MarketWatch (February 4)
“Software ate the world. Now, Wall Street is worried AI will eat software. The selloff of business software continues on Wednesday as investors keep selling shares of companies that look like they could be on the menu.”
Bloomberg (December 12)
“AI is powering Trump’s economy, but American voters are getting worried.” The Wall Street consensus is “that AI has driven most of the gains on the S&P 500 this year” so that may make AI look like a hero. Among voters, however, there are “signs of an AI backlash, one that could amplify concerns about the cost of living and the job-market outlook in Trump’s economy.” Data center projects are increasingly being “blocked or delayed by local opposition” and roughly $98 billion in investment was “stymied in the second quarter, more than the total for all previous quarters since 2023.”
Tags: AI, Backlash, Blocked, Consensus, Cost of living, Data centers, Delayed, Economy, Gains, Investment, Job market, Opposition, Outlook, S&P 500, Trump, Voters, Wall Street, Worried
New York Times (November 6)
“President Trump’s barrage on global trade appears to have taken a hit” during questioning in front of the Supreme Court. “Concerns are growing that the Supreme Court could scramble the Trump administration’s tariffs strategy. That may be welcome news for free-trade advocates, but it could also unleash more uncertainty for businesses and Wall Street.” Market reaction was rapid as “the yield on 10-year Treasury notes spiked to 4.15 percent,” a sell-off that suggests “bond holders are fretting that an adverse ruling could deprive the government of revenues needed to offset the federal deficit.”
Tags: Barrage, Bond holders, Businesses, Free trade, Fretting, Global trade, Market reaction, Revenues, Scramble, Sell-off, Supreme Court, Tariffs strategy, Treasuries, Trump, Uncertainty, Wall Street, Yield
Barron’s (October 8)
“The near-simultaneous collapse of two companies tied to the U.S. auto industry is shedding new light on a fast-growing part of the financial ecosystem little known outside Wall Street.” Non-depository financial institutions (NDFIs) “now account for some 33% of all commercial and industrial loans originated by large banks” and, at the end of the month, stood at $1.7 trillion (up over 400% since 2015). “These hard-to-track loans fall outside systems that regulators can track to assess where risk is concentrating.”
Tags: $1.7 trillion, Auto industry, Banks, Collapse, Commercial, Concentrating, Fast-growing, Financial ecosystem, Industrial, Loans originated, NDFIs, Regulators, Risk, U.S., Wall Street
MarketWatch (August 26)
“Wall Street is more focused on Nvidia than on threats to Fed independence. That may be a big mistake.” The “muted reaction to Trump’s attempt to fire Fed’s Lisa Cook indicates markets are ‘not properly priced’ for a rupture in the monetary-policy process.”
Tags: Attempt, Cook, Fed independence, Fire, Markets, Mistake, Muted reaction, Nvidia, Properly priced, Rupture, Threats, Trump, Wall Street
Fortune (August 19)
“The U.S. Federal Reserve’s looming decision on whether to cut interest rates in September 2025 is sparking heightened concern on Wall Street, as strategists at Bank of America (BofA) Securities draw unsettling parallels to the months preceding the 2007–08 financial crisis” in a note entitled “Ghosts of 2007.”
Tags: BofA, Concern, Cut, Fed, Financial Crisis, Interest rates, Looming. Decision, Parallels, September, Strategists, U.S., Unsettling, Wall Street
Fortune (August 19)
“The U.S. Federal Reserve’s looming decision on whether to cut interest rates in September 2025 is sparking heightened concern on Wall Street, as strategists at Bank of America (BofA) Securities draw unsettling parallels to the months preceding the 2007–08 financial crisis” in a note entitled “Ghosts of 2007.”
Tags: BofA, Concern, Cut, Fed, Financial Crisis, Ghosts of 2007, Interest rates, Looming. Decision, Parallels, September, Strategists, U.S., Unsettling, Wall Street
Bloomberg (July 7)
Wall Street currency traders are increasingly “flying blind” as once reliable models misfire and new forces, “like the broad shift of money out of the US and foreign investors buying dollar hedges,” drive markets. Since Trump’s second term began, currency experts “have been blindsided by the dollar’s selloff and are now questioning whether the past few months will go down as a chaotic but short-lived adjustment or the start of a harder-to-navigate era.”
Tags: Adjustment, Blindsided, Chaotic, Currency traders, Dollar hedges, Flying blind, Foreign investors, Markets, Misfire, Reliable models, Selloff, Trump, U.S., Wall Street
New York Times (April 21)
“President Trump’s trade war has completely upended investment flows, with global investors selling off U.S. stocks and corporate and government bonds at a clip unlike anything Wall Street has seen in recent years.” Though some semblance of “calm returned to the corporate and government bond markets late last week,” analysts are still wary of “Trump’s next moves, fearing that his protectionist policies and threats against federal institutions could re-accelerate money flows out of the United States, hitting the dollar especially hard.”
Tags: Analysts, Bonds, Calm, Corporate, Global investors, Institutions, Investment flows, Markets, Money flows, Protectionist, Stocks, Threats, Trade war, Treasuries, Trump, U.S., Upended, Wall Street
Barron’s (April 13)
“Wall Street chief executives’ cautious-to-downbeat remarks about the economy on Friday stood in contrast with their firms’ first-quarter showings and their outlooks for the rest of the year. JPMorgan Chase +4.00%, Wells Fargo -0.95%, and Morgan Stanley +1.44% reported solid earnings results, while BlackRock +2.33% posted another quarter of record assets.” Investors who were “expecting market-sensitive firms to dial down their earnings forecasts” instead found the firms “left their outlooks largely unchanged.” This could, however, just ”mean revisions are in store for later in 2025.”
Tags: Assets, BlackRock, Cautious, Chief executives, Downbeat, Earnings results, Economy, Forecasts, Investors, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Outlooks, Q1, Remarks, Wall Street, Wells Fargo
