A former partner at a New Jersey broker-dealer has been arrested and charged with participating in an insider trading scheme that the U.S. Attorney's Office said netted him $3.4 million in illegal profits. Christopher Matthaei, 44, of Breille, N.J., was arrested yesterday and charged with one count of securities fraud and one count of securities fraud conspiracy after the DOJ said he gained confidential inside information from a close friend at a Toronto-based asset manager about mergers involving special-purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs. According to the government's complaint, Matthae ..read more

More US banking turmoil, wider economic fallout, the Federal Reserve losing its inflation focus and even a “financial crash” are among a panoply of dangers troubling economists gathering by Lake Como. “Very, very pessimist,” is how Valerio De Molli, host of the meeting in Italy on Friday, described sentiment among leading observers about prospects for the world after turbulence that tested monetary officials' nerves from Washington to Frankfurt. Nouriel Roubini, chairman of Roubini Macro Associates, articulated the gloom. “We're entering a recession and financial instability having to raise in ..read more

Charles Schwab Corp. is on pace for its worst month in more than 35 years, sparking a debate among analysts as to whether the brokerage giant has been unfairly punished by investors amid growing fears about the US banking sector. Shares of the firm have plunged 34% in March, set to be their biggest drop since October 1987, the month when the biggest single-day stock market crash, dubbed Black Monday, occurred ..read more

From meme stocks to crypto-themed products, exchange-traded fund closures are mounting in what were once some of the trendiest areas of the $6.8 trillion industry. Thematic ETFs that launched to target the buzziest market themes of the past two years are closing at a rapid pace, as rising interest rates hammer performance and send investors in search of safer options. These niche strategies are now increasingly looking like fads, and many have assets of less than $30 million and negative returns since inception, criteria Bloomberg Intelligence says puts them at greater risk of shutting down. M ..read more

Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said it's too soon to be confident that the US has turned a corner on financial troubles that were sparked by the Federal Reserve's rapid interest-rate hikes. “When you have a series of earthquake tremors, it's a fairly long time before you should be in a position to be confident that you've seen the last of them,” Summers said on Bloomberg Television's “Wall Street Week” with David Westin. “That's why the Fed's got such a difficult job.” There's “well under” a 50% chance of a repeat of the bank runs that brought down Silicon Valley Bank and Signature ..read more

The Social Security system's retiree fund will be able to fully pay scheduled benefits until 2033, one year earlier than reported last year. The increase is due mainly to a roughly 3% downward revision of gross domestic product and labor productivity over the projection window, the Treasury Department reported Friday. Meanwhile, Medicare's hospital insurance trust fund, which helps pay for “Part A” inpatient hospital care, will be able to pay full benefits until 2031, three years later than last year's projection. “At that point, that fund's reserves will become depleted and continuing program ..read more

The mantra for making it into America's top schools rings from New York City to Kentucky: Whatever it takes. College consultants charging as much as $750,000 to build standout applications starting in seventh grade? Worth it, says Hope Choi, whose son applied to 22 schools and has already won a spot at Yale. Ivy League prices approaching $90,000? “What's a couple thousand more dollars in debt?” asks 18-year-old Addison Witucki, who set her hopes on going to Harvard or Brown ??" and then medical school. Despite public outcry about America's student loan crisis and soaring college costs, the app ..read more

A bipartisan Senate effort to shore up Social Security is hitting a political roadblock. Some members of the ad hoc group of lawmakers who've been trying to fashion a deal say the prospects have been diminished by President Joe Biden's accusations that Republicans want to cut benefits, and former President Donald Trump's campaign promise to leave entitlement programs alone. “If the folks who are running for president are going to take the attitude that this is a ‘third rail' issue and they're trying to use it for political purposes, then we can't fix Social Security at this time,” said Mike Ro ..read more

Investors are piling into cash at their fastest pace since the pandemic, unnerved by a series of bank runs while seeking out higher interest rates at money-market funds. During the first quarter this year, investors poured $508 billion into cash funds in their largest quarterly inflow since the early days of Covid-19 three years ago, according to Bank of America Corp. strategists citing EPFR Global data. More than $100 billion have flocked into money-market funds in the past two weeks alone, they said. Investors Piling Into Cash | Money-market funds have seen biggest quarterly inflows since pa ..read more

Bitcoin's surprising fast exit from its “crypto winter” has once again put the notoriously volatile digital currency atop the leader-board in the first quarter for being the best-performing asset class by a wide margin. With a roughly 70% gain, Bitcoin is closing out its best quarter since the three months ended March 2021, when it surged some 103%, Bloomberg data show. That vastly outstrips the S&P 500's 5.5% year-to-date advance, the Nasdaq 100's 19% uptick and the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF's 5.3% jump. Long-time participants note that volatility is expected ??" and is even part ..read more