Federal Reserve

Gold

A gold vault in London is key to a $62B ETF’s success

State Street’s stockpile takes up one corner of a vault in a system that stores bullion on behalf of central banks, sovereign wealth funds and others.

May 26

ETFs

Fed corporate-bond ETF purchases rise to $1.8B

Total assets held by the central bank rose to a record $7.04 trillion in the week through May 20.

May 22

Managers reduced their allocation to Treasuries ahead of the Fed’s latest meeting to 24.2%, the lowest since September.

Investment-grade bonds

BlackRock’s biggest credit ETF swells to record amid Fed pledge

Corporate-debt funds have led the intake since the central bank first announced its Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility in March.

May 21

The Fed’s move spurred a rally in high-grade bond markets, where investors were shedding their holdings in an effort to raise cash amid dire economic data.

Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo has lost $220B in market value under Fed cap

Shares of the bank have touched a 10-year low.

May 18

ETFs

Fed buys $305M of ETFs at start of historic program

The central bank plans to make both outright purchases of corporate bonds as well as funds potentially invested in sub-investment grade debt.

May 14

Investment-grade bonds

Voices: The Fed is buying ETFs but mostly still hawking a placebo

For better or worse, investors have mostly turned around the fortunes of risky assets entirely on their own.

May 13

The markets aren’t panicked because the Fed has said it will provide a backstop. But so far, it hasn’t had to do much in the way of support, writes Bloomberg's Brian Chappatta.

Money market funds

Money market funds hit record $4.8T amid razor thin yields

Crush of inflows to money-market funds has come even as the funds’ own yields approach zero.

May 8

Money market funds experience record flows Morningstar 5/8/20

Hedge funds

Ken Griffin’s shutdown playbook kept him on top of markets

Citadel Securities is humming at record pace as the coronavirus upends finance, moving dozens of employees and their families to a work-from-resort bubble.

May 6

Ken Griffin says his firm and others kept capital markets working in a way that those of yesteryear — dominated by voice-based brokering — could not have in the face of a crisis of this magnitude.

ETFs

New York Fed to begin buying ETFs in ‘early May’

The central bank said it “will generally not purchase shares of an ETF that are trading at a premium” of 1% above its net asset value.

May 5

“Many companies that would’ve had to come to the Fed have now been able to finance themselves privately since we announced the initial term sheet on these facilities,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in late April regarding its primary- and secondary-market corporate credit facilities.

Asset managers

How a Goldman Sachs manager is preparing for a post-coronavirus world

Funds advised by Katie Koch, whose firm has about $1.8 trillion under supervision, are beating their benchmarks at an 80% rate in 2020.

May 1