were in 1929. But investors are always expecting the next disaster. Research shows they typically put odds of an imminent crash at 10-to-20%, which is “much greater than history suggests.”

In the run-up to last week's quarterly update from the world's most valuable listed company, there were fears that lacklustre results might trigger a traumatic tech-sector correction. In the event, said Dan Gallagher in The Wall Street Journal, Nvidia's boss Jensen Huang trumpeted yet another period of record revenues and profits.

Sales of Nvidia's world-leading, AI-powering chips surged 56% year-on-year to almost $47 billion – above market expectations. It's Nvidia's slowest growth rate in two years, but it's far more than what other "megacap tech companies are currently managing". And that's with sales of AI chips to China "effectively shut off owing to national security concerns".

China is the big unknown here, said Dewardric L. McNeal on CNBC. What worried me most was the zero revenue from Nvidia's China-specific H20 chip. Alas, US-China tensions are holding it back, just as one of China's challengers, Cambricon Technologies, is "surging". Another likely brake on Nvidia's growth is the vast amount of electricity required to power the AI revolution, said The Economist. An "unstoppable force" is about to come up against "an immovable object. Or at least an object that has not moved much in decades – America's power grid."

Nvidia now trades at a price-to-forwardearnings multiple of 33, a little more than Microsoft or Oracle, but with faster-growing profits, said Lex in the FT. On the PEG ratio (price to earnings, adjusted for growth) it "looks positively cheap". The snag is that the bulk of its current $4.4 trillion valuation rests on "punchy" assumptions about post-2030 revenues. And its 72% gross margin, higher than Apple ever achieved, is an "open invitation to competitors". Huang tells "a compelling story about the world AI will create", and Nvidia's central role in it. "But for now it really is just a story."

A "meme stock" rally in troubled brands carries echoes of 2021, said Claire Ballentine and Carmen Reinicke in Bloomberg. Last week, the "shares of the moment" didn't belong to Google or Tesla, but Krispy Kreme, GoPro, Open-door, and Kohl's, the floundering retailer, whose stock price "more than doubled at one point." All are heavily shorted companies with low share prices that amateur traders spontaneously rallied behind, hoping to "strike quick riches." Social media platforms like Reddit are once again abuzz with trading slang and emojis, recalling "the episode four years ago, which famously led hedge fund manager Gabe Plotkin to shutter his fund" after a coordinated effort on Reddit's WallStreetBets forum drove up the price of GameStop shares more than 2,400%. With the economy humming and the stock market near record highs, the "apes" are back—and "in full-on risk mode."

Let's revisit "the anatomy of a meme stock," said Madison Mills in Axios. Normally these are "brand names that people can get behind." A case for revival, however fanciful, gets shared on a Reddit thread, "which then goes viral." This is completely antithetical to sound financial judgment. But "meme stock traders are no longer a punch line," and in fact they have "become a force that Wall Street has to monitor." The exact trigger of this particular rally is unclear, said Rob Copeland and Kailyn Rhone in The New York Times. Like the previous meme stock mania, this one centers on stocks "that hedge funds were shorting, or betting against." That can create a "short squeeze," driving up prices and forcing those funds to buy to cover their short positions; that was the process that took down Plotkin's fund. But that may be too coherent to explain the current craze. It might just be that some speculators find it appealing that the four most popular stocks in this "junk rally"—Krispy Kreme (DNUT), Opendoor (OPEN), Rocket Mortgage (RKT), and Kohl's (KSS)—form the acronym DORK.

It's like we entered a time machine set for 2021, said Joseph Adinolfi in MarketWatch. Traders on WallStreetBets "bragged about their gains and urged one another to hang tough" and not sell. One trader shared screenshots "showing they had reaped an $850,000 windfall from a big bet on Kohl's," while another person "plunked down $100,000 on shares of Krispy Kreme" because he "had always regretted missing the boat" on GameStop. Everyone is hoping to snag the next GameStop, said Pan Yuk in the Financial Times. The FOMO, or fear of missing out, is a big driver of the action. The new frenzy might "best be interpreted as a gauge of the market's animal spirits." This isn't investing. It's "buying a lottery ticket."

What happened

Electric vehicle maker Tesla reported Wednesday that its second-quarter revenue fell 12% and profits plunged 16% following a 13.5% drop in car deliveries.

Adjusted net income, the "measure most closely followed on Wall Street," fell by 23%, CNN said. Shares in the company, which said it had started the "first builds" of a cheaper model, have plummeted 30% since last December.

Who said what

"We probably could have a few rough quarters," CEO Elon Musk warned investors. He said President Donald Trump's tariffs had cost the company $300 million over three months.

Tesla has "been ceding market share to companies with more affordable EVs," said CNBC. Now the company has clearly "lost confidence in vehicle delivery growth for 2025," Electrek said.

What next?

Musk plans to "greatly expand" Tesla's robotaxi service by the end of the year to boost the company's finances. But there are "more headwinds" coming in the third quarter, said The Wall Street Journal, when the $7,500 EV consumer tax credit evaporates along with "many of the valuable carbon credits paid by other car manufacturers."

We do not know if President Donald Trump will fire Jerome Powell from his job as chair of the Federal Reserve. But we do know the financial markets do not much like the idea.

Trump's attacks on Powell for not reducing interest rates have "rattled financial markets," said the Financial Times. Investors are concerned about both the "central bank's independence" and its "long-term ability to fight inflation." Markets briefly tumbled last week amid reports that Trump would fire the Fed chair, then rebounded after he said he was "highly unlikely" to do so. There is still nervousness on Wall Street, however, and clearly an "increased chance that Trump will fire Powell," said Bill Campbell, a portfolio manager at DoubleLine.

A Powell firing would likely lead to "higher long-term borrowing costs," said Axios. The Fed is currently seen as "removed from the day-to-day political maw." If the central bank comes under "more direct White House control," though, investors believe that the Fed's mission to rein in inflation will take a back seat to Trump's desire to cut short-term interest rates. Ironically, that would likely push up long-term rates. "Expect a period of volatility" if Trump follows through on his threats, the outlet said.

'Velociraptors testing the fences'

Trump knows he "can't just bust down the Fed's door" without triggering a reaction from Wall Street, said Allison Morrow at CNN. For now, markets are largely operating in "TACO mode," assuming that Trump will "chicken out" before making good on his complaints against Powell. The problem is that the president might decide to follow through on his instincts "even if they would be disastrous for the economy." For now, Trump and his team seem content to float trial balloons about Powell's job security "like the velociraptors testing the fences for weakness in 'Jurassic Park.'"

"One thing financial markets like is consistency," said George Washington University's Todd Belt to Newsweek. Firing Powell would introduce "chaos and unpredictability" into the economy, which would probably slow hiring and investment by American businesses. Investors are more confident when the Fed's economic policy decisions are "made based on data, not presidential whim," said Newsweek.

'A big quagmire'

Trump is "walking into a big quagmire," said Capitol Securities Management's Kent Engelke to MarketWatch. Firing Powell would be misguided, not just because of the market reaction, but because the job of the Fed chair is to act as a "spokesperson" for the entire bank. Powell's public comments reflect the "consensus view" of the Federal Open Market Committee that sets rates. If Trump wants lower short-term rates, then he would "also need to fire anyone else" on the central bank board who opposes his wishes.

Without Trump's tariffs and trade wars, the Fed "would have already lowered interest rates," said Jared Bernstein, the former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, at MSNBC. If Trump really wants interest rates to come down, he already has the power to do so by ending the trade war. The president "doesn't need to fire Powell. He can do that himself."

President Trump wants you to know he's not chicken, said Matthew Mpoke Bigg in The New York Times. At a press conference last week, a reporter infuriated Trump by asking him about the "TACO trade." TACO stands for "Trump Always Chickens Out." The term was coined by a Financial Times columnist to describe how Wall Street is taking advantage of a "pattern in which markets tumble after Trump makes tariff threats, only to rebound sharply when he relents." Trump has built a career on flexing political muscle, and the term clearly got to him. "Don't ever say what you said," Trump said. "That's a nasty question." Yet as much as Trump wants to deny it, the TACO trade perfectly describes the Trump economy, said Michael Hiltzik in the Los Angeles Times. The TACO trade is "a two-step process: Buy the dip—the lowered prices following a Trump tariff announcement—and sell at the higher prices after Trump's inevitable chickening out pushes stocks back up."

"After taking Trump very seriously for a week or two after 'Liberation Day,' markets are working on the assumption that he can safely be ignored," said John Authers in Bloomberg. The problem is that if the markets know this, then the rest of the world does, too. If he can't back up his threats, Trump loses any negotiating leverage he may have had. Eventually, he will have to "show he's serious. If he reaches the point where he doesn't chicken out, the market might choke on its tacos." Even if some investors have profited, the TACO trade is still dangerous for the markets, said Alexandra Canal in Yahoo Finance. Trump's tough talk and limited action has been a boon "for retail traders who have jumped in to 'buy the dip.'" Over the longer run, though, as one Wall Street analyst puts it, "this is a roller-coaster ride. Not good for long-term planning and not good for corporate investment."

Wall Street never really understood Trump in his first term, said David A. Graham in The Atlantic. This time, "investors have begun to grasp the pattern" of Trump's bluffing. Unfortunately, the TACO trade is like every arbitrage in the financial markets: It "eventually loses its power once people get hip to it." Trump may be temperamentally inclined to chicken out, but "he can easily be dared into taking bad options." The worst-case scenario is that the less investors take Trump seriously, the less pressure there is for him to reverse course. And if it ever turns out that Trump is for real, it's the investors who will turn tail and watch the markets tank in the ensuing panic.

Warren Buffett is retiring. The 94-year-old "Oracle of Omaha" led Berkshire Hathaway for more than a half-century, accruing a fortune and ascending to the status of capitalist-cultural icon along the way.

Buffett is the "greatest investor of all time," said Nir Kaissar at Bloomberg. Investing is a "notoriously difficult endeavor," and even those who can beat the market's rate of return usually only do so "for a short time or by a modest amount." But the market value of Berkshire's shares grew by nearly 20% a year between 1964 and 2024 — nearly double the 10.4% rate of the S&P 500 over the same period. And Buffett did that while showing "you don't need a fancy Wall Street address to be a great investor."

'One in a million'

The Omahan was an "anchor of endurance" in an "age of insecurity," biographer Roger Lowenstein said at The New York Times. But the investment numbers don't measure the fullness of Buffett's impact: He was also "among the greatest corporate leaders" of his era, bolstering the financial system by investing in Goldman Sachs during the 2008 financial crisis. That made Buffett the "capitalist version of a national security blanket."

There is a danger that other CEOs will learn the wrong lesson from Buffett's tenure, said the Financial Times. His 55 years atop Berkshire made him the "longest-serving chief in the S&P 500." Research, though, shows "there is such a thing as too long." The average CEO's value starts to decline after about 14 years. Buffett, in other words, is a "happy outlier" in the corporate world. The moral is that "bosses like Berkshire Hathaway's are one in a million."

Buffett's "great fortune was not being born today," said Megan McArdle at The Washington Post. He was born in 1930, right after the stock market crash that launched the Great Depression, leaving "traumatized investors" cautious about investing a generation later when his career began. And he was good at spotting undervalued companies before "computers made it much easier to spot pricing anomalies" and erased that advantage. Buffett would likely be a success if he started out now, but it's fair to "doubt he'd become one of the richest people in the world."

Stewards and dreamers

Some observers have criticized Buffett for a "lack of ambition," Maxwell Meyer said at The Free Press. The billionaire has "no space company" or other side gigs and has "lived in the same modest house since the 1960s." Instead of being a pioneer, Buffett has been a "steward for the people whose money he's looked after for all these years." There is no shame in that. "We need stewards every bit as much as we need dreamers."

Greg Abel, Buffett's longtime heir apparent, will take over Berkshire at the end of 2025. The question now is how "anyone other than Warren Buffett can profitably operate a sprawling amalgamation" of companies under Berkshire's brands, said Fortune. The company relied "as much on Buffett's magnetic personality as his investment acumen." That "intangible asset" may be difficult for Abel to replace.

President Donald Trump is talking about firing Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve. Powell's termination "cannot come fast enough," Trump wrote this week on Truth Social. But the firing of Powell could upend Wall Street's stability in what is already a turbulent time for the markets.

Trump and Powell are on a "collision course," said The Wall Street Journal. Trump wants Powell to cut interest rates to encourage economic growth and "cushion the blow from his tariffs." But the Fed fears cutting rates would give a new spark to inflation, leaving Powell stuck with "difficult trade-offs" in deciding how to proceed. "It is the most complex hand any Fed chair has been dealt," former Rep. Patrick McHenry said to the Journal. But even many of Trump's fellow Republicans are leery of firing Powell, the Journal said, seeing it as a "nuclear option" that comes with "enormous downside risk."

What did the commentators say?

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) believes the market will "crash" if Trump fires Powell, said CNBC. If Powell "can be fired by the president of the United States, it will crash markets," she said Thursday. It would appear that Trump's advisers share her concerns. Within the White House, "there is an effort to try to keep him from doing this," said New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman to CNN.

"Trump needs someone to blame," said David Frum at The Atlantic. The president's trade war "against almost every country on Earth" is faltering, producing a backlash even from his supporters. Trump "needs an excuse" for the failure, setting up Powell to take the fall. It is an old story: During his first term, markets slumped after Trump slapped tariffs on China. He became angry when the Fed did not lower interest rates to "rescue him from his own mistake." As a businessman, Trump's bankers often bailed him out of his bankruptcies. "He seems to believe that the Federal Reserve should do the same for his presidency."

The dispute between Trump and Powell is a "reminder that monetary policy can't make up for economic policy errors," said The Wall Street Journal editorial board. Firing Powell would "tee up a protracted legal fight," which in turn would spark a new round of "market turmoil" while the world waits on a court ruling. "That's the last fight Trump needs right now."

What next?

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is privately warning the White House that firing Powell "would risk destabilizing financial markets," said Politico. That's because the Fed's reputation for making decisions based on the economy, rather than "short-term politics," is a "key underpinning of the U.S.'s global financial reputation." So Powell's job may be safe for now. "I don't think he'll do it," an anonymous official said of Trump to Politico, "but frankly, this is a grenade with the pin pulled."

'Stock ownership is what really divides Americans'

Matthew Walther at The New York Times

The "greatest division in American life" is "between those who own stock and those who do not," says Matthew Walther. For "those who do, economic security can be measured in portfolio statements; the rest — roughly 40 percent of Americans — must make do with such antiquated metrics as the cost of housing or even the price of eggs." The "result is a kind of ideological capture in which any policy that does not serve the immediate interests of shareholders is dismissed."

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'Why not attend your own funeral?'

Daniel Pink at The Washington Post

The "dramatic possibilities of attending your own funeral have made it a staple of storytelling," says Daniel Pink. Now, "life (and death) is imitating art." Much as "they've done for weddings, divorces and cohabitation, baby boomers are seeking to do death their way." Living celebrations "afford the dying person a rare measure of control over their final days, a chance to find clarity and peace amid uncertainty," and can "be less burdensome, logistically and emotionally, for families."

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'Can reality TV redeem Jake and Logan Paul?'

Naomi Fry at The New Yorker

"Authenticity and depth of character haven't exactly been top of mind for either of the Pauls," says Naomi Fry. As their "careers grew, Logan's and Jake's brand building grew more and more cartoonish." Their "aim has been to attract the maximum number of viewers and likes, which the pair freely discuss on the show," and you "can't make these leopards completely change their spots." The act is a "hard thing to shed, and, after all, it's where the money is."

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'How the euro can replace the dollar'

Ryan Cooper at The American Prospect

Something "odd is happening amid the great market instability touched off by Donald Trump's lunatic tariff announcements," says Ryan Cooper. The "dollar is falling against other currencies, and interest rates on American debt are increasing." The EU "just might have a once-in-a-century opportunity to provide that stability and security to governments and investors, and swipe some or all of the dollar's status." But this will "require permanently ditching the traditional European allergy to debt and printing money."

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Indices of economic uncertainty have skyrocketed above even the 2020 pandemic or the 2008 global financial crisis, as Donald Trump intensifies his trade war, said Gillian Tett in the FT. It could yet get worse. Amid all the tariff shocks, there is another question hovering. "Could Trump's assault on free trade lead to attacks on free capital flows too?" Put another way, "might tariffs on goods be a prelude to tariffs on money"?

Until recently, the notion would have seemed crazy. After all, foreign capital inflows benefit both US companies and the public purse, helping to fund America's $36 trillion national debt. But an opposite theory, advanced by the maverick economist Michael Pettis, has gained traction among "a trio" of influential Trump advisers. A new plan dubbed the "Mar-a-Lago accord", after Trump's Florida resort – and reportedly supported by Vice-President J.D. Vance, treasury secretary Scott Bessent and the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Stephen Miran – wouldn't just upend US economic policy, but completely "reset global trade and finance".

The basic problem, as proponents see it, is that the US dollar is too expensive, said John Rapley in The Globe and Mail (Canada). Having risen by some 40% against other major currencies since the 2008 crisis, it has made US exports expensive for foreigners and imports cheap for Americans. "Put it all together and you have a rising trade deficit that now exceeds $1 trillion a year."

Supporters of devaluation cite a 1985 precedent, when the Reagan administration negotiated the Plaza Accord with Britain, Japan, France and West Germany to strengthen their currencies against the dollar. But this is a completely different beast. For a start, it is unlikely to be consensual: China would resist, and probably the Europeans too. And while the 1985 deal merely weakened the dollar, the Mar-a-Lago plan includes a possible US debt restructuring too – potentially forcing foreign governments to swap some of their reserve dollars for long-term bonds, using Trump's favourite "carrot-and-stick" tactics.

The accord is riven with contradictions. It advises weakening the dollar, yet keeping it strong enough to remain the world's reserve currency; and raising import prices, yet reducing inflation. Even Miran, its author, concedes the risks are "substantial", said Ruth Sunderland in the Daily Mail. The plan may become "a blueprint for Maga" – or may never see the light of day. But even if other nations agree on the need for such a fundamental rebalancing, is a mercurial president who thinks "he can bully, abuse and alienate friends and foes with impunity" really "the man to carry it out"?

What happened

U.S. stock markets had their worst day of 2025 Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing down 890 points, or 2.1%. The S&P 500 shed 2.7% — 8.6% and more than $4 trillion in market value lower than a month ago — while the Nasdaq tumbled 4%, notching its worst day since 2022.

Who said what

Monday's stock plunge extended a "miserable month for markets" that saw all three major market indexes "wipe out" any gains made since November's election, said CNN. Wall Street is starting to question "how much pain President Donald Trump will let the economy endure through tariffs and other policies in order to get what he wants," The Associated Press said. In an interview broadcast Sunday, Trump declined to rule out a coming recession.

Investors and economists are digesting Trump's apparent "indifference to rising risks" from his "double-barreled blitz" of slashing the federal workforce and threatening "huge tariffs" on America's "largest trading partners," The Wall Street Journal said. After years of policymakers being "singularly focused on achieving a so-called soft landing," Trump's teams are "considering a course correction that, by their own acknowledgment, might tip the economy toward a hard landing."

In one measure of the fallout, the five tech executives who stood behind Trump during his inauguration have since collectively lost $209 billion in wealth, Bloomberg said, with Tesla's Elon Musk alone losing $145 billion. Tesla's stock plummeted 15.4% yesterday to its lowest level since October. Analysts attributed the losses to declining sales, "protests of Musk's political activity, including his mass firings of U.S. government workers" as head of Trump's DOGE team, and concerns that "politics are distracting the world's richest man from tending to his cash cow," Reuters said.

White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told CNBC Monday there were "a lot of reasons to be extremely bullish about the economy," despite "some blips in the data" this quarter. Hassett's comments did not "immediately convince" investors, "increasingly skittish" about Trump's unpredictable tariff decisions, The Washington Post said. The Cboe Volatility Index, or "Wall Street's 'fear gauge,'" surged 19.5% by market close.

What next?

Trump's 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports are set to take effect Wednesday, the same day the government releases its monthly inflation report.

What happened

U.S. stocks suffered their worst day in more than 18 months yesterday after lackluster results from Tesla and Google owner Alphabet fueled fears over the high valuations of large technology companies.

Who said what

Losses in both the S&P 500, which dropped 2.3%, and Nasdaq Composite, which fell 3.6%, were largely "driven by big tech stocks" including Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple and Tesla, said the Financial Times. Tech — and artificial intelligence stocks in particular — has "driven the bulk of market gains this year."

Tesla reporting a 45% drop in profits for the spring and Alphabet's fall of 5% could "feed concerns” that the broader market has become too reliant on the so-called "magnificent seven" technology stocks, said Charlie McElligott, an analyst at Nomura, to the Times.

What next?

Analysts have questioned whether the companies that have been responsible for the majority of the S&P 500's record run this year are now too expensive. Some investors are "moving their money away from Big Tech to smaller companies," said The Telegraph. Asian shares dropped in morning trading today.

Like the rise and fall of a stock ticker, one notable Wall Street trend from a few years ago has made its way back into the zeitgeist: meme stocks. They first came onto the scene in 2021 with stocks like GameStop, which created such a fervor that Sony Pictures made an entire film about the company's rise to the top called "Dumb Money." 

So it is perhaps unsurprising that GameStop was among the first meme stocks to see a resurgence earlier this May, along with other prior meme stocks such as AMC Theaters. But just as quickly as they rose, the meme stocks fell. "Investor appetite for 'meme stocks' may already be waning," CBS News said, just days after they returned to the scene.  

So what exactly are meme stocks, and what makes them unique on Wall Street? And why are they back in the conversation after a yearslong hiatus?  

What are meme stocks? 

Meme stocks are "shares of a company that have gained viral popularity due to heightened social sentiment," said Investopedia. This rise in social standing is typically the result of "activity online, particularly on social media platforms." Oftentimes, this is accomplished through communities on these social media platforms that can "dedicate heavy research and resources toward a particular stock," such as Reddit and X.

Companies that become meme stocks "have usually performed poorly in recent years, and attracted attention from short-sellers — investors who effectively bet on the price of a share going down further," said Forbes. Part of their appeal is that these stocks are often perceived as underdogs, but there is "little connection between a company's meme stock status and its actual performance." 

What are some notable meme stocks? 

The aforementioned GameStop is likely the company most associated with meme stocks. In January 2021, the company underwent a short squeeze, or a "flood of retail trading that drove its shares to extreme highs, which in turn squeezed short sellers who had bet against it," said the financial services publication Seeking Alpha. This then drove the price of GameStop way up on Wall Street; on Jan. 27, 2021, the company had its largest-ever single-day stock gain of more than 134%, according to Seeking Alpha. At one point during the rush, GameStop was even worth more than American Airlines. But the pandemonium of the stock soon ran dry, and by March 2021 the company had leveled out. 

Other notable meme stocks have included the also-aforementioned AMC, as well as companies like Carvana, Kodak and Beyond Meat. Trump Media & Technology Group, the media holding company formed by Donald Trump, has also been identified by Axios and other publications as a meme stock.  

Why are they back in the news? 

As with 2021, the current resurgence of meme stocks can be partially traced back to one man: financial investor Keith Gill. Known by his online persona Roaring Kitty, Gill had gone quiet after the 2021 boom, but recently "made a triumphant return to the internet with a single post that sent GameStop and other meme stocks soaring," said Quartz. 

Gill "drove the first short-squeeze of the video game retailer's stock in early 2021," and by simply emerging back online with a post on May 12, 2024, shares of GameStop "soared once again ... closing out the trading day up almost 75%," said Quartz. Gill, whose financial prowess was the impetus for the aforementioned Sony Pictures film, has singlehandedly caused shifts in the stock market, and his return has got some people talking about "potential for a new meme stock renaissance."

This time around, though, companies "have more shares trading in the market than they did in 2021, which could lessen the chances of what's called a 'short squeeze,'" said Nick Battista, the director of market intelligence at financial network tastylive, to The Associated Press. This means that there is likely to be less of a frenzy around the stocks now. 

Indeed, just days after Gill's online post, shares of both GameStop and AMC plummeted, with AMC falling 16% while GameStop gave up nearly half of its recent gains to fall 20%. Although meme stocks "[generate] a lot of market engagement, which is ultimately a good thing ... the volatility in these stocks is extreme," JJ Kinahan, the CEO of IG North America, said to Reuters. 

Reddit users will be able to buy shares in the social media platform when it goes public next week.

Dubbed the "front page of the internet", Reddit is "gearing up for its much-anticipated stock market debut". It could reach a valuation of up to $6.4 billion (£5 billion) in its US initial public offering (IPO), said City A.M..

Traders and the "historic" New York Stock Exchange trading floor will be "decked out in Reddit's white and orange colour scheme" for the IPO, sources have told the Financial Times. But the company has never made a profit and some commentators believe it does not make for an attractive investment.

What is Reddit?

Reddit, which was founded almost two decades ago, is an online forum where users can post questions and comment on subjects that interest them. It hosts thousands of niche discussion groups, called subreddits, which are set up and moderated by volunteers.

It has become the "internet talking shop", said The Times. "With its basic style and quirky, sometimes offensive threads", it "feels like a throwback to the early days of the internet". Visiting it is "rather like being in a digital pub", except with "more readily available pornography".

Reddit has "often courted controversy", including in 2021 when its users sent the share price of GameStop, a struggling video games business, up by more than 700% during four "frantic days of trading" under a thread entitled WallStreetBets.

Why is it floating?

Reddit has recorded losses every year since its launch, including more than $90 million last year. It makes most of its income (its revenue was $804 million last year) through advertising, although it recently agreed a deal with Google that allows the technology giant to access Reddit data to train its artificial intelligence (AI) models.

So the platform is "trying to secure an anchor investor as it pitches its fast-growing advertising business and the promise of revenues from selling its data", said the FT.

But the forum's users have a "deep sense of ownership over the communities they create on Reddit", wrote co-founder Steve Huffman in a letter to prospective investors. The company wants "this sense of ownership to be reflected in real ownership – for our users to be our owners. Becoming a public company makes this possible."

What does it mean for the future?

Reddit plans to price its initial public offering on 20 March and start trading the following day, two sources told the Financial Times. "The company is targeting between $31 and $34 a share, translating to a valuation of as much as $6.5bn."

The high valuation earns Reddit an "Unattractive Stock Rating", said Forbes. The magazine expects a $5 billion valuation, and while this is half the $10 billion private market valuation seen in 2021 when interest rates were zero and money was cheap, it "remains much too high", it said.

The company "has never been profitable and should not be a publicly traded company" as it "may never monetize its platform without angering its users". Its business model is "inescapably built on a catch-22: make money or please users".

This view was bolstered by the reactions of some Reddit users, said the BBC. When news of the IPO broke last month, users wrote that it was the "beginning of the end", "good while it lasted", and said the site's owners had "ruined it".

In an IPO filing to US regulators last month, Reddit revealed its losses had come down to $90.8 million (£72 million) while revenues had grown by 21% to $804 million (£634 million) in 2023. Therefore, said the FT, its debut will be "closely watched" as a "gauge of the appetite for tech listings".

The moneyed classes are starting to make their peace with Donald Trump.

CNBC reported that Wall Street executives had hoped for a different nominee from the GOP, but the former president's seemingly unstoppable momentum means that many "have made a calculated decision not to speak out against him" — and might even support Trump in the general election against President Joe Biden. Why? It's a business decision. "They think of themselves as stewards of other people's money and they don't want to take a position that divides their workforce, their investors and their customers," said one expert.

Among Wall Street's not-so-never-Trumpers: JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon. He's not running for president himself — at least not this year — but Business Insider reported that Dimon is saying respectful things about Trump. "He's kind of right about NATO. Kind of right about immigration," Dimon said during an interview during the World Economic Forum at Davos. "He grew the economy quite well. Tax reform worked. He was right about some of China."

"It's painful for me to admit this, but Wall Street is basically nonchalant to this election," Anthony Scaramucci, who very briefly served in the Trump administration, told The Hill. More than nonchalant, perhaps. "Trump is the billionaires' candidate," James Downie argued at MSNBC. Whatever the former president's faults, "he would deliver these millionaires and billionaires more massive tax cuts." That wealth might insulate the ultra-rich from the effects of a second Trump presidency. "The rest of us, though, won't be so lucky."

'Wall Street likes predictability'

"Dimon's selective memory seems to begin and end with Trump cutting taxes for him, his corporation, and his golfing buddies," Will Bunch added at The Philadelphia Inquirer. The blitheness of the billionaire class overlooks the Jan. 6 insurrection, among other Trump-era follies. But there's long been a "symbiotic relationship" between authoritarian movements and Big Business. "The nation's top capitalists seem too tunnel-focused on the next quarter's profits to know their history."

Actually, The New York Post editorialized, Dimon had it right: "Former President Donald Trump — or the GOP in general — was right about a lot." Voters had their reason for choosing Trump and still do. "The border crisis, the economy, and Biden's feeble leadership" offer compelling reasons to return to the former president. One thing that's clear: "Jamie Dimon has seen the light."

But a broader embrace from Dimon's colleagues may come grudgingly. After all, C-suite execs have "dreamed" of a Trump alternative, Politico reported: "Wall Street likes predictability." That's not exactly Trump's strong suit. "Markets are increasingly wary of how U.S. political disruptions can ripple across the global financial system." That's why some business leaders are still hoping for a surge from Nikki Haley, the only major Republican left in the contest. "The street still hopes for somebody else," said one top GOP donor. 

Gaming out the impact

Even on Wall Street, though, it ain't over until it's over. Haley is still in the race, for now. Assuming her candidacy survives the New Hampshire primary, The Hill reported, a quartet of "Wall Street billionaires" plan to host a New York fundraiser for the former South Carolina governor on Jan. 30. Tickets start at $3,300 apiece. 

Still, a number of CEOs think it's best to plan for a second Trump presidency. "Wall Street is already starting to game out the impact of Trump's possible return to the White House," Bloomberg reported. And some analysts are optimistic about what that could mean for the economy. "Traders are recognizing that Trump's impact on trade and geopolitics is for different reasons, at least initially, positive for the dollar," said one strategist. Markets initially plunged after Trump shockingly won the White House in 2016. That probably won't happen should he win again in 2024. Investors are prepared this time. Said one strategist: "We wouldn't expect the same volatility as we saw in 2016."

Of course, no one can predict the future — and that goes for the stock market, too. But each year, experts still put out their best guesses for what the year ahead may hold for investors. As CNN Business explains, towards the end of every year, "economists from banks, asset management companies, research firms, hedge funds and everything in between release their outlooks for the year ahead." This time around, "predictions have been all over the place" — though it's still possible to spot some "common themes" in what may lay ahead.

As The New York Times underscores, you shouldn't overhaul your investment approach based on these predictions, given "there is no evidence that anyone can predict the market's movements reliably, and a great deal of evidence that buying and selling stock on the basis of your views about the market's impending movements is a fool's game." Still, these expert predictions can provide some grounding for the year ahead and help you know "the key issues to keep an eye on," per Investopedia.

There are high hopes for rate cuts

In its final meeting of 2023, the Federal Reserve acknowledged that it expects to slash rates in 2024, a major shift from its inflation-fighting efforts in recent years that have entailed a series of rate hikes. Already, Wall Street is banking on those rate cuts — and they're hopeful they'll go beyond what the Fed has projected.

According to CNN Business, the CME FedWatch tool indicates that "investors now see 6 to 7 rate cuts next year," though the Fed has only "signaled the possibility of three rate cuts in 2024." Further, per Investopedia, "the market is pricing in nearly a 99% chance that the benchmark rate will be at least a full percentage point lower by the end of next year, with a 70% likelihood it will be a full 150 basis points lower" — although "Fed officials themselves are only projecting a 75 basis-point reduction."

A recession isn't on the horizon

According to The New York Times' DealBook, "analysts see lower borrowing costs, a soft landing (that is, an economic slowdown that avoids a recession) and a pretty good year for investors." While there is no consensus on whether 2024 will bring a bull market or a bear market, "most economists believe that the U.S. will avoid a recession," reports Investopedia.

One reason for this outlook is the state of the housing market. "Nearly every recession since WWII has been characterized by a housing crash, but here we have a shortage of housing. So the chance of a recession is remote in our opinion," Jay Hatfield, CEO of investment firm Infrastructure Capital Advisors, told CNBC Make It.

The outcome of the election is a question mark

Perhaps it's no surprise, but Wall Street is just as stumped as the rest of us on what the results of this year's presidential election may be. "The election will not be a story in the stock market, up until November 2024, for the simple reason that the stock market will not know who’s going to win the election until November 2024," David Bahnsen, the founder and chief investment officer of the wealth management firm Bahnsen Group, told The New York Times' DealBook.

What does that mean for investing? According to Investopedia, citing First Trust, while a presidential election year "usually brings headline volatility to the capital markets, the stock market has been higher 19 out of the last 23 election years, or 83% of the time." 

Adding to that optimism is the fact that in the last 71 years, "the S&P has risen, on average, by 7 percent during U.S. presidential election years," and "the market tends to do even better in a re-election year," the Times reports, citing market analysis by LPL Financial. Further, notes the Times, even with "some uncommon questions swirling" over the upcoming election, the race is "unlikely to add much volatility to the markets, Wall Street pros say."

Looking to invest your time in some Wall Street films? Hollywood has produced no shortage of excellent ones, including biting satires of capitalism and movies that revel in the schadenfreude of seeing corrupt businessmen get what’s coming to them. With a new entry in this subgenre hitting theaters, let's take a look back at some of the best movies ever made about Wall Street.

'Dumb Money'

To the moon! "I, Tonya" director Craig Gillespie tackles very recent events with this hilarious new dramedy about the 2021 GameStop short squeeze, in which retail traders backed the company en masse to the chagrin of hedge funds who bet against it. The film follows numerous characters who are tied up in the saga, including financial analyst Keith Gill (Paul Dano) and several of his followers around the country, played by America Ferrera, Anthony Ramos, Myha'la Herrold and Talia Ryder. Gillespie's most impressive accomplishment is using skillful editing to ensure these actors never feel like they're in different movies despite not sharing a single scene. Their stories are smoothly intertwined, underlining how the individual investors are all part of a larger battle against the Wall Street elite and are driven by solidarity with those they don't know. The movie also manages to make countless scenes of people looking at computers and phones exciting. It perhaps relies a bit too heavily on real footage for a non-documentary, and not all of its characters are equally well-served. But "Dumb Money" is still an energetic and inspiring dramatization of this crazy true story that makes the case for bringing it to the screen so soon. 

'Trading Places'

Who would have thought a goofy Eddie Murphy comedy might have a tangible impact on financial laws? One of the films that helped make Murphy a major star, 1983's "Trading Places" sees two rich businessmen debate whether a person's social status is a product of their genes or their environmental circumstances. So they put the question to the test, scheming to have a poor man, played by Murphy, and a wealthy man, played by Dan Aykroyd, switch places. Hilarity ensues until the two join forces to get back at the businessmen with a plot of their own, bankrupting them by driving the price of frozen concentrated orange juice futures up after obtaining a government report. Years later, Commodity Futures Trading Commission chief Gary Gensler pointed out in 2010 congressional testimony that using misappropriated government information for profit like the characters do in the movie "actually is not illegal." But as The Atlantic notes, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was enacted later that year, and a section targeting this kind of insider trading is known as the "Eddie Murphy Rule." Now that's cultural impact. 

'American Psycho'

You like Huey Lewis and the News? You'll never listen to them the same way again after watching Mary Harron’s darkly funny "American Psycho," one of the all-time great satires of Wall Street. Christian Bale stars as Patrick Bateman, an investment banker who's secretly a brutal serial killer, and he delivers an utterly chilling performance. But the movie really shines thanks to its sharp skewering of the vapid nature of Bateman and his colleagues' lives and their obsession with material things. Look no further than the iconic, absurd scene where they competitively compare business cards that look virtually identical. The Wall Street yuppies use the same credit cards, dress the same way, and go to the same barber, and their conformity is taken to such an extreme that they're easily confused for one another. It's a twisted American classic and a videotape you won't want to return. 

'Margin Call'

If you ever wanted to watch two hours of people slowly realizing just how screwed they are, "Margin Call" is the movie for you. The 2011 film takes place at a Wall Street investment bank in 2008 and depicts the chaos that unfolds after an employee makes a horrifying discovery: A model reveals that the entire institution is at risk of imminent collapse. What follows is an anxiety-inducing 24 hours as character after character processes the gravity of this information, and they must decide whether to compromise their morals by selling bad assets to save the bank while knowingly harming countless people in the process. The film is like a slow-motion car crash showing what happens when Wall Street's careless behavior comes back to bite it — or, more accurately, comes back to bite everyone else. It's also a reminder that Ted Mosby was right that nothing good happens after 2 a.m. 

'Wall Street'

Could there be a more quintessentially '80s movie moment than Michael Douglas' Gordon Gekko declaring that greed is good? The actor delivers the performance of his career, which won him an Academy Award, in this 1987 Oliver Stone classic. Charlie Sheen stars as Bud Fox, a junior stockbroker who worships financier Gordon Gekko and manages to work his way into his orbit. But the unethical Gekko is like the devil on Bud’s shoulder, leading him down a dark path into insider trading that corrupts everything around him and has disastrous consequences. The film is a crucial text to understanding the unrestrained greed that characterized the 1980s, and Martin Sheen sneakily delivers one of his best performances as Bud's father, the movie’s voice of reason. "Wall Street," for lack of a better word, is good. 

'The Wolf of Wall Street'

If you took Oliver Stone's "Wall Street" and injected it with several pounds of cocaine, you'd get Martin Scorsese's unhinged 2013 masterpiece "The Wolf of Wall Street." Leonardo DiCaprio stars as a stockbroker, Jordan Belfort, who increasingly loses his soul as he rises through the world of Wall Street. Scorsese depicts his climb and spectacular fall, portraying the debauchery of Belfort's lifestyle in a shockingly graphic fashion and showing viewers things they’ll immediately wish to unsee. It's the "Goodfellas" of Wall Street movies and just as addictively watchable, featuring the performance that probably should have won DiCaprio the Oscar. A sequence involving quaaludes is also perhaps the funniest single scene in a Scorsese movie. In the end, "The Wolf of Wall Street" also chastises the audience that would still buy what Belfort is selling despite everything he did, a point only strengthened by the fact that certain viewers have inexplicably come away from the film seeing him as a hero. 

'The Big Short'

Adam McKay has a tendency to talk down to his audience. But unlike with his films "Vice" and "Don't Look Up," this was a strength in "The Big Short," in which he breaks down complicated financial concepts in an easy-to-understand and highly entertaining fashion. The film takes place in the lead-up to the 2008 financial crisis and centers on a group of real people who saw the disaster coming, allowing them to make a fortune by betting against the big banks. Along the way, McKay brings in A-listers like Margot Robbie and Selena Gomez to break the fourth wall and explain terms like mortgage-backed securities, which is genuinely educational while effectively parodying America's inclination to pay more attention to what a celebrity has to say than an expert in the field. Monologues about collateralized debt obligations have never been so fun. 

A financial meme account run by an anonymous former Wall Street banker has become essential viewing for hundreds of thousands of people in the industry.

The viral posts of the “finmeme-lord” known as Litquidity are “comedic cocaine to banking executives and trading floor interns”, said the Financial Times (FT). Litquidity has amassed more than 790,000 followers on Instagram and more than 330,000 on Twitter with content that takes aim at “everything from monetary policy to bad loafers” in the “eminently lampoonable industry”, the paper added.

But while these posts are “hoovered up by those who love Wall Street and those who love to hate it”, little is known about the figure behind the account.

Who is Litquidity?

The popularity of Litquidity in part “fuelled by the mystery of his identity”, said the FT. “Litquidity could be, and he was, the analyst toiling in the next cubicle, or the associate doling out tedious work about to blow up your Friday-night plans.”

In a 2021 interview with New York Magazine via Zoom “with the video turned off”, the anonymous creator said that he had grown up in Florida, attended an Ivy League school and “went on to work at a couple of big banks and a private-equity firm”.

He started his now-viral Instagram account in 2017, when he was in his 20s and working in private equity, and was reportedly “inspired by a Greek-life parody blog he’d followed as a frat guy in college”.

“It was just going to be a funny thing,” he said, a satire of the “partyish lifestyle” of finance bros. “So, you know, lit is a word for that.”

From satire to ‘Wall Street advocacy’

Given his “niche content”, Litquidity initially expected his account to stay “small”, according to the financial news website Benzinga. In an interview with the site last year, he recalled: “I thought, 'how many people would actually be interested in following investment banking humour and anything Wall Street-related?’”

His early posts focused on “the late nights, Sisyphean workloads and megalomaniacal managers that he and his peers faced”, said Fast Company. But when the Covid-19 pandemic struck “amid one of the biggest bull markets in history”, Litquidity’s posts about financial trends and so-called “meme stocks” proved to be “especially potent”.

As well as capturing the financial market zeitgeist, the magazine added, the meme account also began to turn into “something of an advocacy tool for Wall Street analysts”, tracking salary increases, bonus announcements and even the punishing working conditions endured by some Goldman Sachs analysts.

Now in his 30s, Litquidity has gained an online status as an “astute commentator”, said the FT.

But finance has needed “little help satirising itself” in recent years, the paper continued. The industry has been turned upside down by “meme stocks, cryptocurrency, Goldman Sachs chief David Solomon moonlighting as a DJ, the Miami boom, Sam Bankman-Fried and the collapse of FTX, Dogecoin (an actual joke currency), Elon Musk and Twitter, a Twitter-fuelled bank run, as well as Jeff Bezos’s bizarre turn as a cowboy-boot-wearing bodybuilder”.

Litquidity told the FT that “the market going to shit made everything much easier for me”.

What next for Litquidity?

The meme-maker’s ambitions “go well beyond skewering Goldman Sachs interns for emptying their bank accounts on Hamptons summer rentals”, or mocking “crypto bros for going all in on not-so-stablecoins”, said Fast Company.

Litquidity told the magazine that he planned to build a finance-focused version of Barstool Sports, a media brand valued at more than $400 million that creates pop culture and sports content.

He also writes a popular daily Wall Street newsletter, “Exec Sum”, and has hosted a weekly podcast, “Big Swinging Decks”, about rumours and trends in the financial industry.

Litquidity sells merchandise too, satirising disgraced and defunct financial institutions such as Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns.

His other ventures include a deal signed in January with headhunting firm Whitney Partners. And according to the FT, Litquidity is “an angel investor and works as a venture capital scout for Bain Capital Ventures”.

The former banker told the paper that having diversified, he was no longer so anxious about whether his memes get laughs. “Now I’ve derisked, so I don’t have to give a shit if the meme is not funny,” he said.

Financial markets bucked widespread political turmoil and mounting fears the global economy could be overheating to post record highs in 2019.

Looking ahead to the next twelve months, “investors are expecting 2020 to bring further rising asset prices and lively merger activity” says Graeme Wearden in The Guardian “but Brexit, the US presidential election and the US trade war with China could all spring nasty surprises over the next 12 months and give the long-running bull market a jolt.”

“For the professional prognosticators and market mavens of Wall Street and beyond, there is at least one easy prediction to make about the next 12 months: Investors are going to earn less. A lot less, probably” says Bloomberg.

“’The double-digit returns of 2019 will be hard to repeat’ is a phrase littering almost every investment outlook for global markets in 2020” says the financial wire service, and “despite the trade war, political turmoil and more, virtually all major assets just posted a once-a-decade performance, and even uber-bulls know the chances of repeating the feat are slim”.

Listen to The Week discussing investing in 2019 in our podcast

On Wall Street, stocks “face several obstacles to growth in the new year” says CNN. “The Federal Reserve has stopped cutting interest rates. The economic jolt from tax cuts has run out. Despite some progress, the United States still doesn't have a trade deal with China” reports the news networking meaning stocks are entering 2020 “with a bit less of a tailwind than they had in 2019”.

“Investors still have plenty to be optimistic about, though” it adds.

In the UK, warnings about continued economic stagnation in 2020 have not stopped stock market experts from predicting the FTSE 100 could break through the 8,000 mark for the first time.

“With Boris Johnson pledging to take Britain out of the EU on January 31, the US presidential election in November, and trade tensions ebbing and flowing, it looks set to be an eventful year” says This is Money but having surged by 12.1% in 2019 and 39.3% in the last decade, “analysts believe the blue-chip benchmark will break records”.

“Investors will realise UK shares trade are at low valuations and flock back to sectors that performed poorly in 2019 – utilities, banks, insurers” says Helal Miah, analyst at The Share Centre.

AJ Bell’s Russ Mould says “Brexit must still be resolved and doubts hover over the health of the global economy. Were the UK to strike a trade deal with the EU, Washington and Beijing to settle their differences and governments abandon austerity, the outlook for next year could look very different.’

Yet The Daily Telegraph warns that “when consensus emerges among experts about the direction of stock markets – it is often a signal that something unexpected is about to happen”.

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The Week’s daily round-up highlights the five best opinion pieces from across the British and international media, with excerpts from each.

1. Hugo Rifkind in The Times

on immature voting

In the end we’re all tactical voters, aren’t we?

“Probably, though, we all ought to just grow up a bit. Tactical voting is the child born when an archaic voting system gets into bed with an informed electorate. The first British electoral contest in which it probably played an undeniable role was the Greenwich by-election of 1987 when a few thousand Tory voters swung behind the SDP’s Rosie Barnes to beat off Labour. Reading back, much of the political establishment seems to have regarded this as a dangerous and probably immoral development of electoral strategy, not a million miles away from cheating.”

2. Michael Deacon in The Telegraph

on a less-than-glowing sendoff

John Bercow had gone at last... and his wannabe successors utterly trashed him

“Funny, isn’t it. On Thursday last week, MPs spent three solid hours paying lavish tribute to John Bercow. He was, they gushed, ‘a transformative Speaker’, ‘truly impartial’, ‘such a good human being’ who had ‘touched the lives of hundreds of thousands’... Then on Monday – the very next parliamentary sitting day – MPs burst into deafening cheers as his wannabe successors took turns to trash him as a one-sided, interfering, egotistical gasbag. None of them referred to Mr Bercow by name, but it was perfectly clear who they were talking about.”

3. Ted Rall in The Japan Times

on an unspoken controversy in US politics

The killing of al-Baghdadi: Illegal, disgusting and degenerate

“We have come a long way since 1981, when President Ronald Reagan, a conservative Republican, signed Executive Order 12333, which states: ‘No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.’ E.O. 12333 — which remains in force — was part of the aftermath of the Church Committee hearings of the 1970s, which exposed assassinations and other illegal acts committed by the CIA in Latin America and elsewhere at the height of the Cold War. American spooks conspired to murder political adversaries and heads of state, mainly on the left, all over the world. Back then, the political class had the grace to pretend to be ashamed.”

4. Paul Krugman in The New York Times

on bankers unable to take criticism

Attack of the Wall Street snowflakes

“What, after all, does modern finance actually do for the economy? Unlike the robber barons of yore, today’s Wall Street tycoons don’t build anything tangible. They don’t even direct money to the people who actually are building the industries of the future. The vast expansion of credit in America after around 1980 basically involved a surge in consumer debt rather than new money for business investment. Moreover, there is growing evidence that when the financial sector gets too big it actually acts as a drag on the economy — and America is well past that point.”

5. Eliora Katz in Tablet Magazine

on the growing disillusionment with Tehran

The revolt against Iran

“While the majority of Iraqis share the same Shiite religious faith practiced in Iran, it is precisely in Iraq’s Shiite strongholds where the revolt against Iranian rule has taken root. Motivated more by national self-interest than, religious ideology, Iraq’s protesters hold the Iranian-dominated political establishment accountable for their country’s decay. These feelings have not developed overnight. Protests erupted last year in the oil rich city of Basra, when Iran turned off a power line in the region. Basra residents repeated ‘Iran out!’ as they burned Iranian flags, the Iranian consulate, and headquarters of Iran-linked militias.”

US stock markets reached record highs in early trading yesterday, as optimism over the prospect of a US-China trade deal rose again.

On a historic day on the markets, the S&P 500 rose above 3,066.95 points and the Nasdaq also hit a new record of 8,444.99 points.

“That's nothing new,” says CNN. “Stocks hit new records last week. But this time the Dow is joining the record-setting club.” The Dow Jones was up 0.46% in early trading.

Fox News reports that the spikes came after the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced that Donald Trump and Xi Jinping have remained in contact while negotiators agree the final language for the “phase one” of the trade agreement between the two natios.

“Stock Market hits RECORD HIGH. Spend your money well!” tweeted Donald Trump.

Pierre Veyrett, technical analyst at ActivTrades, told The Guardian this optimism is “likely to keep on supporting stock prices around the globe this week, especially if US and Chinese data is in line with or continues to beat expectations like last week’s solid non-farm payroll reports”.

Markets around the world rose in response to the Wall Street lead. India’s stock market closed at a new record high, Britain’s FTSE 100 gained more than 1% and the pan-European Stoxx 600 index reached a 21-month high.

However, less positive news for the US came in the form of factory orders data, which fell by 0.6% in September - worse than the 0.1% fall in August, and also worse than the 0.5% decline predicted by experts. The news dampened excitement among traders.

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The S&P 500 index opened at a new all-time high after positive comments from both sides of the US-China trade war.

On an upbeat day on Wall Street, the S&P 500 gained 15 points or 0.4% to hit 3,038 points, a new record level.

Meanwhile, the Dow Jones industrial average opened higher, up 112 points or 0.4%, while the tech-focused Nasdaq index gained 0.5%.

US President Donald Trump had earlier told reporters he expected to ink a significant part of the trade deal with China earlier than expected.

“We are looking probably to be ahead of schedule to sign a very big portion of the China deal, we’ll call it phase one but it’s a very big portion,” he said.

Earlier, China’s commerce ministry had said that technical talks about the phase one trade deal text with Washington were “basically completed”.

Neil Wilson of Markets.com said that stock market “bulls” were pushing Wall Street higher. He said it’s a “remarkable achievement against faltering corporate earnings, a festering (if not quite total) trade war, and softer macro data everywhere you look”.

Urging a degree of caution, he added that: “the bar on a US-China trade deal had been set so low that the market seems content with this pretty puny agreement”.

The Guardian was also measured in its assessment of the deal. “This is only for a phase one trade deal, which might reset relations between the two sides and could lift some tariff,” it said. “A full-blown agreement, tackling stickier issues such as forced technology transfers and China’s subsidies, is some distance off.”

However, Reuters points out that sentiment over the positive signs around the trade dispute was not the only factor at play on the markets. It explains that “rising bets on a third rate cut by the Federal Reserve” have also fuelled optimism among Wall Street traders.

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The FTSE 100 has reached its highest level this year after the US and China agreed to restart trade talks over the weekend. It climbed to 7530 during Monday's session, its peak since the end of September.

Thawing relations between Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping have eased fears over the escalation of a damaging dispute between the world's two leading economies.

Amid a global stock market rally, Wall Street indexes were also significantly higher, with the S&P 500 hitting an all-time high as it surpassed a previous record set in June.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.97%, or 258.15 points higher, to 26,858.11. The Nasdaq jumped 1.67%, or 133.39 points, to 8,139.63 and the S&P 500 gained 0.58% to 2,941.76 - the new intraday record.

“Investors are relieved that Donald Trump and Xi Jinping backed away from a deeper trade war, agreeing to restart negotiations during their meeting at the G20 last week,” says The Guardian.

Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James, said: “Any step towards a trade resolution, and it doesn't have to be a lot of progress - just a step, is viewed very positively by markets.

“And investors at this point are trying to focus on the positive in hopes that there will be some trade resolution down the line.”

However, Fawad Razaqzada, Market Analyst at Forex.com, has sounded a note of caution. “If this latest trade optimism fades completely, the focus will turn very quickly to the ailing global economy,” he said.

“As such, the S&P’s latest breakout to a new all-time high could be brief, especially as some of the positivity regarding trade talks was already priced in.”

CNN is also at pains to try and temper the optimism. “The fragile truce does little to alleviate pressure on a global economy wounded by earlier exchanges of fire that hit manufacturing and trade,” writes Charles Riley.

It's a wonder no one figured this out sooner.

Marcus Epstein has a history of associating with far-right groups and white nationalists while writing racially provocative pieces across conservative sites. Yet over the past two years, he seemingly dropped that history as he adopted the name "Mark Epstein" and wrote op-eds for The Wall Street Journal, The Hill, Forbes, and other publications — and the Journal has a very odd explanation for how it happened, BuzzFeed News reports.

Epstein previously worked for former Colorado congressmember Tom Tancredo, who espoused xenophobic views himself, and founded what BuzzFeed News calls a "nativist political club" with white supremacist Richard Spencer in the mid-2000s. Under his full name, Epstein also wrote a series of provocative, race-related op-eds for the anti-immigration website VDare.

But on the Journal's website, Mark Epstein is only identified as an "antitrust attorney and freelance writer" and largely writes in opposition to big tech regulation. Epstein gets that designation because that's the way "we know Mark Epstein," the Journal said in a statement to BuzzFeed News, adding that "we are not aware that he has written under any other byline." A spokesperson for The Hill said "we would never knowingly post material from a racist writer and have no information identifying this writer as such." Forbes, meanwhile, said Epstein's byline appeared "without permission as a co-author on one of our contributor’s posts" and that it would take Epstein's post down for further review.

Epstein explained the pseudonym to BuzzFeed News as a way to "move past the media-internet driven outrage culture" surrounding his past actions, including a dismissed 2007 misdemeanor assault charge. He also said he has "never been white nationalist nor held their beliefs." Read more at BuzzFeed News.

New York has superseded London as the pre-eminent global financial capital because of turmoil caused by Brexit, leading financial services executives have said in a survey.

Consultancy firm Duff & Phelps released its 2019 Global Regulatory Outlook survey yesterday, having asked 183 leaders in private equity, hedge funds, asset management, brokerage, banking, and policy/government their opinion on the location of the world’s top financial centre.

As CNBC reports “London and New York switched places in the ranking from 2018, with 52% of respondents choosing New York as the globe’s financial hub, while 36% chose London. Last year, 42% chose New York and 53% chose London.”

“Last year, Brexit cast a shadow of uncertainty over the United Kingdom’s economy; it has now escalated to a full-blown crisis,” the report said.

“British government ministers said last week that the UK financial sector would emerge stronger from Brexit”, Reuters notes. However, it also adds that “Duff & Phelps said Dublin, Frankfurt and Luxembourg also fared better this year as the European Union’s financial industry searches for a new hub.”

Sky News quotes EY's UK financial services managing partner, Omar Ali, who said: "The subdued economic picture, Brexit uncertainty and the emergence of some longer-term trends such as the decline in car ownership and continued high house prices are all taking their toll."

Also mentioned in the report are other potential future contenders for the position. “Looking ahead… globalisation’s diffusion of influence begins to be apparent: 12 percent of respondents expect Hong Kong to be the world’sd preeminent financial centre five years from now, a stark contrast to the 3 percent who held this opinion just a year ago.”

The report goes on to address global anti-money laundering and financial terrorism countering efforts, concluding that weakness in that area is not an issue of resourcing but of inter-institutional coordination, as well as further issues pertaining to financial regulation.

This is not the first time Brexit has spelled bad news for the City. Last year, according to Sky News, a “Z/Yen Global Financial Centres Index showed New York overtaking the UK's capital.” The think tank’s index also found that "Zurich, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Vienna, and Milan moved up the rankings significantly. These centres may be the main beneficiaries of the uncertainty caused by Brexit.”

Goldman Sachs has become the latest corporate behemoth to relax its office dress code, part of a wider trend that could soon see the traditional suit and tie become extinct.

In a memo to staff, management issued new guidelines emphasising a “firmwide flexible dress code” to take into account a “changing nature of workplaces generally in favour of a more casual environment”.

“So does this mean it's the beginning of the end for the traditional suit and tie?” asks the BBC.

The company's move for “a more chill dress code” is fitting with other banks such as JP Morgan, Bustle says, “who are looking to address the needs and expectations of a younger work force”.

This makes sense, especially as the BBC reports a massive 75% of Goldman’ employees are born after 1981.

“This is a generational thing,” one senior Goldman banker told eFinancialCareers. “[CEO David Soloman’s] doing it to keep talent. Most of the GS bankers are now under the age of 30 anyway.”

The trend is even extending to the rarified heights of the City of London Corporation, which in January decreed that its formal City banquets needn’t be black tie but also encompass “lounge suits”.

“The timing of Goldman Sachs’ announcement couldn’t be more in step with the current mood of men’s style” says Stephen Doig in the Daily Telegraph, noting there “has there been a tectonic shift over the last decade in what constitutes the idea of 'formal dress', with suiting taken apart at the seams and re-invigorated in a more dynamic way.”

“The shift has also come about as a reaction to the crash of a decade ago [when] bankers and their traditional pinstriped attire were toxic” he says.

This is not to say the high-flying world of Wall Street banking is ready to embrace the de rigeur T-shirts and jeans approach of their Silicon Valley counterparts, but it nevertheless represents a culture shift in what is still a conservative and male-dominated environment.

But while the recent shift at Goldman has been driven by changing workplace attitudes and, at least partly, attributed to new new chief executive David Solomon, who moonlights as a DJ, it could also be indicative of something more deep-rooted.

“Everything in the financial world moves in cycles. If you were to track an index of casualness in City and Wall Street dress codes it would almost certainly mirror the rise and fall of stock market booms and bust,” says Ben Wright in the Daily Telegraph.

He cites the 1986 Big Bang which deregulated the City of London, the Dot Com bubble of the late 1990s and the run-up to the 2008 financial crash as times when business dress trends foreshadowed an economic downturn.

“Financial crises tend to come round every ten years,” he concludes. “It’s been nearly ten-and-a-half since Lehman Brothers went bust. Stock markets have enjoyed a record bull run. And now Goldman Sachs is telling its staff to dress casually. If that’s not a sell signal, I don’t know what is.”

US politicians from both sides of of the political divide have bucked recent partisan bickering and united around an unlikely issue to lambast Wall Street for the booming practice of share buybacks.

The practice sees companies with spare money repurchase their own shares from the market, putting cash directly back into investor’s pockets while at the same time improving the value of the shares.

“They have very much been a feature of the post financial crisis era,” says Michael Mackenzie in the Financial Times.

According to TrimTabs data, the value of stock repurchases announced by US companies surged to more than $1 trillion last year, around seven times the amount in 2009.

“The trend is spreading, too” says the Daily Telegraph. Just last week in the UK, blue-chip heavyweights Glencore, Relx and Lloyds all announced that they would sink billions of pounds into buybacks.

“For the past several decades, the goals of American businesses has become benefitting shareholders. Given that just 10% of the wealthiest Americans own 84% of all corporate stocks, this “shareholder primacy” model tends to benefit those who already have means,” says Eillie Anzilotti for Fast Company.

“This is in contrast to how companies previously directed profits, into growing the company and increasing worker salaries,” she adds.

A report published last week from Lenore Palladino, senior economist at The Roosevelt Institute think tank, argues the shift toward shareholder primacy, not coincidentally tracks along with corporate attacks on unions, which played a significant role in protecting worker prosperity.

CNN Business says “the steady drumbeat of buybacks comes despite the political backlash against the tactic”, which has united the left and right in opposition at what has been described as “corporate cocaine”.

Republican senator Marco Rubio has announced plans to overhaul the tax status of the practice, while far-Left presidential candidate Bernie Sanders penned an op-ed in the New York Times in which he said “corporate boardrooms have become obsessed with maximising only shareholder earnings to the detriment of workers and the long-term strength of their companies”.

“Should Washington follow through on one proposal of taxing buybacks at a higher rate, or veer left and ban them unless a company bolsters pay for its employees, the outcome will resonate globally,” says Mackenzie.

“But the politicians are missing a key point” he writes. “Buybacks often reflect the fact that a strong business model is generating a surfeit of cash, a situation that tends to attract activist investors demanding higher dividends and buybacks, as was the case with Apple. For the long term health of the economy, it’s far better that excess cash is returned to investors.”

Global stocks continued to slide this morning as a selling frenzy swept across markets from the US to Japan, fuelled by factors including trade tensions from the US-China trade war, worries about slowing economic growth and a massive drop in tech shares.

The Nasdaq - the world’s second-largest stock exchange in terms of market capitalisation - bore the brunt of the sell-off of tech stocks including Apple, Microsoft and Google owner Alphabet. By the time trading drew to a close last night, the tech-heavy exchange had fallen by 4.4%, its largest one-day drop in seven years.

Meanwhile, the Dow Jones shed more than 600 points, while the S&P 500 Index fell by 3.1% - erasing all of the gains for 2018 in both markets, reports CNBC.

“Against a backdrop of rising interest rates and growing trade tensions, a feeling that the best days of the economic cycle were in the past was taking hold,” says the Financial Times.

European tech stocks were also hit by the global sell-off. The Europe-wide Stoxx 600 fell by 1%, while London’s FTSE 100 lost 1.1%.

Asian investors joined in the market rout, with South Korea’s Kospi index and Japan’s Topix on track to record their worst numbers since the 2008 financial crisis.

Asian stocks have now lost almost $5trn this year, according to Bloomberg. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index - a broad measure of stocks across the region - had dropped by around 2% as of Thursday afternoon, “taking its slide from a January peak to 22%”, the news site reports.

However, leading investment firm Nomura Asset Management believes the Asian downturn is temporary, as “Chinese companies are in strong financial shape and have the capacity to buy back shares and boost dividends”, Bloomberg adds.

When it comes to the global scene, Kelvin Tay, regional chief investment officer at UBS Wealth Management in Singapore, says that a host of factors are contributing to poor sentiment, including “rising rates, weak third-quarter corporate results, tensions in the European Union over the Italian fiscal stand-off and Brexit, and US-China trade concerns”.

“The market is trying to decide if the solid global economic fundamentals we’ve had till now are starting to give way to a period of weaker growth,” he said.

Stock markets around the globe have suffered heavy losses, following a dramatic plunge on Wall Street that saw the US Dow Jones Index drop by more than 3.15%, it’s steepest single-day fall since early February.

The BBC reports that the fall on Wall Street was precipitated in part by the US Federal Reserve decision to raise interest rates, “a move that tends to make it more expensive for companies to borrow, hurting bottom lines and turning stocks into a less attractive investment”.

Rising bond yields, fears of a global economic slowdown and escalating trade tensions between the US and a number of its trading partners also contributed to the steep losses, the Wall Street Journal says.

Donald Trump played down the plunge on US markets as a “correction”, while also repeating his ongoing criticism of the US Fed decision to raise interest rates.

“Actually it’s a correction that we’ve been waiting for a long time, but I really disagree with what the Fed is doing. I think the Fed has gone crazy,” Trump said.

US stocks went into “free fall” yesterday, sparking large scale sell-offs on Asian markets this morning.

The Dow Jones suffered its largest single-day point decline in history, plunging by almost 1,600 points before buyers bought back in to “limit the damage”, says CNN.

At the closing bell, the Dow was still down by 1,175 points, a drop of 4.6% that erased all of the gains made by US markets so far this year. It’s the biggest fall in percentage terms since “Black Monday” in August 2011.

Other US indices reflected the drop in the Dow, with the S&P 500 index falling by 4.1% and the Nasdaq by 3.7%.

Investors reacting to recent global equity losses, and concerns that a number of central banks look likely to raise interest rates to curb inflationary pressures from surging global economies contributed to the drop.

“Economic news from the US has been stronger than anticipated,” David Kuo, chief executive of financial services advisory Motley Fool, told the BBC. “So, perversely, the market correction has been caused by positive economic news.”

Asian markets followed suit, with Japan’s Nikkei hit particularly hard, losing more than 6.6% of its value. Hong Kong shares also suffered losses of almost 5%t, and Australian shares fell by more than 3%.

Fidelity Investments dismissed two high-level executives in the past few weeks amid sexual harassment complaints, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post reported Sunday, and the Los Angeles Times and New Orleans Times-Picayune published reports of serial sexual harassment against a Hollywood writer/director and a New Orleans celebrity restaurateur, respectively. The investigations of sexual misconduct in some cases predated the revelations of alleged sexual assault by Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, but they were published after a Weinstein-prompted #MeToo campaign in which women shared their harassment stories over social media.

At Fidelity, portfolio manager C. Robert Chow resigned earlier in October after colleagues accused him of making inappropriate sexual comments, and tech fund manager Gavin Baker was fired for allegedly harassing a 26-year-old female employee, the Post reports. Both men worked in Fidelity's stock-picking unit, and after an emergency meeting last week, Fidelity reportedly hired an outside consultant to audit behavior in the powerful division.

At least 38 women, meanwhile, told the Los Angeles Times that director James Toback had sexually harassed them, usually involving some form of aggressive masturbation. Toback has been making movies since 1974 and got an Oscar nomination for his Bugsy screenplay, but since he wasn't a household name, "Toback always kept his credentials handy when he introduced himself to women" around Manhattan, typically saying he could advance their careers, writes Glenn Whipp at the L.A. Times.

Twenty-four women told The Times-Picayune, meanwhile, that they were victims of sexual harassment at restaurants tied to celebrity chef and restaurateur John Besh. One women filed a federal employment discrimination complaint saying Besh himself coerced her into a sexual relations — he said it was consensual. The women collectively "described a company where several male coworkers and bosses touched female employees without consent, made suggestive comments about their appearance, and — in a few cases — tried to leverage positions of authority for sex," The Times-Picayune says.

Global markets hit another all-time high yesterday, with the receding threat of political instability in the EU boosting investors' confidence.

On Monday, the CBOE Volatility Index, dubbed the Vix Index and considered Wall Street's "fear gauge", fell to its lowest level since 1993, bolstered by last weekend's French presidential election result and solid corporate earnings, says Reuters.

Volatility in the US equity market "has dissipated as stock investors whistled past geopolitical unknowns from populist politics to heightened threats from North Korea", says Bloomberg.

While trade agreements, tax reform and the future of financial regulation may hang in the balance, "investors have instead focused on one of the best global earnings seasons in a decade and signs of economic growth".

However, not everyone has welcomed this newfound confidence. Adrienne Murphy, chief market analyst at online traders AvaTrade, told the Daily Telegraph that with nationalism and populism still spreading, she was "surprised the Vix was so low".

Piers Curran, head of trading at Amplify Trading, also said the current volatility level "was not sustainable", while George Goncalves, a fixed income strategist at Nomura, issued a note of caution to his clients.

He said: "Complacency has returned in such quick fashion that it's starting to feel like 2005-06, when nothing seemed to faze the broader markets."

With Emmanuel Macron's victory over Marine Le Pen in the French elections, "the EU and the euro have dodged a bullet, but geopolitical risks are continuing to proliferate", says Nouriel Roubini, an economist known as "Dr Doom", in The Guardian.

As examples, he cites the continuing populist backlash against globalisation, Russia's expansionist agenda and North Korea threatening a military conflict on the Korean peninsula.

"It is worth asking if investors are underestimating the potential for one or more of these conflicts to trigger a more serious crisis, and what it would take to shock them out of their complacency if they are", he adds.

If Hillary Clinton wins the White House, she may not be able to rely on progressives in government to facilitate her transition and agenda. For that, she can thank the content of thousands of emails hacked from campaign chair John Podesta's Gmail account that WikiLeaks continues to publish daily.

The emails see Clinton staff and confidants taking a dismissive posture toward those on their left, Politico reports, calling progressives and their causes "puritanical," "naive," and "dumb." Some progressives were even labeled "freaks" who should "get a life," and Podesta called Sen. Bernie Sanders a "doofus" for wanting stronger environmental regulations than those in the Paris climate change accord.

But worse than the personal insults are the Wall Street speech transcript excerpts the emails also include, which find Clinton assuring her audience she is more center than left. "We were already kind of suspicious of where Hillary's instincts were," Politico quotes an unnamed "influential liberal Democratic operative" as saying, "but now we see that she is who we thought she was. The honeymoon is going to be tight and small and maybe nonexistent" if she is elected.

The Clinton campaign response emphasized their candidate's history of working "with progressive allies to aggressively develop serious and thorough plans to make real change." Throughout her primary campaign, Clinton cast herself as a "progressive who gets things done" in an attempt to mediate between her record and the more left-wing votes she then sought to wrest from Sanders.

Transcripts of closed-door speeches Hillary Clinton gave to Wall Street bankers were published by WikiLeaks Friday as attachments to leaked emails from Clinton campaign staff, sharing with the public content the Democratic nominee refused to release herself.

In comments at a 2013 conference sponsored by Goldman Sachs, Clinton expressed concern about digital security threats, particularly from China and Russia, the latter of which is officially accused of interfering with the 2016 election by leaking hacked information to sites like WikiLeaks. Clinton described disabling her devices while traveling abroad to avoid hacking, but FBI Director James Comey has since said she did no such thing.

The documents also see campaign staff discussing how to deal with off-message speech excerpts — "policy positions that we should give an extra scrub" — to avoid bad press. One quote, for example, has Clinton describing her "solid middle class upbringing" at another Goldman event. "And now, obviously, I'm kind of far removed because the life I've lived and the economic, you know, fortunes that my husband and I now enjoy," she adds, "but I haven't forgotten it." Clinton's staff labeled the excerpt, "CLINTON ADMITS SHE IS OUT OF TOUCH."

Next week, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is holding a fundraiser at the Harvard Club in Manhattan where the cost of entry is $1,000 apiece; $2,700 will get you a ticket to a VIP reception with Ted Cruz and his wife, Heidi, and $25,000 makes you an event chairman. Cruz's target is Wall Street bankers. He needs their contributions to compete with Donald Trump in the final sprint to the Republican convention, Ben White reports at Politico. And Cruz is not popular on Wall Street, despite the fact that his wife is on leave from a position at Goldman Sachs.

Cruz, who has already taken in $12 million from the financial industry, has criticized Wall Street "crony capitalism" and government bailouts for "rich Wall Street banks," and bankers have noticed. "There are a few reasons Wall Street won't fully back him," a senior investment banker at a blue chip firm told White. "The first is his hard stance on social issues like abortion and gay marriage. The second is his general unlikability and the fact that he probably can't win. And the third is all the bashing he's done of Wall Street despite Heidi and everything else. People remember that."

But Cruz will probably rake in campaign cash on Monday anyway, in part because Wall Street dislikes and fears Donald Trump more — and many don't believe that Cruz would sink down-ballot Republicans as much as Trump would. You can read more about Cruz's Wall Street endeavors, and some choice quotes about Cruz from bankers, at Politico.

Before Hillary Clinton was railing on big banks in a race for the Democratic presidential nomination against notoriously anti-Wall Street candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), she was getting paid by the big banks to give talks. Now, those private talks are threatening to make a second — and very public — appearance as the push grows for Clinton to release transcripts.

While some argue that the remarks are nothing but the "boilerplate, happy talk that highly paid speakers generally offer to their hosts," others worry that Clinton's speech, if released, could easily be taken out of context by Sanders, who has already been slamming her for her Wall Street connections.

According to one attendee at Clinton's October 2013 speech to Goldman Sachs executives and tech industry leaders, Clinton's remarks then were a far cry from what she's saying on campaign trail now. "It was pretty glowing about us," the attendee told Politico of the speech. "It's so far from what she sounds like as a candidate now. It was like a rah-rah speech. She sounded more like a Goldman Sachs managing director." Clinton, Politico reports, got $225,000 for the talk, during which she not once criticized Goldman or Wall Street over the financial crisis.

While the question of whether the release will happen remains up in the air, the attendee at Clinton's 2013 speech is pretty confident it won't. "It would bury her against Sanders," the attendee told Politico. "It really makes her look like an ally of the firm."

Read the full story over at Politico.

Joe Biden joked that he might want a job with Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs after his term is up this time next year. The vice president was speaking at a dinner hosted by the bank in advance of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Wednesday.

"I’m not qualified, but I may be coming back to you," he said to Goldman representatives at the event, adding that he has "never been gainfully employed before."

While Biden may have only been kidding, Goldman in particular is emblematic of the "revolving door" between Wall Street and the federal government, frequently serving as a destination for former federal officials and a hiring pool for new ones. Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both picked treasury secretaries from the bank's ranks, and Goldman was also the source of several lesser-known Obama appointees.

Bernie Sanders appeared to have shut Hillary Clinton down when the conversation at the Democratic debate shifted toward Wall Street reform, saying flatly that Clinton's defense of her record against big banks was "not good enough."

"Why over her political career has Wall Street been a major — the major — contributor to Hillary Clinton?" Sanders demanded to know.

But Clinton was ready in her defense, slamming Sanders by saying, "He has basically used his answer to impugn my integrity." She added that most of her donors have actually been women, and further bulldozed Sanders by saying she'd read his Wall Street proposal and that "my proposal is tougher […] more effective."

Watch it get heated below. Jeva Lange

Most movies and TV shows would kill for the kind of advance publicity the House Select Committee on Benghazi has gotten, free of charge, for its grilling of Hillary Clinton on Thursday. Not all publicity is good publicity — as committee chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) has lamented — but the consensus in Washington is that Clinton, Gowdy, and their respective parties all have a lot riding on Thursday's testimony. Clinton will likely try to make the committee look like a political hatchet job while trying to avoid damaging her presidential campaign, and Gowdy and his six fellow Republicans will probably try to make Clinton look bad without appearing like they are trying to make her look bad.

Sound like political theater? Well, The Wall Street Journal is breaking out the popcorn with this "viewer's guide to the Benghazi hearings." If you watch below, a pretty excited-looking Shelby Holliday will briefly explain what has happened so far, what to watch for on Thursday, and how those Clinton emails are supposed to fit into the Benghazi rubric. You'll probably need a post-game wrap-up, too, since the hearing could easily last eight hours and might well include more congressional talking than question-asking. Stay tuned. Peter Weber

Quarterly presidential fundraising reports released this week reveal that Wall Street's top picks for president are still Republican Jeb Bush and Democrat Hillary Clinton. Bush collected more than $900,000 from people who work in finance, while Clinton took in just under $700,000. In addition, several Clinton bundlers who hail from the finance industry each raised $100,000 or more.

Wall Street's preference for the dynasty candidates is nothing new: Despite her attempts to strike a populist tone, Clinton has long had close ties to Wall Street. "If it turns out to be Jeb versus Hillary we would love that," said a Wall Street lawyer in 2014, adding that "either outcome would be fine."

Both campaigns also took in the most donations — $3.1 million for Clinton and $845,000 for Bush — from another broadly disliked industry: lawyers.

American stocks took a tumble today after Greek voters resoundingly rejected the austerity measures required by the country's creditors as a precondition for a new bail-out.

US stock-index futures fell overnight as the result of the referendum became clear, and in early trading in New York, stock markets followed the pattern of falls that had been established by Asian and European markets.

The Standard & Poor's 500 Index extended its steepest weekly slump since March, Bloomberg reports. After an hour of trading, the S&P had fallen by 0.5 per cent and the Dow Jones Industrial Average by 0.6 per cent.

Futures in both indexes fell by a greater margin, indicating that traders believe the markets have further yet to fall.

After 61.3 per cent of Greeks voted No in Sunday's referendum, renewed fears that Athens will leave the euro sent markets into jitters around the globe. In London, the FTSE 100 was down 87 points or 1.3 per cent at 3.15pm.

Leading lenders, including JPMorgan Chase & Co., say a Grexit is now the most likely scenario.

Analysts are divided over what will happen next on Wall Street. Equities vice-chairman at Robert W Baird & Co, Patrick Spencer, says: "The uncertainty around Greece and the outcome are the factors really hurting US futures – markets hate uncertainty. There's too much at risk if the Greeks leave the euro."

However, USA Today reports that Paul Hickey, co-founder of Bespoke Investment Group, has told clients not to be alarmed. "There's been no panic of any kind," he said. "Broadly speaking, we think every single market is acting quite rationally."

Meanwhile, news that American employers added fewer jobs than expected last month has dampened expectations that the Federal Reserve will feel confident enough to raise the cost of borrowing in September.

The 223,000 new jobs added to the economy last month fell short of the 230,000 expected by many economists, said The Times this morning. A further dent in confidence came when the job gains for April and May were revised downward by 60,000 jobs, and wage growth was flat for June.

A lone British trader has been charged by US authorities with contributing to the infamous 2010 "flash crash" on Wall Street that wiped billions of dollars off the value of US companies within minutes.

Navinder Singh Sarao, 36, from Hounslow, west London, will appear at Westminster magistrates' court today. He is accused of making $40m over five years by deliberately pushing down the value of leading US shares using illegal trading tactics.

The US Department of Justice wants to extradite him on charges of wire fraud, commodities fraud and market manipulation.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which has filed a separate civil claim, has accused him of using an algorithm to flood trading platforms with fake orders, known as spoofing.

"When prices fell as a result, Mr Sarao allegedly sold futures contracts, only to buy them back at a lower price. Conversely, when the market moved back upward as the market activity ceased, Mr Sarao allegedly bought contracts, only to sell them at a higher price," said the commission.

According to the criminal complaint, Sarao also set up a corporate entity on the Caribbean island of Nevis in April 2010 with the firm name Nav Sarao Milking Markets.

He is currently being held by the Metropolitan Police extradition unit.

It is believed to be the first legal action taken against any individual in relation to the flash crash on 6 May 2010, when the Dow Jones industrial average dropped by nearly 1,000 points in 20 minutes.

Prosecutors claim Sarao was "exceptionally active" and trying to push down the shares for nearly two hours before they collapsed.

"Although the major indexes recovered most of the losses, the event was blamed for shaking the confidence of ordinary Americans who put their savings into the stock market," says the New York Times. Five years later, news of Sarao's arrest has "raised anew concerns about how an individual could manage to exert such influence over the world's financial markets", says the newspaper.

Through design or, more likely, happenstance, federal financial regulators are in for a tough, tough week in Washington. And they'll be getting hammered from both sides.

On Monday, former longtime AIG CEO and chairman Hank Greenberg is taking the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department to court, arguing the government was too tough on AIG during the financial crisis of 2008. Meanwhile, over the weekend, two U.S. senators called for an investigation into the Federal Reserve's New York branch after ProPublica and This American Life disclosed secretly recorded tapes purporting to show that Wall Street's top regulator was too lenient on and cozy with large financial firms, especially Goldman Sachs.

The Greenberg case, to be heard before the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, is actually a class action brought by Greenberg's Starr International, AIG's largest shareholder before the bailout, and 300,000 other former AIG shareholders. Greenberg and his lawyer, David Boies, say that if AIG and the New York Fed had returned then-retired Greenberg's calls and emails in 2008, he could have saved the company without a massive $85 billion loan, which grew to $184.6 billion and a 92 percent stake held by the government, all since repaid. The government's position is that AIG asked for the help to avoid bankruptcy, took the aid voluntarily, and taxpayers took on great risk "to protect and stabilize the United States economy." At stake is more than $40 billion in taxpayer money if Starr and its co-plaintiffs win.

The ProPublica/This American Life story features Carmen Segarra, a lawyer brought in to examine the New York Fed's dealings with Goldman Sachs, after a New York Fed–commissioned report found that Wall Street's closest federal regulator was too cozy and deferential to Wall Street's "too big to fail" banks. After seven months, Segarra was fired, she says for refusing to back down on her tough Goldman Sachs report — but before she was dismissed she recorded 46 hours of secret tape. It was these tapes, and the stories they led to, that prompted Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) — both on the Senate Banking Committee — to demand "oversight hearings on the disturbing issues raised by [Friday's] whistleblower report."

You can read the New York Fed's response here, the ProPublic report here, and listen to This American Life's audio version here.

When Taylor Swift isn't shaming her ex-boyfriends and offering life advice to high schoolers through her songs, she's writing for The Wall Street Journal about the current state of the music industry.

Swift has some ideas about how artists can sell more albums: They just need to bare their souls, the way that she does in her music:

If artists just made music that shot audiences "like an arrow through the heart," everything would be solved! Swift realizes that "it isn't as easy today as it was 20 years ago to have a multiplatinum-selling album," but "that should challenge and motivate" artists, not discourage them.

Among Swift's other statements is the odd opinion that "pop sounds like hip-hop," and she closes the article by stating what she'd really love in life: "a nice garden."