Morgan Stanley is trading in its white shoes for Converse Chuck Taylors. That’s the initial impression on Wall Street at least after the bank announced that it had agreed to buy discount brokerage E-Trade Financial Corp. for $13 billion in an all-stock takeover, the biggest acquisition by a large US bank since the financial crisis. It would add E-Trade’s $360 ...

SoftBank Group Corp.’s chairman took to the stage to gloat about the company’s return to profit in a horrible year and to name drop some of the wonderful companies in his orbit. But the most important name of all was missing: Paul Elliott Singer. Getting top billing in Masayoshi Son’s earnings presentation was Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., which netted the ...

The house of HNA Group Co. may be no more, bringing an end to the dramatic rise and fall of one of the biggest buyers of global assets in recent years. It was about time. The Chinese government is planning to take over the airline-to-insurance-to-property conglomerate that splashed out over $40 billion in recent years to buy assets including stakes ...

Hong Kong’s home prices have proved resilient to months of protests and now the coronavirus epidemic, a one-two punch that the city’s finance chief likened over the weekend to “tsunami-like” shocks. While a hit is probably coming, the world’s least affordable housing market still looks a better place to be than in Hong Kong office or retail property. Home prices ...

Consumer debt is rising in the US, and the reaction to this news has been both heated and predictable: “Americans in record debt: It’s our own fault,” read one headline in a conservative publication last week. A business website went with something more colourful: “The State of the American Debt Slaves, Q4 2019.” And presidential candidates have chimed in to ...

Bloomberg US equity futures rose on Tuesday while European shares fluctuated as the selloff that wiped out this year’s gains in global stocks showed signs of easing. Treasuries were steady and the dollar slipped. Contracts on all three major US indexes rose, though they pared early gains that suggested American markets are poised to claw back just a fraction of ...

Bloomberg Hong Kong stock investors are the worst off in 16 years relative to the rest of the world as concerns mount over the impact of the coronavirus on an economy already reeling from last year’s protests. The Hang Seng Index is near its lowest level relative to the MSCI All Country World Index since 2004, even after Monday’s brutal ...

Bloomberg Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester said the worsening coronavirus outbreak represents a threat to the US economy, but not one that yet justifies any change in monetary policy. “At this point, it is difficult to assess the magnitude of the economic effects,” Mester said in the text of remarks she was scheduled to deliver in Washington. ...

Bloomberg European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde kicked off a public consultation on her strategy review with the first direct video address by the institution’s chief to euro-area citizens. Adopting a communication technique untested by her predecessors, the Frenchwoman spoke to camera to invite views on monetary policy in a broadcast on Twitter released in tandem with a press ...

Bloomberg Most of the Brexit uncertainty that has been overshadowing the UK economy has lifted, although it’s too early to say business investment is fully returning, according to Bank of England (BOE) Chief Economist Andy Haldane. A “big chunk, if not all” of the uncertainty has dissipated, Haldane said in answer to questions following a speech at Bloomberg’s European headquarters ...